literally, nothing exclusionists do, and nothing you say to an exclusionist, will ever matter. nothing will ever get a response beyond “nuh uh!”
they’ll phrase it different ways every time: “aces are cishet. cishets are cishet. they just wanna be oppressed so bad. they’re literally not oppressed in any way. they don’t experience homophobia or transphobia. they benefit from homophobia and transphobia. they are lying. that never happened.
“you can’t use their tumblr posts as proof. you can’t use studies about them as proof. you can’t use every real-life org including them as proof. you can’t use our community’s own oral history as proof. you can’t use our community’s own written historical documents as proof.
“lmao i’m not a terf, i’m literally an nb lesbian. lmao i’m not quoting terf rhetoric, i’m literally an nb lesbian. lmao i’m not consistently attacking trans women inclusionists, i’m literally an nb lesbian. lmao our movement isn’t full of terfs, we literally called out a terf once. lmao how dare you show me a blocklist of hundreds of terf exclusionists to call out, I’m literally an nb lesbian.
“anyway the community literally started to combat homophobia and transphobia. anyway it’s always been lgbtpn. anyway it’s always been lgbt. anyway cishets aren’t lgbt.”
some of the things that canonically Don’t Even Matter and are clearly Fake News:
aces are as likely to be suicidal as gay or bi people, and twice as likely as straight people
aces, as a group, consistently experience ALL types of sexual assault and abuse at higher rates than their gay and lesbian peers. only bisexuals consistently experience these things at a higher rate as a group, than aces.
trans people who are also asexual are 25% more likely to have attempted suicide than hetero trans people. (Gay, lesbian, OR bi trans people: 10% more likely than het trans people. LESS likely than ace trans people.)
(Same study: A higher percentage of trans aces are harassed at work than of trans LGBQ people. A much higher percentage of trans aces have had to quit school because of harassment, than of trans LGBQ people. A higher percentage of trans aces have experienced family rejection, than of trans LGBQ people. A higher percentage of trans aces lack health insurance, than of trans LGBQ people.)
“The first study that gave empirical data about asexuals was published in 1983 by Paula Nurius, concerning the relationship between sexual orientation and mental health.… Results showed that asexuals were more likely to have low self-esteem and more likely to be depressed than members of other sexual orientations”.
In 2015, Russia took away the rights of asexual, binary trans people, and many groups of nonbinary trans people, to have driver’s licenses. Thanks to the fact that every diagnostic manual for mental illness in the world still considers “lack of sexual desire” to be a mental illness.
ace invisibility and its effects were already being written about in academia almost 20 years ago.
lesbian and gay publications were casually referencing asexuals almost 50 years ago
lots of gen x bisexuals considered aces part of the bi community, before there was a strong separate ace community, because they experienced equal attraction across genders (even though it was an equal lack of attraction in their case) and thousands of aces on Tumblr have shared their present-day experiences (in the notes on this link) with initially thinking they must be bi for the same reason
exclusionists consistently both suicide-bait and defend suicide-baiting
ace exclusionists have been lying about ace inclusionists and enabling real predators in the process since at least fall 2016 tbh
I had no idea about any of these facts. Have so far tried not to get involved but according to these stats it’s a lot more important than I thought
honestly, getting involved in Discourse is probably pointless. It seems like the only exclusionists left are people who are so invested in their beliefs that they can’t or won’t even look at other information; they just insist everything’s all lies, and make fun of it without reading.
But getting involved in supporting aces in whatever ways they need/want, or raising awareness among the rest of us? That’s always worth doing. 💖
i was talking to my bi ace genderqueer cousin about this and pulled up the post again and like….
i just want to highlight this part. This list is all from the National Transgender Discrimination Survey, which had a sample size of something like 15,000 people. Which is fucking huge for that type of study.
trans people who are also asexual are 25% more likely to have attempted suicide than hetero trans people. (Gay, lesbian, OR bi trans people: 10% more likely than het trans people. LESS likely than ace trans people.
Ace trans people. Are more likely than any other trans people. To have attempted suicide.)
A higher percentage of trans aces are harassed at work than of trans LGBQ people.
A much higher percentage of trans aces have had to quit school because of harassment, than of trans LGBQ people.
A higher percentage of trans aces have experienced family rejection, than of trans LGBQ people.
A higher percentage of trans aces lack health insurance, than of trans LGBQ people.
None of this is because we are trans. If it were because we were trans, then the numbers would be similar to the numbers in the other groups. The difference between the groups is that we’re ace.
I need to point that out, because I’m pretty sure the knee-jerk exclusionist reaction to this would be “but they’re trans, so it is just because they’re trans.”
And it’s not a surprising difference. It parallels what happens when studies of things like suicide, poverty, et cetera, in gay+bi vs straight people, actually separate out the gay and bi people. It always turns out that the bi people have the highest rates of whatever is being studied.
This is just the same thing happening again. The groups that get the least attention have the worst outcomes, gosh gee I wonder how that could be… and then that makes it harder for us to advocate for ourselves, which continues the vicious cycle.
basically, a lot of exclusionists have seized upon Pride Month as a great time to double down on claiming that “aces aren’t oppressed in any way”
this list is my gift to everyone who sees those posts and has to be like, “I mean, we might not die or be kicked out or assaulted for being ace, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy” or “so we should take a backseat, but we deserve to be in the car”
print it out, crumple it into a ball, and throw it at an exclusionist today!
ace discourse reminds me so much of that one snl sketch: a found poem
Published
Organized Chaos 