ask-asexual-crystal-gems

[ask-asexual-crystal-gems]

Masterpost

[ask-asexual-crystal-gems]

sherlock and john are insane because. like. nobody else can ever really come close to their relationship. they cant replace each other with anyone. no matter how much john loved mary, she couldn’t stop his nightmares. and sherlock turned to drugs as soon as john faded out of his life. no matter if sherlock ever had any feelings for molly, she just isn’t the same as john’s presence on cases. they need each other. they’re soulmates. i would feel bad for anybody else trying to have a relationship with either one, because they are so completely obsessed with each other. john killed for him after knowing him for a single day. sherlock opened up for him and him alone. they match each others freak in a way noone else can. they don’t even have to be romantic or anything. their relationship transcends everything. can anyone hear me? i know this is a given and everyone knows this but i just. yeah.

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‘that’s failing in love with the worship of one’s own ego, not seeing the other person and valuing them’

“A lot of boys and girls think their lives will have meaning if they find a partner who wants nothing else in life but them. That’s not healthy. That’s falling in love with the idea of a person, not the actual person.”

— Joseph Gordon-Levitt, on his character in “500 Days of Summer��

[ask-asexual-crystal-gems]

OVER FIFTY PERCENT OF LGBT FOLX ARE BI. HOWWWW IS THIS A THING??? We have to make a dedicated space for a LARGE MAJORITY to be safe from a MINORITY??

Don’t unfollow me because I want to take a crack at debating. Explain to the class your thought process of why you’re not a hypocrite.

This is why I don’t tell 99% people im bisexual

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I found the thriftsexual pride flag

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Reminder to all aces with trauma and all masculine-gender people with trauma. It does not fucking matter if your sexuality or gender is rooted in trauma or not, real friends are there for you. Humanity can’t go to an alternative universe where you weren’t traumatized to “check the ‘validity,’” whatever the fuck that means when LANGUAGE IS SUBJECTIVE and GENDER IS A CONSTRUCT “of your gender.”

[Exclusionists: Classical liberalism means letting people decide for themselves what they believe even if you don’t personally believe it. Somebody’s using a label you don’t think fits them? You’re entitled to your minor issue opinion. It’s inconsequential either way. Mind your business.]

Now.

People voluntarily doing hormones because ‘why not’ or people who don’t strongly ID with queerness (aces again) real friends are there for you.

Real friends don’t put terms, viewpoints, hivemind. opinions, ANYTHING over your HUMANITY.

Over your shared need to feel accepted, safe, secure.

i am a child.

i am forced into a dress. makeup is smeared onto my face. i kick and cry and beg, but they will not stop.

i am forced to pose in front of the camera with my thighs together and hope that the makeup hides my tearstains. i must be the perfect picture of femininity; innocent, untouched.

i already have a thousand hand prints on me.

'all men are evil rapists', i am told.

i think about my friends, who are men. the men who called me every day while i was in a psychiatric hospital. the men who walked me home when i was afraid. the men who protected and cared for me, without ever expecting my body in return.

it can't be the body that makes someone evil. it can't be the presence of a penis that makes someone evil. but it can't be the identity of 'man' that makes you evil, either.

i ponder the difference between the men who raped me and the men who protected me. i decide that it depends on who the person is inside, and not on their identity.

'sit down and shut up,' they spit at me. 'the men are talking. learn your place. don't speak over us.'

'you throw like a girl.'

'you run like a girl.'

'girls can't do this. they're not smart enough.'

'girls aren't strong enough to do this.'

over and over, such sentiments are tossed at me. i bite down my anger, because women aren't supposed to yell or get angry. if i get angry, that makes me a hysterical bitch.

'women are meant to be mothers,' i am told. they beat it into me that my worth lies not in my personhood, but in the womb between my hips. it makes me feel sick and violated, just like every sexual assault has.

i am groped. i am raped. i am assaulted.

it's my fault, i'm told. i'm a temptress. my body is a vile weapon, a weapon created to tempt men into sin, a weapon that makes me a subhuman toy.

i am treated like a toy. as i am molested during my childhood, i learn that i am a toy. the anatomy between my hips has marked me as public property. i am less than human.

they keep forcing me into dresses. they keep forcing me into makeup. no amount of protesting makes it end. i grow to loathe femininity and the violation that always seems to come with it.

i come out as a trans man at fifteen.

'can't you just be nonbinary?'

'can't you just be a tomboy?'

'i don't want you to regret this.'

'i don't want you to ruin your perfect body.'

'men are disgusting. why do you want to be one of them?'

'are you sure you don't just want to be a man because you were sexually assaulted?'

i continue to be a man. my parents intentionally delay my ability to go on testosterone. by the time i am able to go on testosterone, i have already finished puberty. my body is irreversibly feminine.

people throw food at me. they call me a faggot, a tranny, a dyke. they kick me and shove me to the ground. they cyberstalk me. they post pictures of me online so that they can mock me.

a girl says to me, 'you need to learn your place,' as she calls me a faggot over the internet. she kicks me when she sees me the next day.

my boyfriend when i am fifteen is a cis man who says he is pansexual. he dismisses me when i talk about being trans, because he uses he/they pronouns and 'understands it'.

he sexually assaults me repeatedly. i am in constant distress. my distress is used as proof that i am a snowflake hysterical tranny. i am a hysterical woman who only THINKS she's a man, and i need to be put in my place. trans 'men' are all hysterical and overreactive, and my behaviour is used as proof.

my boyfriend exclusively refers to me with they/them pronouns. i tell him to use he/him. he waves his hand, dismissing my words, and says, 'they're basically the same thing'.

he tells me that he wants children. i try to ignore the sick feeling in my gut.

he only uses he/him pronouns for me after we have broken up, when he is trying to paint me as abusive. i lose my entire friend group because of it.

people keep talking down to me. when i go on testosterone, cis men try to explain that it's toxic for me, using cis man bodybuilders as an example. i try to explain how that isn't the case. they insist that 'female bodies aren't built to handle testosterone'. i try to explain to them how hormones work, and they laugh and roll their eyes.

silly girl. stupid girl. she doesn't know what she's talking about.

people continue to make fun of trans men online. our music, our art, our interests, our fashion sense, our names. i cannot help but feel dejected. all i want is to be a man, and to fit in among everyone else, but even in doing so, i stand out as a target for mockery. misogyny is inescapable, even for men.

i am seventeen years old. my worst fear comes true. i am raped and forcibly impregnated, with the intention of forcing me to detransition.

that sense of violation is impossible to truly describe.

my reproductive system was designed to become pregnant. my body will do its best to become pregnant, no matter what i want. pregnancy is an inescapable function of my body, and it makes me feel trapped and sick.

the man who raped me has turned my own body into a weapon against me. even in my body, my own flesh and sinew, i am not safe.

i miscarry. i am in agony. my womb cramps and i try not to pass out.

i enter feminist spaces. i try to talk about my experiences with misogyny.

'sit down and shut up,' they spit at me. 'the women are talking. learn your place. don't speak over us.'

all trans men have male privilege, you see, without exception. by the mere act of wanting to become a man, i have become a traitor, and i am thrown to the cis men.

the cis men, who see me as a woman that they're finally allowed to abuse. finally, they can hurt and rape and impregnate a woman, because she's one of those snowflake trannies and she needs to be put in her place.

i bite down my anger, because trans men aren't supposed to yell or get angry. if i get angry, it's proof that i'm not a man, that i'm a hysterical bitch, and that i'm a dangerous snowflake tranny seeking to mutilate children.

the sentiment is bitterly familiar.

[ask-asexual-crystal-gems]

You can not believe trans men can be lesbians without believing trans men are women (which is transphobia) or invalidating one of the few things that does not center men (which is misogyny).

[ask-asexual-crystal-gems]

i don't care how uncomfortable you are around cis men, queer cis men still need places to go, and sometimes, those spaces will be shared with yours. disabled and neurodivergent queer men and queer men of color especially need a place to go. the queer community isn't the "fuck cis men" community. that is the rad fem community. if you think cis men and people who read as cis men are inherently "too scary" or shouldn't be allowed in queer spaces, you joined the wrong community.

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The older sister of the astronaut even asked them “Have you ever had siblings?” to both of them, like talk about a thematic heel-face-turn.

Ok I’m continuing my rant on pantheon, spoilers for season 2

PANTHEON SHOULD’VE BEEN A SHOW ABOUT FAMILY.

Let me repeat that.

PANTHEON SHOULD HAVE BEEN A SHOW ABOUT FAMILY.

Family and identity are at the core of this show, it’s the reason why Mist was introduced as Maddie’s sister.

Which is why it makes absolutely no gosh ding dang diddly darn FUCKING SENSE why Caspian and Maddie are romantic in season 2. In a show centered around the bonds of family, why in the FUCK would they make Caspian and Maddie anything but a sibling relationship.

The components were there. An older, more jaded teenage figure, in a begrudging partnership with a bright young girl recently mourning the loss of another important male figure in her life. It was PERFECT. But nooooooooo, no one EVER THINKS OF THE OBVIOUS.

As I mentioned in my last post, Caspian could’ve found someone to protect, in Maddie. Someone Stephen Holstrom never had. A younger sibling. Someone who could keep him accountable through innocence.

But instead they, keep that kind of dynamic, and make it, romantic? When, let me remind you, Maddie is 14 at youngest. Freshman in highschool. I have more about this in my previous post if you want to get all technical on me, but whatever. It’s part of the reason why Caspian x Maddie doesn’t work, even if they didn’t have a questionable age gap.

Dave Jr was unnecessary. Maddie being pregnant as a teen was unnecessary. Make Maddie grow up and find love, and maybe have a child then, if you really really want her to have romance. The story would’ve played out the same. But Caspian? Really????

They just shoved the closest male/female pairing together. And I truly believe that.

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Butch4Butch is like gay squared.

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Exclusionists make sense on this basis. Excluding people by whom they form relationships with, but not how their orientation operates, is in a similar vein of the common attitude that results in hostility towards a bisexual person for being in a relationship that happens to be straight. That I can clock. This Valentine’s Day, let’s also discuss how Amatonormativity hurts trans people, ace people, and aro people.

We can also deal with how bi people are hurt by anti-het sentiment. Attraction a person experiences internally or how it differs from norms isn’t the important thing there: it’s obvious, perceived actions. Kind of like a toddler witnessing an object, but having no object permanence when it’s not being waved in front of their face. When attractions are happening but not being openly acted upon, that permanence suddenly becomes up for debate. So an exclusionist in that perspective, makes sense. I guess exclusionists of some types might have trouble with the notion that heterosexual men can have sex with other men if they choose to. To them, actions are more important than peoples’ authority on their own feelings. Buy that reasoning of course, and the vast number of self-avowed gay men who marry a woman to fit in, and then come out later, are not really LGBT until they’ve blown a guy. That is the logical endpoint of biphobia. When someone tells you that they have experienced being Othered in allo society, especially those who might be on the spectrum of aro or ace, in this context, that doesn’t matter. Their lived experience is less important than finding external reasons to invalidate it. It could be that they don’t actually understand an asexual’s experience with normativity, or how it severely affects their mental health, the same way an average cis person has a hard time wrapping their head around a trans person’s experience. It’s difficult to perceive how differing from an allo standard hurts, in day to day life, when the only small slice of their life externally that you observe is their relationships might be superficially similar to what you consider majority. In the same way, many cis people think that once a trans person transitions, and ‘blends in’ that is the end of their psychological struggle existing in a normative society being trans. Wrong. Even aside from the difficulty finding an accepting partner. The type of partner any of these tiny minoritiesare seeking, no matter how hard and long that process is compared to a cis allo het person, is used against them. If they find one, that is evidence that their trials are ‘over.’ Of course a society that measures you by obtaining The Relationship would say that. Your relationship to the other thousands of people you encounter don't matter so much, right? That how amatonormativity hurts trans and ace and aro people. It’s what results in post-op suicides. Those are the stories that romo media, whether fictional or not, doesn’t tell. It also doesn’t tell my story, whose major relationships have been ostensibly ‘straight,’ but far different from reported norms. (and not only because my current bf has been briefly mistaken for female on a number of occasions and my QPR jokes that he’s trans femme. My first bf looked around once and said, all these straight people probably assume we’re normal. We’re incognito.) (I’ve heard similar things from bi and bi-romantic people of course) (To be perceived, but not seen.) But as always, the person who has the most social heft gets to decide the narrative. Usually this is along minority lines, and fittingly, asexuals are an even more tiny minority. If someone tells an LGBT person that excluding ace people from other orientation minorities takes an emotional toll on ace peoples’ mental health, but they deem that defining outlying sexual and gender orientations the way they happen to think of it is more important, then that’s that. If you want to know why people want GSRM or MOGAI, (I prefer the former) instead of an increasingly awkward alphabet soup, this is why. Oppressive systems of thought always cater to the whims of one set of people over the needs of another set of people. Mens’ feelings are more important than womens’ safety, black women getting angry at white people is more squawked about than the issues they face, that kind of thing. It’s just that when it’s more subtle, the stubborn minded can’t comprehend that they are the other side of the power divide. It hurts nobody to affirm

[ask-asexual-crystal-gems]

something i feel like queer ppl have been steadily forgetting over the last ten years or so is that “genderqueer” isn’t a specific nonbinary term, or even a synonym for nonbinary - it’s an umbrella term that encompasses nonbinariness and more. 

any flavour of trans (yes including “binary trans”)? you can call yourself genderqueer. fem, butch, androgynous, drag artist, crossdresser, or in any other way gnc? you can also use genderqueer. detrans but not in a radfem death cult kind of way? you too can be genderqueer. “i guess i’m basically cis but my other queer identity impacts my gender in a way that’s hard to put into words-” genderqueer!

it’s entirely acceptable and normal to be genderqueer but not nonbinary or genderqueer but not trans. it means literally nothing but “i’ve got a gender that’s queer” and it fucking rules we should use it so much more

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Guess who just learned that there’s only a grand total of TWELVE trans women in professional sports … of all the political things that are affecting millions of people at once, THIS was still somehow a successful scapegoat. Humans really are dumb.

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Let me tell you a little story. Back in the day, we used to have threads on the Asexuality Visibility and Education Network forums (A.V.E.N.) where we asked each other the question, “Do you consider yourself queer?”

About half of the answers were No. And this wasn’t just because we were at times shunned from queer spaces. We just didn’t consider ourselves queer, full stop. Even if you had given us a golden ticket pass directly into acceptance by the LGBT community.

Some felt no desire to even enter said spaces, or shrugged when they got there.

Some felt specifically uncomfortable because there was such a focus on sex/sexuality.

Now, people who were gnc or homoromantic obviously often said Yes. But that was usually separate from their identity as an ace spec or aro spec.

I’m similar. I have dithered for long periods of time over whether to identify as queer. I don’t view my ace identity as queer. I can construct an argument for it to be considered queer, based on the history of “queering,” which means deviation from norm. This of course, is how the term QueerPlatonic Relationship, qpr, is derived. And in that context, yes aro is explicitly queer. I will vehemently defend those who want to use aro or ace that way. But I will equally as vehemently defend those who want to self-determine, (as in, not allo people enforcing it) view ace and/or aro as a separate issue altogether, who don’t feel totally fitting with allo people, queer or not.

I’m non-binary like that.

Language is a construct.

Language can be ambiguous, have different associations in different subcultures, mean one thing to one person and another to another person.

Language itself is inherently non-binary, non-black-and-white.

I identified as totally agender for a long time (enby identities are common among aces). Now I understand myself as “most of the time agender/enby but leaning transmasc” kind of genderfluidity. I find that even though transmasc is the word that the culture has settled on that got nearest to describing me, so I am sort of obligated to have it because of usefulness, I do not quite vibe with “trans,” neither as this- nor as an umbrella term, but prefer “gnc” as the collective name for non-sexuality queerness.

LGBG, as it were.

Now, GSRM or MOGAI are obviously better, let’s note. Less awkward, less hierarchical/seniority-centered, more bases covered.

But this still causes problems for me in particular. I believe that most people would be agender or bigender or non-binary, absent heavily gendered social conditioning. So that “M” in GSRM suddenly isn’t numerically accurate for norms in a post-gender society of the future. I think binary homo (mono-sexuality) as in gay, lesbian, will always the sexuality minority, but have strong suspicions that bi (or multi- or whatever else you prefer) would be the majority (or mathematical norm, if you will) if heteronormativity were absent as well.

Especially if you included other types of attraction other than romo- or amato- attraction, as well you should.

Been thinking about “oriented aro/ace” and its implications to allocishets as of late:

In a post allohet society, I think most people would recognize and more deeply venerate the fact they had strong platonic (and possibly, even more subtle demi) attraction to the same-sex or same-gender alongside their more flashy het attractions.

(Ironically, similar sentiments lead to things like people objecting that demi “is normal” and shouldn’t be considered an identity in itself, for those who don’t experience primary attraction. Said people sometimes fit the description of demi themselves, just won’t accept the label. Demi could be quite common, and it’s not lesser, it doesn’t lose uniqueness points or something, for being a larger presence)

In this post society, relationships, including QPRs and PLPs and/or marriages on that basis- more than already happen- would form. People like those who have realized, oh yeah, I’m still falling in love with xyz people, but this friend is the one or ‘also-someone’ I want to commit to.

But even for romo, humans are extremely good at deflecting and repressing.

(Romance is in itself a construct. You especially tend to see this come into focus in aro discussion groups, trying to figure out what it even is and what parts comprise it.)

The way I think, as it’s typically used, “queer” is not a minority at all, but a label that emerged to designate itself as a reality beyond cis-het normative societal structures.

Had we never developed the allo-cis-het-patriarchal conditioning nexus, queer would not exist.

In other words, “queer” is born out of this presence, in reactionary fashion.

Now, for the present? That isn’t a problem. It’s useful, it’s linguistically sound, probably necessary, depending on how you define “necessity.”

But I look forward to a day when the word “queer” loses all its current cultural meaning and power, because it’s just ... entirely ordinary. No different from saying you have brown eyes. Even if minorities stayed at levels they are.

Once that has eroded, the “queering” of norms is complete, and with the norms gone, ironically “queer” ceases to be.

Now if we defined “queer” as what appear to be true minorities? That’s an entirely different question. One that I’m not gonna do any more of a deep dive on atm.

I don’t personally believe those parts make me an outlier. Aro? Aplatonic? Most definitely. The aspects of me, as in my gender, that are “queer” as it’s used in ace-exclusionary meaning? Nah. If I were binary trans? Yeah, probably. But all the rest, masc and femme and everything in between, I think those are the normal human experience. To quote someone somewhere on the topic, “Most human beings aren’t Barbie or G.I. Joe.”

Those gender spectrums are just ...... not queer, to my mind.

Regardless of chosen definition, I don’t and have never centralized “queer” in my identity even though it’s a nice shorthand, especially in- ahem- queer spaces.

Some textbook-definition lgbtq choose not to use the word for non-slur-related reasons. Just because they don’t vibe with it.

To be perfectly honest, I have passions and hyperfixations that are worlds more important to my identity than my gender or my sexuality. Is that because agender inherently means (to me personally!) that I’m not hung up on gender, and being gray ace (to me) means I’m not hung up on sexuality? Maybe! Idk. Either way, it’s how I think.

It is not very important to me that people of any walk of life see me as queer.

I’m just me, doing my thing, any word you apply to me is incidental.

So am I queer? Depending on context, yes or no. I’m non-binary like that.

[ask-asexual-crystal-gems]

if i see "credit to the original artist <3" one more time i might actually lose it

im gonna say it again and im going to say it loud. this is the proper way to go about reposting art:

do you know the artist? if not, go find them. if you cant find them, dont repost it

you found the artist or already knew them? ask to repost with credit

they said no? dont repost it

they dont respond? dont repost it

they said yes? go for it with proper credit

they later ask for it to be taken down? take it down immediately

thats it. its that simple.

"but i want other ppl to see the art!" thats great. link the original post then. not a link on a repost, a link on a post that says "hey guys, this artist is rlly good u should check them out!" if you repost and then link to the og post, most ppl are just going to like the repost. they arent going to take the time to go to the link when they can already see the art

"but i found the art on pinterest!" pinterest is not an artist. it is a site notoriously known for having reposted art. its nice to use to make mood boards and get inspo, but its also almost impossible to find og artists thru posts half the time. if you want to find the artist, you do a reverse image search. if you dont know how to do that, then look it up

"they already gave me permission. why are they telling me to take it down now?" ppl are allowed to change their minds. it can be nice to have more ways for ppl to see ur art, but it can become disheartening when all the attention is on a post that isnt ur own. sometimes ppl are okay with it, and sometimes they arent. if they arent then you need to respect their wishes

artists are not machines. we are humans. we have feelings.

we make art for fun and it sucks a lot when that art we spend hours on is just copy and pasted onto some elses account.

dont repost art. and if you want to, follow the steps above. end of story. there are no loopholes or exceptions. if you want ppl to keep making art free to see, dont be rude. follow the steps and be respectful

i dont normally like ppl taking screenshots of my posts and putting them elsewhere, but im giving blanket permission for this one post. spread the word. put it where you want. tiktok, insta, reddit, etc etc. ive seen so many artists get so upset putting their art behind paywalls like patreon just to keep ppl from stealing it. and i know multiple who have stopped posting altogether and some that are debating stopping.

respect artists, guys. follow the steps. seriously

[ask-asexual-crystal-gems]

Fluttercord :D