Ok so I'm tired of misinformation and the erasure / rewriting of queer history. Running a poll to test something out:

Please reblog so more people can put in their votes, thank you!

The A stands for Asexual, Agender, Aromantic

Since I was just in a corporate Pride event where a wholeass member of the queer community and leader of the company’s LGBTQIA+ organization said the A stands for Ally, here is your annual reminder that the A does not stand for Ally and has never stood for Ally.

Allies are important. We need allies. We treasure our allies. But being an ally to queer people doesn’t make you queer any more than being an ally to any other marginalized group makes you a member of that marginalized group. It doesn’t make any fucking sense to include allies in the acronym used to name our community. Fuck’s SAKE.

a in lgbtqia stands for asexual/aromantic not ally if anyone says you are wrong about that it is arophobia/acephobia!!

As a person on the demiromantic spectrum, I feel legally obligated to say this:

EVERY FUCKING PERSON IS VALID.

Every romantic interest/disinterest, every type of sexual attraction, or lack thereof, even every gender identity, every single one is valid.

Even if the only queer thing about you is a lack of romantic attraction. Even if you've only had interest in a person of the same gender once. Even if you only occasionally want to identify as a different gender but are otherwise comfortable. Your identity is never not valid.

The only people who are not part of the queer community are people who are 100% undeniably cis het allo, and even then, they are always welcome in queer spaces and are still valid.

This lovely infographic is from:  https://theacelandempire.tumblr.com/ Go check them out!

*face palm* another video where someone says A is for ally. And they forget aromantic and agender too

Just some thoughts I wanted to share regarding me coming to terms with being a sex/romance favourable aroace.

so me coming to terms with being ace was alittle harder then finding out that I was aro. First of all, I couldn't quite understand for the longest time and I never put 2 and 2 together why looks or someones sexual appearance were never important to me when I thought of having sex with the person I was in a relationship with. I always thought it was because I was bi/pan , like basically thinking that looks didnt matter and I could be attracted to any one no matter what they looked like. Its like I finally realized that these lack of sexual feelings towards someone's appearance or lack of attraction towards my partners in that way actually meant that I was asexual !!!. I had thought I was asexual in the past but I couldn't understand why and I sort of tried to force myself not to like sex because I literally thought that was what asexual meant (back then , I definitely don't think that now !).

And lastly, aesthetic and sensual attraction is what I feel mostly instead of sexual attraction. For example I love to watch and look at porn any time of the day!! Thats because I love how naked bodies look and I think they are so beautiful!! ( and of course I dont watch porn with other people in the room I mean when I'm alone I tend to look at porn on my phone anytime I have free time to myself).

"Asexual does not mean, by default, that you never want to have sex.

Asexuality means you have no sexual attraction to others. The rest just depends on the person. I see so many people on r/sex explain a lack of sexual attraction, immediately followed by "but I know I'm not asexual because I have a libido".

Asexuals may have sex for a variety of reasons: physical pleasure, emotional intimacy, etc.

If you never look at someone and want to fuck them, you may fall under asexuality. If you have no idea what sexual attraction feels like, you may fall under asexuality. If you feel like something is wrong with you because you're waiting for that 'click' that never seems to come, you may fall under asexuality.

It can feel incredibly isolating to be told that. To be told it's just hormonal problems when it isn't. To be told you just aren't trying hard enough, or you're too in your head. It took me 22 years to realize there was nothing wrong with me BECAUSE I assumed all asexuals wanted nothing to do with sex. That can be the case sure, but it isn't by default.

There is nothing wrong with you. You are not alone."

i just realized if you scroll far down enough on my blog there’s literal evidence of me being like “a is for ally 🤪✨💅🏳️‍🌈” before i came out and was in deep denial

and that’s why i don’t scroll down too far on my blog anymore

Asexuals, mother fuckers.

she commit acts of intercourse on my erogeneous zones until i achieve sexual climax

Hi. Ancient aroace here. Not necessarily in the "LGBT" initialism, but often the "A" did in fact stand for ally, but "ally" was a codeword for people in the closet, not straight friends. It was used as protection. I understand the anger, and people nowadays find lots of ways to invalidate the smaller identities, but it's important to remember that still today people identify as an ally because they are closeted. Not because they're a member of the outgroup. I think we should be very careful and mindful of how we might alienate fellow queers on accident

As someone who was one of those people who self-described as an ally long before I was comfortable admitting to anyone--least of all myself--that I was queer, and as two out of three A's myself, I have a few problems with this notion.

The first is that if someone says they are an ally, we should take them at their word unless and until they tell us differently. Far too many of us in the queer community have gotten way too damn comfortable deciding and declaring queerness for other people. And I don't know where anyone gets the idea that it's HELPFUL to closeted queer people to essentially ignore their decision to NOT declare themselves queer openly by making assumptions before they're ready to make that statement themselves. The idea that everyone would have assumed me to be queer just for being an ally would have TERRIFIED me when I was in the closet. It would not have been comforting or welcoming in the least, and probably would have chased me further into Narnia and delayed my coming out by several years. I am so, so thankful that if anyone ever thought that about me when I was an "ally," they kept that shit to themselves.

Secondly, saying that allies are not queer and therefore do not need to be explicitly identified in the acronym is not alienating. If you are declaring yourself an ally to a group, you are by definition not part of that group. You are choosing to work with and support them despite NOT being part of that group. That's literally what allyship IS. And being an ally is a positive thing! So tell me: who would that be alienating? The straight person who really is an ally, who just wants to support and has no reason to want to claim queerness as part of their identity when it isn't? The closeted queer person self-describing as an ally precisely because they are not yet comfortable self-describing as queer? Genuinely. Explain to me who is alienated here, because that makes no sense to me.

Thirdly, I remember when "A is for Ally" started gaining traction in the community. Not sure what your personal definition of "Ancient" is, but I was there Gandalf, etc. It was a big part of the efforts of white, middle-to-upper class, cis lesbians and gay men to float the idea that queer people were just like every white, straight middle-American married couple. There was a concerted effort to push multisexuals, trans and nonbinary people, queer people of color, and a-spec people out of the community, to decentralize our concerns and divert attention and resources away from our issues in favor of pursuing things that they thought straight people would understand, like getting married, buying a house, and having 2.5 kids.

The blatantly stated thought process was that all us "weirdos" in the community were hampering their ability to assimilate into cisheteropatriarchy and fully access their racial and class privilege. This, coincidentally or not, dovetailed hideously with the renewed push by radfems to carry out their gender essentialist isolation fantasies. Their thought process was that anyone with any connection at all to men or masculinity was automatically an oppressor or aligning themselves with the oppressor by choice. And between the two of these fucked up ideologies, we ended up with all the exclusionist crap we're still dealing with today, with the 3 A's squarely in the crosshairs of both almost constantly. And A is for Ally was part and parcel of that whole sorry mess. For a lot of us, A is for Ally marked the beginning of it.

But it's not just the history associated with the idea that's bothersome. After all, everything to do with us is associated with bothersome history, thanks to queerphobia and cisheteropatriarchy. But even if the history wasn't a problem, I would argue that conflating allyship with queer identity was never an effective way to make room for closeted queer people for precisely the reasons I stated in the second paragraph above. And considering the harm it does by contributing to the erasure and alienation of asexual, agender, and aromantic queer people, I fully believe it's a strategy that should be abandoned.

If you want to make queer spaces welcoming to those who are closeted or questioning, you do that by not gatekeeping or dividing those spaces by orientation or gender. If there is an understanding that A) the purpose and focus of the space is queer people and our intersecting identities, lives, needs, emotions, and issues, and B) all are welcome regardless of orientation or gender as long as they understand and respect point A, then closeted and questioning people can be involved with their community without needing to out themselves before they're ready or choose a label they aren't certain about. There is no need to conflate allyship with queerness to accomplish this. And I'd argue it's counterintuitive to do so.

I have found the best ally

Straight and cis people will say that they are allies, but you will NEVER measure up to my dentist.

Me: "Hey, is it ok if I can change my name on my info from [DEADNAME] to Sai?"

Random woman that I wasn't even talking to in the chair next to me: "Honey, if that's the name you had at birth, [DEADNAME] is your only name."

My dentist, very slowly turning her rolley chair towards the woman: "Shush."

Random woman: "Excuse me?"

Destist: *closes privacy curtain while staring bullets at the lady*

Me: *pissing myself laughing*

My dentist while changing my name in my info (reminder that English is not her first language, she immigrated from Russia): "There, Sai, you have pretty boy teeth. Smile and make all girls swoon."

Me not having the heart to tell her I'm not transmasc but I'm Agender, and still pissing myself laughing: "Thank you [DENTIST NAME]."

the sickness at the core of america, according to brennan

real homies respect trans people!

As a reminder that good exists out there, a coworker recently confessed to me that he found out his child is questioning their identity (kid's gender redacted for this post). The kid is keeping it from him, so he can't say anything to them or show that he knows, but he's doing his best to get mentally prepared and educated so that he'll be ready whenever his kid does feel comfortable enough come to him.

For context, this guy is a big, bulky middle aged dude who loves sports and typical outdoor "manly" activities. As his coworker and friend, I know he's a kind and sweet teddy bear of a person, but his kid probably views him as a stern, authoritarian figure, the way most teenagers view their parents. His family lives in a conservative area, so I'm sure between that, their dad's looks and interests, and the fact that their dad is a Figure of Authority, the kid is worried that they won't be accepted.

But you know what? When he found out about his kid, the first thing he did was reach out to his closest queer friend and ask for resources for parents of questioning children. His biggest fears are that his kid will be bullied or discriminated against and won't feel comfortable enough to be themself. His second action was to find himself a mentor in another parent who went the same situation (kid coming out in a conservative town). The other person is preparing him for some of the struggles his kid may face and the fights he may need to take on as a parent to make sure his kid is safe and treated well.

Something I want to emphasize for people focused on language as the primary method of allyship is that when we spoke, he used some outdated terms and thoughts about gender and sexuality. That does not make him bad. These were the terms and thinking used about questioning teenagers when he was growing up and he never needed to learn more current ones. But now that he does have that need, he's throwing himself in head first because that's his kid and he's darn well going to make sure that his kid feels welcomed and has a safe place to be themselves even if they never come out to him.