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vaspider · 7 years

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okay but if someone doesn't experience homophobia or transphobia then they're not lgbt it's as simple as that.... the lgbt community doesn't exist for the purpose of being "inclusive" it literally is by nature exclusive to people who experience homophobia and/or transphobia

No, I’m sorry, that’s simply not true. I’ve written an awful lot about this, which you can find under my ‘ace exclusion’ tag. But since there’s a lot under there, let’s hit all the highlights. Frankly, it’ll be nice to have an omnibus post I can just pass to people from now on.

This post is not an argument of your point, it is a reference post, because you are simply wrong.

This post is going to be very, very long, and very, very US-centric. It is important to state right up front that this discussion is extremely Western-centric. I do not have the right personally to speak on gender and sexual orientations from indigenous communities of which I am not a member, but it is absolutely important to acknowledge that the colonization of gender and sexual identity of non-Western peoples is a) wrong as fuck and b) we need to knock it off and c) none of the stuff I’m writing necessarily applies to non-Western peoples/indigenous peoples.

1) This ‘formed to fight homophobia and transphobia’ definition of LGBT is literally and completely an invention of Tumblr. It started on Tumblr, it really only exists on Tumblr, and it only exists for the sole purpose of excluding minority sexualities and orientations (not limited to but currently focused on asexuality). It’s a very recent invention and this specific definition is less than eighteen months old. Probably less than a year old, but I’ll be honest: I don’t have the time or patience to go through the history on Tumblr and read all the hateful stuff that I’d have to in order to find the first use of that particular little piece of nonsense.

2) If that’s the case, then bisexuals (that big ol’ B in there) wouldn’t necessarily be part of the community, because bisexuals experience biphobia, which, no, is not the same as homophobia, is not homophobia lite, is not because they are ‘perceived to be’ homosexual and therefore homophobia. Your definition also casually and totally sweeps intra-community biphobia under the rug, which, good golly, part of the reason that bisexual people became part of the acronym is because lesbians literally kicked bisexual women out of the term lesbian in the seventies. And of course that’s pretty funny considering that the discourse before the ace discourse was the bihet discourse. All of this has happened before, etc. etc.

3) The acronym has constantly been in flux since the rise of the modern community, so trying to claim there’s some sort of continuity that goes back to a singular point and it’s always been LGBT and it has never been anything but LGBT is just… wrong. (see point 5 and all subpoints) It was ‘the gay community’ > ‘the gay and lesbian community’ > ‘GLB community’ > ‘LGBT community’ (as a specific attempt to decenter gay men and also adding a letter because trans people fought hard for inclusion and are still fighting hard for inclusion) > LGBTQ/LGBTQI/LGBT+/LGBTQIA/LGBTQIPA - all of these have been in use for a really long time. That last set? Some of them have been in use for a decade or more. Some of them are much more recent. And the LGBTQ community is not a monolith, though with the rise of the internet we have certainly become much more connected. Organizational and regional variations absolutely exist.

3a) Here’s a non-Tumblr link from a 53-year-old bisexual writer who discusses her history with the terms the community uses, and who suggests ‘NSP’ for Non-Straight People. Two therapists in 2013 (including the director of Pink Therapy) suggested that GSD ‘or Gender and Sexual Diversities,’ should replace LGBT.

Officials on the group’s Facebook page echoed those sentiments. “The point we’re trying to make is not that our community shouldn’t be called LGBT, it’ that actually our community is SO much BIGGER than simply LGBT,” they noted.

3b) Before the sexual revolution of the 1960s, there wasn’t really any kind of non-derogatory widespread term for the community or even for the people themselves. Uranian was used in the 19th century to refer to gay men (and later lesbians), and the ‘third gender’ – which was used for gay and lesbian people as well as gender-non-conforming and trans people most commonly in the 1950s and 1960s in the US – was used. The term stopped being used in the 1970s in the US as gender identity and sexual orientation writing and identification started to separate into different things. So, again, our community, and our people, haven’t been called the same thing even over the last 2 centuries, let alone since the start of human history.

4) To stress again, ‘LGBT’ as an acronym began widespread use in 1988. Before that it was gay community, GLB, Lesbian and Gay community, etc. What we have called ourselves and why has always been changing. Always.

5) Circling back to your main assertion, let’s turn it into questions and ask each of the major LGBTQ orgs via their mission statements and actions: what is the point of the community? And does the point of that community include asexual people? And since when has it done so?

5a) Human Rights Campaign Mission Statement:

The Human Rights Campaign and the Human Rights Campaign Foundation together serve as America’s largest civil rights organization working to achieve LGBTQ equality. By inspiring and engaging individuals and communities, HRC strives to end discrimination against LGBTQ people and realize a world that achieves fundamental fairness and equality for all.

The Human Rights Campaign envisions a world where lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people are ensured equality and embraced as full members of society at home, at work and in every community.

5a1) Isn’t this just a rephrasing of ‘fighting homophobia and transphobia’?

Nope. While it’s obvious that this is part of HRC’s mission, it repeatedly does not limit the discrimination that LGBTQ people face to ‘homophobia and transphobia.’ The mission statement very specifically talks about ‘working for LGBTQ equality’ and ‘end[ing] discrimination’ and ‘ensur[ing] equality and embrac[ing LGBTQ people] as full members of society.’ These sorts of things are read and debated and discussed, and this word choice was extremely purposeful. There were no accidents in this phrasing.

5a2) Are asexual people explicitly included? They don’t say it in the mission statement!

Yes. Asexual people are repeatedly and explicitly included.

In the HRC Equality Forward “At The Intersection” document from 2009, on p9, discussing a survey taken in 2008 to discuss the issue of race in what the document calls the LGBT community:

About half of the LGBT people of color in this survey identify as gay orlesbian (51 percent) and another 41 percent identify as bisexual. Theremaining 8 percent use a number of other terms to describe theirsexual orientation, including queer, intersexual, asexual, human and prefernot to use labels.

To be clear and to repeat, they didn’t kick people out of the survey if they identified as asexual. Asexual was included as a legitimate and LGBTQ orientation.

Also here, in a guest blog post written by Romeo Jackson, a self-identified QPOC:

When I hear the national narrative on coming out, rarely do I hear the experiences of trans people, asexual people, or people of color represented. It seems these experiences are often over looked, and because of this, the coming out process as experienced by LGBT people of color is sometimes misrepresented and/or misunderstood.

Not only is it important for asexual people to be included, but it is important for asexual people’s coming-out stories to be included in our community discussions.

A couple more instances, for example this scholarship listing for UW-L Eagle Pride, and the HRC #AM_Equality Tip Sheet from May 2016 (listing of article educating people on asexuality).

5a3) Conclusion, subsection 5a: Human Rights Campaign’s mission statement does not define the community, their work or our struggle as ‘fighting homophobia and transphobia,’ but as a struggle to achieve equality for LGBTQ people in all communities, and they explicitly, repeatedly, over the course of at least seven years, well before the start of the ‘ace discourse on Tumblr, define ‘LGBTQ people’ and ‘LGBT people’ to include asexual people and asexuality.

5b) The Trevor Project MIssion Statement:

The mission of The Trevor Project is to end suicide among gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and questioning young people. The organization works to fulfill this mission through four strategies:

1. Provide crisis counseling to LGBTQ young people thinking of suicide.

2. Offer resources, supportive counseling and a sense of community to LGBTQ young people to reduce the risk that they become suicidal.

3. Educate young people and adults who interact with young people on LGTBQ-competent suicide prevention, risk detection and response.

4. Advocate for laws and policies that will reduce suicide among LGBTQ young people.

5b1) Another major org, and this one doesn’t even touch on fighting bigotry in any way (except potentially as fighting internalized bigotry in those who are suicidal) until their 4th point, and in that point, they clearly are advocating for laws and policies to protect LGBTQ young people. There’s no statement of ‘fighting homophobia and transphobia is what we do, it’s all we do, the end.’ Not even close.

5b2) Are asexual people explicitly included? They don’t say it in the mission statement!

Yes. Here’s their asexuality FAQ, and at the bottom of it they link to AVEN (I realize AVEN is a somewhat controversial organization but I view that as an intra-sub-community issue and not for me to speak on, AVEN is clearly a legitimate resource to The Trevor Project), Asexual Awareness Week, and their own Asexuality 101 PDF. A notable quote under ‘ace issues’ on page 2:

LGBT communities aren’tuniversally supportive ofasexuality.

5b3) Conclusion, subsection 5b: The Trevor Project explicitly includes resources for asexual youth, giving asexuality a header equal to every other subgroup on their Resources page. They acknowledge that LGBT communities are not universally supportive of asexuality, but they address it as an issue, that is, an issue that needs to be addressed, and one for which asexual youth require explicit support.

5c) GLAAD does not have an explicitly listed Mission Statement on their site. This is their About page:

GLAAD rewrites the script for LGBTQ acceptance. As a dynamic media force, GLAAD tackles tough issues to shape the narrative and provoke dialogue that leads to cultural change. GLAAD protects all that has been accomplished and creates a world where everyone can live the life they love.

5c1) I hope at this point I don’t have to explain that this is not just a rephrasing of ‘fighting homophobia and transphobia,’ but an affirmative statement of working for acceptance and protection for the LGBTQ community as a whole.

5c2) Are asexual people explicitly included?

Yes. February 1, 2015:

…it’s critical to boost acceptance of LGBT people, not just among non-LGBT folks, but also among members of our own community.

And that includes increasing acceptance of and being good allies to the Asexual, Agender, and Aromantic community.

Let us say without equivocation, the ‘A’ in LGBTQIA represents millions of Asexual, Agender, and Aromantic people, who are far too often left out of the conversation about acceptance.

(Note, this is over a year before GLADD added Q for ‘queer/questioning’ to their official acronym. The Q is a whole other kettle of fish, I provide it only for context of inclusion.)

July 24, 2015, re: a project on The Advocate called #21AceStories:

Cruz also previously curated #27Bistories, which similarly addressed misconceptions about bisexuality.

Cruz writes that the “erasure of asexual identities disenfranchises the asexual community from the LGBT community, perhaps more so than any other marginalized community.” It’s necessary to make asexual individuals feel like they have a place and a voice in the LGBT community – for their emotional wellbeing and physical safety.

October 29, 2014, re: Asexual Awareness Week:

GLAAD celebrates Asexual Awareness Week to amplify the voices of those who identify as asexual, aromantic, demisexual, and grey-asexual to be able to live the life they love.

This an explicit callback to the mission statement and an inclusion of asexual people in GLAAD’s ‘about’ and their mission.

February 12, 2016, in “The GLAAD Wrap”:

Every week, The GLAAD Wrap brings you LGBT-related entertainment news highlights, fresh stuff to watch out for, and fun diversions to help you kick off the weekend…. In the most recent issue, popular Archie Comics character Jughead came out as asexual.

June 16, 2014, on Pride Flags:

To help clear any confusion and to refresh the memories of those who already know, Mashable has compiled a very useful list of iconic LGBT flags and symbols…

GLAAD put Mashable in touch with several LGBT leaders to talk about the symbols. Sarah Toce of The Seattle Lesbian and Sue Kerr of Pittsburgh Lesbian Correspondents explained the background of many of the LGBT symbols used within the community. GLAAD also worked with Geena Rocero, model and founder of Gender Proud, and BiNet USA’s Faith Cheltenham to provide commentary on the post, as well as GLAAD’s own National Spokesperson, Wilson Cruz…

The asexual pride flag has four stripes colored black, grey, white, and purple from top to bottom.

October 2016, Media Reference Guide, 10th Edition:

AsexualAn adjective used to describe people who donot experience sexual attraction (e.g., asexualperson). A person can also be aromantic,meaning they do not experience romanticattraction. (For more information, visitasexuality.org.)

HeterosexualAn adjective used to describe peoplewhose enduring physical, romantic, and/or emotional attraction is to people of theopposite sex. Also straight.

Please note that the GLAAD reference guide lists Asexual and Heterosexual one right after the other, and lists them as two different orientations and two different experiences. ‘Straight’ is only listed after Heterosexual.

From an article discussing acronyms, queer, and the GLAAD Media Reference Guide with The Advocate, Kate Ellis, GLAAD’s president and CEO:

“It is still, of course, particularly concerned with media, aiming to assure that both news and entertainment media represent us in a manner that is fair, inclusive, and accurate. It has been publishing the Media Guide for about 20 years, so updates have come about every two years, Ellis notes. Other changes in the 10th edition include expanded definitions of the terms asexual and intersex, based on conversations with those populations, she says.” [Emphasis mine]

Note the inclusion of asexual and intersex with ‘us.’

5c3) Conclusion, subsection 5c: GLAAD does not have as an extensive a documentable history of asexual inclusion as HRC, The National LGBTQ Task Force, or The Trevor Project. They do expressly, repeatedly, explicitly include asexual people - notably, the GLAAD-written sentence “It’s necessary to make asexual individuals feel like they have a place and a voice in the LGBT community – for their emotional wellbeing and physical safety.” as well as explicitly including discussion of an asexual comic book character in their LGBT media roundup and explicitly including the asexual flag in their own write-up of LGBT Pride Flags in preparation for Pride Month. They expressly amended their Media Guide (one of GLAAD’s main projects) to include asexuality and do not define aces as straight but as LGBTQ.

5d) National LGBTQ Task Force Mission Statement:

The National LGBTQ Task Force advances full freedom, justice and equality for LGBTQ people.

We’re building a future where everyone is free to be themselves in every aspect of their lives. Today, despite all the progress we’ve made to end discrimination, millions of LGBTQ people face barriers in every aspect of their lives: in housing, employment, healthcare, retirement, and basic human rights. These barriers must go. That’s why the Task Force is training and mobilizing millions of activists across our nation to deliver a world where you can be you.

…

Everyone in our community is able to be exactly who they are and able to lead the lives they’re entitled to live. We want you to “be you.” We’ve made a lot of progress in the past 40 years and we never take that progress for granted. The Task Force community wants more than equality – we want to create a transformed society.

It’s very important to pause here and clarify that the National LGBTQ Task Force was founded in 1973 and is the oldest national LGBTQ advocacy group in the United States. It’s also important to note that “In 2014 the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force changed its name to the National LGBTQ Task Force; it was founded in 1973 as the National Gay Task Force and added Lesbian in 1985.” Over and over again, we see the evolution of the acronym, the words we use, and who would be therefore included. Our identity as a community has never been static.

5d1) Isn’t this just a rephrasing of ‘fighting homophobia and transphobia’?

Not in the sense of it being an exclusionary, ‘this and only this’ statement. The history of the Task Force is absolutely focused on fighting homophobia, homophobic violence, transphobia, biphobia, and all forms of anti-LGBTQ violence and discrimination. They do not just seek to ‘fight all forms of LGBTQ-phobia,’ either, which is directly stated. They seek a transformed society in which there would be complete equality.

5d2) Are asexual people explicitly included? They don’t say it in the mission statement!

Yes.

April 30, 2013: The A Is Here To Stay

Now LGBT groups are having conversations about asexual issues. There have been workshops at the last two Creating Change conferences. The Task Force is joined by the Trevor Project and Campus Pride as the first LGBT organizations to include asexuality in their work.

April 2013: Wonky Wednesday, written by Jack Harrison, Policy Institute Manager

…I was very excited when Sarah Beth volunteered to write an Ace 101 post for the Task Force blog…

…there’s relatively little research by asexuals on asexuals, and what has been done is largely based around asking others their opinions of asexuals to determine the possibility of bias or psychological research attempting to establish possible reasons why people experience themselves as asexual. That means there’s almost no data based on methodologies of asking aces to articulate their own experiences.

I’ve been involved recently in a coalition of activists and academics, primarily from ace communities, trying to remedy this…

…the bulk of respondents [to a 2011 survey about asexuality] (76%) were between the ages of 16 and 25 years old, the implications of which are very interesting to someone like me who is very concerned about employment discrimination. This means that most ace-identified folks may not have entered the work force and thus, as advocates who believe that everyone has the right to be judged on the quality of their work rather than on their sexual or non-sexual identities, we need to be preparing for a rise in instances of discrimination in the coming years.

5d3) Conclusion, subsection 5d: The National LGBTQ Task Force evolved its position on its name in its 44 years of existence. They seek to create a truly equitable world and not only do they explicitly include asexuality in the LGBTQ community which they serve, but their Policy Institute Manager not only recognizes the need for more writing and work by asexuals about asexuals within the community, but considers the entry of a largely younger asexual community into the workforce to be an action item for which the Task Force should be prepared, in order to better handle instances of discrimination against the asexual members of the LGBTQ community.

5e) May 17th, the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia, A Worldwide Celebration of Gender and Sexual Diversities

Are Asexual people explicitly included?

Yes.

May 17 was first known as the “International Day against Homophobia” and mainstreamed through its acronym “I.DA.HO”In 2009, Transphobia was added explicitly in the title of the name, in the recognition of the very different issues at stake between sexual orientation and gender expression. “IDAHOT” became another popular acronym used alongside the initial one.Since 2015, biphobia is added to the title, to acknowledge the specific issues faced by bisexual people.

At the level of our Committee, we have kept the acronym ‘IDAHOT’, which we’ve been consolidating for years. We acknowledge this is an imperfect solution, but a necessity for communications consistency. We totally support other organisations who adapt the name of the day to their contexts and their priorities. In the UK for examples, the Day is increasingly known as IDAHOBiT*, in Latin America Lesbophobia is almost systematically included and placed first, etc.

To ensure even more inclusion and reflect the diversity of sexual and gender minorities, we have created at global level the baseline “A global celebration of sexual and gender diversities”. This is probably the only “solution” to the issue of inclusion and reflection of other diversities, such as Queer, Asexual, Pansexual and regional identities such as Hijras, Weres, Two-Spirit, etc. [emphasis mine]

The Day is not one central trademarked brand and everyone is free to communicate as they wish. This creates inconsistency but this is the cost to bear for large ownership.

No further comment is needed on this; the evolution of inclusion, and the explicit inclusion of asexual people, is already clearly delineated by the Committee’s own words.

5f) The National Institutes of Health, in a study begun in 2009, included asexuality in an LGBT Health study. (Sadly this is behind a paywall, so I’m not going to go very far into it, just providing a link.)

5g) Before we go, here are a few links to college pride organizations which explicitly include ace people that I just happened to stumble across when I was looking for other links for this answer. I wasn’t even explicitly looking for them, I just found them.

Conclusion:

Our identity as a community has never been static. Since the rise of the modern US LGBTQ community in the 1960s and 1970s, our community has been consistently moving toward greater understanding of the massive complexity of sexuality and gender identity. What started as the Gay Community has gained so many letters and such great understanding of the incredible diversity of human gender and sexual experience that it has become necessary to use umbrella terms for ease of communication.

Unfortunately, sometimes those umbrella terms are taken as prescriptive, rather than inclusive, terms. Given the examples from every single major LGBTQ organization, the National Institutes of Health, and The Advocate (arguably the premiere or one of the premiere LGBTQ publications), asexuality is a part of the larger LGBTQ community, expressly accepted by every single major organization in the United States.

Like transgender (including and/or alongside non-binary, genderqueer, genderfluid and all other non-cis gender identities which may or may not consider themselves to be explicitly transgender or part of the trans community), pansexual, queer, and bisexual before (and in some cases alongside) it, asexuality is not a new identity - it is a relatively newly-understood identity. And just like all of those identities before and alongside it, acceptance both within and without the community has been and continues to be a struggle.

Like bisexual and pansexual people especially, asexual people face accusations of being ‘outsiders,’ ‘secret straights,’ etc., who either face demands that they perform a certain amount of queerness to the satisfaction of others (with goalposts that constantly change), or are rejected outright.

Like transgender, non-binary, genderqueer, genderfluid, etc. persons, asexual people face pushback from people who claim their identities aren’t real, don’t belong in the community - ‘what does a lack of sex have to do with being LGBTQ?’ ‘What does gender identity have to do with being gay, it’s a totally different thing, drop the T’ - and all other manner of exclusionary pushback.

Just as bisexuals faced much more pushback a quarter-century ago when I came out and started coming up in the LGBTQ community, but face greatly-diminished pushback now and a greater general acceptance that we are simply part of the community, and just as there was no word, no string of words that existed in the community vocabulary when I was a teenager for my gender identity, but there are now, asexuality, aromanticism, and all of the many other identities along the a-spec continuum, I have a great deal of faith that in the next few years, even Tumblr will move on from this particular division or discourse and move on to the next argument. I have every faith that given the fact that every major organization has explicitly included ace/aro folks, we will move on, and ace/aro folks will be a pretty-damn-completely-accepted ‘default’ part of the community, the same way that bi and trans people are accepted by all but a very small, non-representative portion of the community.

That’s already the truth outside of Tumblr. I simply hope that we can move on from this already, even on Tumblr, because the LGBTQ community in the United States is in for a really bumpy ride over the next 4+ years.

There are a lot of battles we need to fight. They shouldn’t be against each other, and yes, ace people are part of ‘us.’ That argument is over. . Let’s move on to protecting the LGBTQ community from whatever 45 and his vizier are planning to inflict on us.

I hope you’ll stop wasting your energy and the energy of others on pointless infighting over an argument that’s over. We have a lot of work to do. We’re going to need all our energy.

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