Hey folks, it's swankivy, with another Letters to an Asexual, I think this is number 53.
I didn't check, so if I'm wrong, sorry.
I would like to talk about something that really upsets me and that is homophobia and
transphobia in the ace community.
Let me start off with a little bit of background.
Um, so, on very rare occasions, I feel like this, this happens when people take words
out of context, or they just don't understand what they're reading, um, but there have been
a few times where people who are some form of LGB, or uh, well I haven't really gotten
this from trans people, so I guess I'll just say people who are uh, lesbian or gay, or
uh, really it's just lesbian or gay I think.
Um, that I've had them give me sort of some, uh, oblique criticism suggesting that my book
or my works are homophobic or something like that, and every time that I can trace back
what these people said, uh, why they said that about me, it was always either something
that they seem to have deliberately taken out of context, to look like I was saying
pretty much the opposite of what I was saying, or they just um, led it to a completely different
conclusion of what I was saying.
You know, such as a time where I talked about how it isn't really fair that, say, um, straight
women are getting AIDS at a faster, more plentiful rate than uh, than lesbians do, and yet, if
you're a lesbian you can still be, um, looked at as if, if you have AIDS, it's because it's
a "gay disease," you know, even though lesbians have it less often than straight women do.
And you know, I was talking about this and I was talking about how if um, you've lost
someone to AIDS and you have, you know, you have no um, association with the LGBT community
yourself, but you've lost somebody in your family or some close friend of yours to AIDS,
you know, you, you can get, you can get really frustrated by um, the way that that, "Oh,
we have, we have AIDS in our community, so how dare you say that you know what it's like
to lose someone to AIDS if you've never lost someone to AIDS," you know, like, I have lost
an uncle to AIDS and you know, it wasn't, I'm not, I'm not gay, I'm not a lesbian, but
um, you know, I do know what it's like to lose someone in your family to AIDS.
So you know, I, I kind of get irritated when people kinda use that, they weaponize, like,
"you don't know the pain of, you know, AIDS affecting your community if you're not LGB,"
and I'm just thinking, there, there are definitely other ways.
BUT.
In that same conversation, I said, despite that, despite the fact that you can, you can
have this happen to you in your life, um, that doesn't mean that, uh, your community
or uh, you know, you as a person know what it's like to have this kind of stigma against
your community, like I was basically saying that they're RIGHT that there's this stigma
that AIDS is a "gay disease" and that it's some kind of just punishment from God or something,
like these horrible things people believe about AIDS, so I mean, regardless of, you
know, the fact that I don't have to be gay to know what it's like to lose someone to
AIDS, I'm never gonna use that as a weapon the way that I've seen some people do.
You know, and because I was trying to have this nuanced conversation with someone who,
you know, wasn't paying attention to what I was actually saying, you know, they were,
they were trying to make it seem like I was saying the opposite of what I was saying,
which is, you know, that oh, I, I uh, my pain is worse than your pain because I've actually
lost someone to AIDS, therefore I know what it's like to be marginalized that way, or
to um, personally uh, be uh, labeled as having this association with a terrible disease.
And you know--okay, this is getting kind of convoluted, but anyway, I've, I've had these,
this, this kind of conversation with people who come out on the other side saying "Well
you said something homophobic."
And you know, even though I don't believe that uh, you know, anything that I'm saying
is rooted in homophobia, um, and I don't believe that everything that people have suggested
that I, you know, that I've said, that they, if, if they're saying it's a homophobic statement,
it means that they really did not understand what I was saying.
Um, you know, because one of the most important things to me in my activism is that I don't
throw anybody else under the bus, and I'm generally very careful about that.
And um, because I know I'm not perfect and because I know that my words don't necessarily
come across the way that I want them to, for especially, for my publications, including
my book, I always had sensitivity readers, I had people from the groups that I was talking
about trying to read this stuff and making sure that it did, it came across the way that
I intended.
Um, and you know, again, even if you do something like that, it doesn't mean that um, you're
never gonna make a mistake or you're, you have, you have like, the gay community has
signed off on you and you can't possibly be saying anything homophobic.
I know that that is, uh, you know, that's not the case.
But, you know, I don't, I don't believe that any of the things that I've, uh, that I've
said on the record uh, are actually homophobic, if you read what I said.
On the other hand, um, I have seen some folks in um, mostly in uh, lesbian and gay circles,
try to say that um, if you ever claim that a lesbian or a gay person uh, is being acephobic,
or could possibly do that to ace people, then you're being homophobic because like, how
dare you suggest as uh, as an asexual person, that they could possibly oppress anyone if
they're an oppressed group.
And um, this gets really dicey, because a lot of what they, what they're getting offended
over is um, that they consider asexual people to be indistinguishable from heterosexual
people.
And that is, that right there is, is you know, it's an acephobic thing to say.
Um, but you know, they're, what they're doing is they're, they're framing it as if we, the
asexual people, um, even sometimes if we claim another LGB or T identity, they'll still say
well, whatever, you're a cishet, you don't, if you're asexual then you're cishet, and
there's nothing that you can say um, about that, that uh, that won't make us think of
you as part of that group.
You know, that's, I mean, that's a, that's a very frustrating perspective for us, but
it is absolutely true that it is possible for you to be part of a marginalized group
and still participate in othering, oppressing, or marginalizing someone else.
Um, with sexual diversity, with um, marginalized groups who are marginalized along a sexual
orientation-related um aspect of their identity, it can get very complicated to figure out
because, you know, some people are trying to say well are you more oppressed than him,
am I more oppressed than you, that's not what anybody who's having a meaningful conversation
about this is really trying to figure out.
Um, and I, you know, I just believe that there are some ways that asexual people and some
ways that non-ace LGBT people, uh, can experience marginalization and oppression that all of
it is rooted in um, these aspects of culture that normalize heterosexuality, the heteronormative
assumption is where all of it starts, but it can manifest to different degrees and in
different ways to both of our groups.
There are many ways in which those things overlap.
But they're not identical, especially you know, if, say, there's me as an aromantic
asexual person who, you know, I am gender-normative enough that I'm always taken as uh, the gender
that I feel I am, and you know, I don't, I, I, am, I'm not . . . what some people would
refer to as "visibly queer" to most people, like, there, there are some asexual people
who are not automatically assumed to be straight because of how they look or how they present
or who they associate with.
Me, I'm generally, you know, people look, people will look at me and assume "Oh, she's
probably a straight woman," those kind of people, you know, the people that um, go through
their lives kind of assuming everyone is straight until proven gay.
Um, so I don't, I don't personally deal with that.
I'm usually assumed straight by close-minded people, and um, because of that um, there's
a certain amount of privilege that comes with that.
And I'm completely on board with accepting that that is true in my case.
In some other people's cases it's not so true.
Um, but because of that, um, I could see why some people would say, well, you're more like
a cisgender straight person than you are a queer person.
Um, I disagree on, on what makes you actually be, um, a straight identity, because, somebody
else mistaking me for straight is not the same thing as me being straight, and experiencing
straight privilege the same way.
Um, maybe the same way as somebody who was um, assigned or designated male at birth but
is actually a trans woman, you know, they, they may be treated with so-called male privilege,
but it's not affecting the same way if internally, um, they're a woman.
So, you know, it's, it--it gets very, um, difficult to tease out what each thing is
likely to affect each person.
And we're all gonna be affected different ways based on just our internal makeup, our
socialization, our family, the amount of acceptance that happens in our community.
So, um, basically it's very hard to, to figure out, uh, exactly, you know, where is the overlap
with your societal expectations and how much is it really affecting us.
How much am I benefiting from somebody mistaking me for straight, in other words.
So um, anyway, to get back to kind of the flip side of this, which is what initially
made me really angry, made me wanna make this video, is that because of all of this sort
of thing that's going on, um, seeing acephobia come out of people should--who I feel should
know better--um, the flip side of that, which is ace people being homophobic or transphobic,
it makes me so angry.
Because, okay, I am, I, I'm an activist in this community, and I have a pretty good audience
of folks who will listen to what I say, so I hope that uh, you know, I have a little
bit more control over this, this particular, this community, in that I can get a message
out to you folks and let you know how much this matters.
You should know better than to be homophobic or transphobic.
And if you, if you ever think that it is a, that it is a good thing or that it is a helpful
thing to our community to say uh, to bring up AIDS as some kind of like just punishment
for um, "sexual people," if you ever equate disease or unwanted pregnancy or poverty or
promiscuity with lower morals and you associate those things with being trans or being gay
or being bi, being poly, being pansexual, any of these alternative forms from being,
from being what people think of the default, as, as straight and cisgender, like, if you,
if you ever use their sexuality or uh, what you perceive to be diseases or disorders or
consequences of their sexual behavior as being things that don't apply to us, and that you
can therefore be better than them, cleaner than them, purer than them, that is extremely
elitist, and it is not helpful to the legit--to the legitimacy of our community, and it is
hateful.
Now I don't care if you're only saying these things to straight people.
Don't say these things.
And also you need to accept that especially in the case of LGBTQ groups, they have been
demonized for their sexuality, um, forever.
Um, and when you say things that you think are, I don't know, things that are ace-positivity
but they're really sex-negativity, it's affecting LGBTQ people more strongly.
It's more hateful to say those things to them because of how consistently their sexual behavior
and their desires have been treated as if they're unnatural, treated as if they are
more animalistic, or make them less of a person, make them deserve fewer rights, oppress them
along religious lines, um, basically any kind of sex-related hatred that you can dish out
is going to be worse for LGBTQ people.
And um, in the case of when there's overlap, you see ace lesbians, you see ace gay guys,
you see trans ace people, who have to deal with it from inside their community and from
US.
And it's just . . . it's baffling to me that there are still people out there who don't
see the problem with this.
Who really think that it makes any sense to divide against LGBTQ people because there's
like this perception that, um, they're helping to oppress us, or that we're lower on the,
on the pole than they are, um, that you know, they still have some kind of sexual privilege
which to them is not generally a privilege.
Um, because of what, you know, what it turns around and does to them in a mainstream society,
um, you know, and again, I'm not gonna say it's not possible for somebody who's gay or
somebody who's trans to be acephobic, because it absolutely is, it's disgusting when it
happens, but in our community, we, we can, we can not sink to the levels of some of the
worst people.
Uh, I don't want us to think that we're helping ourselves by being sex-negative in ways that
can harm queer people, and I just don't even know what else to say, because I feel like
I shouldn't have to say "don't be transphobic," "don't be homophobic," but hopefully I've
given a little bit of clarification to why some of the things that I've seen our population
say are, are very bad in general but worse for LGBTQ people.
I mean, do you understand that saying these things is, is, is worse for them, toward them,
because of what they've been denied and because of what's at the root of what makes them a
marginalized population.
It's just . . . it's just . . . and I'll end on this, especially since almost every group
of people that calls itself queer, calls itself LGBTQ, calls itself any kind of rainbow-positivity
or, you know, inclusive queer group, has been so fantastic to me as an ace person, still
knowing that I wasn't trans, that I wasn't identifying as lesbian, you know, that they
were welcoming, they accepted and welcomed the education that I offered, they understood
where the overlaps are in our community, they understood how much value we can bring, how
much we can offer support, what kinds of unusual innovations and insights that we can have
that can help them navigate their intimacy and understand their pieces of society that
they, that they can put together and be part of, that we have something of value to offer
and I have felt more at home in those groups than I have among groups where I'm the only
person who's not straight.
Um, I've felt like they're more family than, you know, groups of cisgender heterosexual
people.
I mean, obviously most of my friends are uh, of that description, because uh, I don't,
I don't do a lot of uh, active, um, friend-gathering in queer spaces, but the places that I've
been invited into have been so wonderful for the most part.
And I've only had a few in-person isolated conversations with LGBTQ people that were
disappointing or scary.
Um, I've certainly had a lot more awful conversations in, you know, more typical, uh, groups as
far as sexuality and gender goes.
Like, you know, I'm not trying to demonize them, but you know, they just tend to be uh,
less aware of the stuff that affects us and uh, have less training and less experience
in uh, what might be insensitive to say, what might be really alienating, what might make
me feel unsafe, um, and uh, just operate by very normalized perceptions of what "everyone
does."
Uh, whereas the queer groups that I've gone to generally weren't like that.
Um, you know, nobody's perfect, but um, I've felt a lot safer in groups that are educated
on those uh, those issues, and I can see how much we have in common.
I can see how much we really need each other.
And I'm very tired of having conversations with people only to find out, like, this other
ace person that I thought had something in common with me is actually a homophobe or
is actually really insensitive about the ways that they're hurting other people.
And um, I really want you to pay attention to what you're saying, um, and you know, like
has happened with me because I guess my words are so widely s--widely read, and widely seen,
um, you know, it is possible that you could totally be saying something similar to the
kinds of things that I've said that's completely, you know, it's misconstrued and misunderstood,
but in every case that that's happened to me, where someone said, like, oh she's, she's
lesbophobic or something like that, you know, I'll listen to what they're having, what they're
saying, and I'll look at what they're quoting, and I'll say, is it possible that I did or
said something that was, uh, that was unintentionally hurtful, what can I do to do better?
Um, and um, ultimately like, everything that I'm talking about, you know, you, you go on
the person's blog and you see oh, they spend a lot of time attacking other groups or uh,
you know, hatefully calling asexual people "cishets."
Um, so you know, you gotta consider the source when you deal with people like that, you're
not automatically uh, a transphobe or a homophobe just because somebody says that you are, any
more than they're automatically an acephobe if we say that they are, but try to be aware.
Try to be understanding.
Try to be open to the possibility that something you're doing or saying could be um, having
an effect that you don't intend.
And I really hope you don't intend it.
And that you are, you're here in these spaces because you wanna make things better for all
of us, you understand what we have in common.
And you wanna dedicate yourself to at least not causing any more pain if not making it
better for everyone to the best of your ability.
So, I'm gonna end this one here, and um, I guess I'll see y'all next time.
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