i love you aroallos. i love you cishet aros. i love you non-sam aros. i love you aros that society deems ‘not queer enough,’ you existing is enough.

cishet aces and cishet aros are queer you fucking dipshits

ALL ACES AND AROS ARE QUEER

Asexual and aromantic are not “spicy straight trying to be special LGBT”.

This argument, much like “you’re not really bi/pan if you are with someone of the opposite gender”, asks for visibly performative queerness then ignores the inherent queerness in these experiences.

If being straight is being allosexual, heterosexual, heteroromantic, alloromantic, and cisgender, all at once, then a person only needs to not be one of these to call themselves queer if they want to.

This always ruffles feathers, but..cishet isn’t the inherent opposite of queer.

Allosexual — not ace or under its umbrella

Alloromantic — not aro or under its umbrella

cisgender — aligning with your gender assigned/designated at birth

Heterosexual— sexual attraction to the opposite gender

Heteroromantic — romantic attraction to the opposite gender

If all aces and aros were cishet, which we’re not but just for the sake of this example, how would this detract from the queerness inherent in asexuality and aromanticism? Each are complex spectrums of a fundamentally different experience than the world teaches us we should have.

Aces, aros, and bi/pan people in “straight passing” relationships are often lumped into cishet as a way of delineating “not queer”, regardless of other factors. But this dismisses queerness and asks for specific, unnamed perimeters to be met for it to be recognized.

When presented with ways that experiencing little to no sexual attraction, or little to no romantic attraction, are in fact in opposition with the expectation for everyone to have both (allonormativity and amatanormativity or amanormativity respectively), people don’t accept it. Or rather, they don’t accept it as a thing on its own. Sometimes this means getting treated as if you’re just trying to be edgy, as if proclaiming you’re part of a marginalized group gives social media clout or something. Other times it’s just not treated as enough on its own by other queer people.

This happens in ace and aro spaces too. Cishet is used often as shorthand for “not queer”, directly pushing away aspecs who may be cishet and also ace and/or aro. It doesn’t seem intentionally exclusionary, but unintended exclusion is still exclusion.

This reflects, also, the expectation of performative queerness that is thrown at bi and pan persons both in and out of queer spaces. There are also many aces and aros who are bi and pan, and who may or may not be cisgender.

The reality however is there is no way to “perform” queerness that is satisfactory to all who demand it. The result this odd sort of existence where when one appears queer “enough”, that is used as weaponry against them, but when it isn’t, it’s used to exclude queer people from queerness.

And the real kicker is asexual and aromantic are enough. Bi/pan folks are still their orientation regardless of what their relationship looks like. Gender is it’s own thing, separate from the others, but related because this all ends up being a pile of queer identity spaghetti.

Regardless of how queer a person appears to you, or if you understand their individual experience… Ace is enough. Aro is enough.

The demand for performative queerness is used to try to defend from harm, but it ends up attacking anyone not visibly queer enough to the beholder.

We need to be more explicitly inclusive — especially in our own spaces, but also outside of them when talking about how queerness operates. If someone else’s queerness makes your idea of queerness more complicated, that’s not a bad thing. Learn from that, and let them be.

If you see someone is ace or aro and then see they’re more like you than you thought they could be, or that they don’t engage with it how you expected, that’s not a reason to be exclusionary. It’s a reason to try to expand what you include in your idea of queer.

Once, you needed someone to include you to feel comfortable in your queerness.

Set your ego aside and extend a hand to those you don’t quite understand. Be inclusive. Especially if someone’s relationship to their queerness challenges what you thought was possible.

thank you for reading if you like this please consider contributing to my moving expenses, there’s $425 to go and anything and everything helps

you can also find my blog, my links, my socials, read/listen to interviews, or just say hi here on my linktree

thank you again for reading and remember to be inclusive! Other queer people are not your enemy. have a nice day!

Tomorrows the day my Aro soldiers. Tomorrow, WE MAKE OUR FINAL STAND!!!!

TAG TAG TAG TAG TAG

!!!!!! TAG SO MANY THINGS WITH AROMANTIC !!!!!!

I've noticed several queer folks describe their 'concerns' over certain demographics 'infiltrating' the queer community and taking up queer resources.

Most of the individuals I see making this claim are usually unable/unwilling to share 'resources' with their fellow queers, such as queer literature, history of the queer community (esp. non-US centric information), info on accessing HRT and other gender affirming care, or where to find homeless shelters for LGBTQIA+ youth (40% of homeless youth are LGBTQIA+), etc.

Usually, these biases are directed toward groups such as:

Asexuals (esp. cisheteromantic aces)

Aromantics (esp. cisheterosexual aros)

Bisexuals in 'straight-passing relationships'

Trans-hets

Literally, anyone who isn't a cis, white gay man or lesbian.

Note: This isn't an exhaustive list, they are just my observations.

My question for my fellow queers is:

What constitutes a queer resource, and how do the aforementioned groups STEAL resources from the rest of the lgbtqia+ community?

Edit: if you disagree with this post, please just block me and move on instead of trying to pick a fight. I really don't have the energy to deal with all the aphobic bullcrap people are responding with.

honestly it's just frustrating. you have people finding misogynistic cishet dudes and defending their emotional neglect of their sexual partners because it superficially resembles aromanticism even when the men themselves do not identify as aromantic and are often neglecting their sexual partners specifically because they view a girlfriend as the only type of woman who deserves any type of effort and so if the chick they're fucking isn't their girlfriend they can treat her like dirt. and then when people are rightly like "hey fuck you for defending a misogynist" the same people who claimed the cishet guy who never at any point claimed to be aromantic was aromantic and therefore criticizing his misogyny is arophobia go into the aro tags to despair at how many people HATE aromantics so they can whip a bunch of bystanders into a frenzy because they've heard that people are discrediting aromanticism, and therefore are encouraged to read the original unrelated posts or people getting pissed at someone defending emotional abuse by calling it aromanticism in bad faith or not at all, and so you get a mountain of people theorizing that the attack on cishet aro men was manufactured by TERFs instead of people who think that girls who date guys deserve dudes who don't see them as a freelance contractor they can expect sex from without having to treat them with the bare minimum respect they feel a girlfriend is owed.

I don't want a boyfriend. I want a boyfriend.

I want a boyfriend who will hug me every time we see each other, but it's those hugs that last for like 5 seconds. A boyfriend to sit on the couch with and read a book together, and I always have to flip back a page bc I read too fast and he reads too slow. A boyfriend who is willing to learn my native language, but specifically the cuss words. A boyfriend who holds my hand with intertwined fingers but his hand is kinda like in front of mine and he doesn't care my hands are always so fucking sweaty. A boyfriend who keeps his eyes only on my eyes despite me not looking into his bc I hate eye contact, but he doesn't mind that. A boyfriend who will help me diffuse the back of my hair, and he'll make sure the diffuser isn't too hot on my nape. A boyfriend who likes me for me and not for sex or kisses and he couldn't give two shits about me being ace and not wanting anything sexual because he loves me for me. A boyfriend who loves me completely and doesn't need me to be sexual because he doesn't see me this way and never will.

So yeah, I want a boyfriend and not a boyfriend. I want someone who will love me like I will love him. Not sexually, not completely romantically, but just two connected souls that feel too deeply for each other.

Is it too much to ask?

yo does anyone have a link to the exclusive fwb post or has that been nuked

I love my aspec cishet siblings. Coolest people fr fr!!! And if you disrespect them then you can leave!!

The A in LGBTQAI+ does not stand for ally. Yeah, allies are cool and all, but the A isn’t for them. The A is for all lovely aros and aces who are just as queer as I am.

cis, heteroromantic aces and cis, heterosexual aros are still part of the queer community because being asexual and aromantic are queer identities. include them in your pride

A post to trend the aromantic, asexual, aroace, and all the aspec/arospec tags.

Screw you Valentines day.

(Also you are all valid and everybody who says otherwise is a billion times wrong)

Guys I literally ran out of tags I am so sorry to any identity I left out. Maybe I’ll make another one with the rest. Tag this with any identity under the aroace umbrella I may have missed!!!! We will get these tags all trending!!!!!!!

i love being aro btw i love being loveless i love being aroallo i love being an aro man :]

Please do tell me all about how welcoming and understanding the cisgender heterosexual allo folks are towards asexual and aromantic people. Go on and tell me how they all accept us without questioning the legitimacy of our identities. Do tell me. Surely absolutely no one thinks we're mentally ill antisocial incels.

what lgbt specific resource do cisgender, straight peopel who do not feel sexual attraction need that they cannot safely get elsewhere?

Hello,

I assume you asked this question in good faith, so as an AroAce trans person I will happily respond!

I would like to start off by saying cisheteromantic asexuals and cisheterosexual aromantics have always been a part of the queer community, period.

To answer your question, asexual and aromantic people need:

1. A community that accepts and affirms their non-cisheteronormative identities.

2. Many asexual/aromantic people have experienced conversion therapy for their sexual/romantic identity and need access to therapies and other treatments to heal from their trauma.

3. Similarly, they may have also experienced religious trauma due to a cultural upbringing that pushed a heteronormative, puritanical view of relationships.

4. Aromantic men in particular are demonized as sexual predators and need the love and support of our community to help them.

5. Asexual women and women-aligned/feminine-aligned people such as myself have experienced fetishization due to our sexuality orientation. Corrective rape has been used to correct people's asexual identities.

In summary, cisheteromantic asexuals and cisheterosexuals aromantics face many of the same issues as the rest of the queer community.

The rest of the LGBTQIA+ community must support their asexual and aromantic siblings.

I hope this was helpful! 💗