#but the overlap isn't 100% so i cant trust that just because i recognize a character i can actually figure out the meaning

[rinofwater]

Inside me are two wolves and one of them says "you took Japanese in high school, you should keep that up and take this spin-off novel as a challenge to push you to pick it back up" and the other says "that's going to take FOREVER to get good enough with to actually be able to read the bitch just put it through a translator" and then the first side says "but auto-translators are hit-or-miss with accuracy, or did you want another visit of sir Drug Dealer with his magical Marijuana Sword?" and then the second side says "it'll be close enough! Probably! And you need more than hiragana to read this, you just do!"

Conclusion: send help please

[goatsandgangsters]

i think "not facing what we do" isn't meant to insinuate all LGBT experiences are alike, but there are actual witch hunts for these people, actual laws discriminating against them, businesses are allowed to not serve them, a fear that if they're outed they'll become victims of cruel and despicable abuse. they're not saying asexuals don't face problems, just that you cant insert yrself into their struggle. poc w/ lighter skin recognize their privilege over those w/ darker skin. it's like that

I mean, I’m literally a queer person and I trip over myself to avoid saying “my girlfriend” at work because I don’t want to out myself to anyone—not to mention that I’m pretty resigned to never being out as nonbinary anywhere IRL—so trust me, I know what these people struggle with. I’m aware. I’m living this life.

Ace people aren’t inserting themselves. They already belong here. They have historically been part of this community. A large portion of ace people are other ~LGBT~ letters and feel really unsafe in their own LGBT “community” as a result of this rhetoric. (Ace people belong regardless of any other letter in their identity but I’m trying not to write a novel.)

And this is what we’re having an intracommunity conversation about—the way that people come up with really baseless bullshit arguments to shut the door on ace people. 

TW going forward here but:

Studies have shown that straight people view ace people as inherently less human and less trustworthy. Ace people are sexually assaulted and raped because of their sexuality (both historically and in the present day). Ace people are dehumanized, their stories of survivorship are doubted and mocked, gay/bi/pan ace people are routinely told they aren’t ~gay/bi/pan enough~ because they’re ace. Asexuality, until very recently, was considered a disorder by mental health professionals and something that should be treated. Historically, ace people have a very long history of being part of this community. Historically, ace people were often considered part of the bi community, actually, regardless of their romantic orientations.

People do actually argue that aces don’t belong at all, and they use “well the acronym is lgbt sooooo” as justification for it, which is ridiculous and completely counter to the history of the acronym’s function. Bisexual people literally had to fight to get it from LG to LGB, in 1993, which coincidentally was the year of my birth, so this has changed within my lifetime and it’s ridiculous that anyone acts like it’s some set-in-stone justification for intracommunity gatekeeping.

I’m trying to stay in my lane with the comparison to POC, because I’m white and I’m not part of these conversations, but I think it’s worth pointing out that, in your analogy, light-skinned POC are still considered POC. Whereas people are saying that ace people—including ace people who are gay/bi/pan/trans/nb—don’t really belong and never belonged, so I feel like it’s not quite the same

I’m aware of discrimination. I’m bi/queer (also, for the record, I’m not even ace). There are different forms of discrimination that exist within the community and between the varying letters. There’s a lot of overlap and there’s a lot of difference, on both an identity basis and a personal basis. And ace people deal with that shit, too. Sometimes it’s not 100% the same shit—but that could be said of any letter or any individual. But frankly, there is a LOT of overlap, there’s a lot of history, and exclusionist gatekeeping rhetoric protects no one and harms many.