#I have 0 tolerance as a tax paying adult woman-ish

[pollyanna-nana]

Holy Fuck I can’t believe this is actually a thing that needs to be said but. If you’ve arrived in 2023 with the (correct) take that a-spec ppl are inherently queer and infighting is bad but defend the ace discourse phase of tumblr with “well ace people did/said all of these fucked up things!” You Need To Shhhh.

I’m not going to sit here and pretend like there weren’t some really shitty things said by ace* people during that time but also that is not, and I cannot stress this enough, the fault or responsibility of literally every a-spec person that’s ever existed. We all agree (right. RIGHT.) that things like lesbophobia perpetuated on the basis of “lesbians are transphobic” or the same for bi/panphobia are bad. Even if there ARE transphobic individuals in those groups that doesn’t justify being bigoted towards them I would think that’s obvious? But some of y’all seem to think differently with ace people which at best is showing your bias against us and at worst is. Suspicious. Not to mention that people with a-spec identities can belong to many of the aforementioned groups as well.

Holding individuals accountable for bigoted things they post is good! And I think the opinion that the a-spec community needs to watch for forms of queerphobia in our spaces is a reasonable one. But to say that several years of mocking, scorn, destruction of our spaces and terminology and repeated attacks on our history and validity as a queer identity is in any way justified because of that is a Bad Take. If you think this, please ask yourself why you’re clinging so hard to blaming an entire group of people with no other things inherently in common but an identity label for the actions of individuals. The VAST MAJORITY of ace people do not think the way that was often stereotyped to us because of a vocal minority on tumblr. A lot of us belong to or share experiences with communities that said vocal minority were being bigoted against. If you actually agree with the idea that we’re part of the queer community then stop treating us differently than any other group, holy shit.

TL;DR stop victim-blaming the entire a-spec community because of the actions of a few during the ace discourse period. It doesn’t make sense and it really doesn’t make you look good. Thanks.

*Asterisk here because there’s some debate over whether a lot of the most infamous blogs and examples of this behavior were actually real or were just trolls. Aphobes had (and may still have?) a habit of creating accounts and impersonating a-spec people to make us seem like terrible horrible bigoted cishet meanies that are cringe and/or trying to destroy the REAL queer community with our bare hands. Also a lot of these comments that WERE real were likely made by kids which, while it obviously doesn’t make it okay, does add a layer of complexity to the issue. But, in my opinion, even if every single comment was made by an a-spec adult person that still doesn’t justify any of the harassment our community faced. Stop victim blaming.