#fun fact about me is im demi! which is a type of asexual

[the-final-knight]

Fun facts about tam. First off she is withholding a song til line of her yt community posts reaches 10 votes. And secondly she might be maybe she still isn’t sure yet asexual

Oh that's awesome! Ace people are rad

[transmasc-wizard]

@letters-to-lgbt-kids' 22 Questions for Nonbinary November!

1.Which labels do you use? Transmasculine, nonbinary, genderqueer, nonbinary trans guy, transmasc. (only counting gender labels)

2.What are your pronouns? he/they! No preference.

3.How old were you when you came out to yourself as nonbinary? Uh... idk exactly but it was like a year ago? ish? depends on whether you count the other 3 times i came out to myself lmao.

4.What’s one thing you’d like to tell your younger self? "hey there's actually a Reason you hate being called pretty and avoid mirrors like the plague and really want a flat chest. Wild, right"

5.Is there a myth about nonbinary people that annoys you the most? that we're all unaligned and want to be androgynous. I DO want to be andro, in the sense of being fem and masc at the same time, but others don't. Also, i'm masc-alligned.

6.Is there a nonbinary celebrity you look up to? This might be cheap lol but Demi Lovato, i like their music, so... yeah.

7.If you’re out, how did you come out? I am not ~technically~ out. But my friend knows; i was like "hey i think im transmasc" and she said "ok cool". but i came out to my family and it was. interesting lmao

8.Is there a gender-related pun you like? non-beenary. Also: trans people should handle the money because everything we do is a transaction im so sorry

9.Do you have friends who identify as nonbinary, too? friend-ish people, yeah. Also i have a friend who jokes she's "{name}gender" and says he is ok with literally any pronouns so... we may have an egg here.

10.Do you have a favorite lgbt+ character? Hmmmm Nico Di Angelo is my namesake but i honestly can't pick lmao.

11. Lgbt, lgbt+, lgbtqa+… which one do you usually use? Queer. I have a long, long post explaining why, but i hate being called LGBT unless you also call me queer lmao

12. How do you explain the term “nonbinary” to people who have no idea what it means? "i do not vibe with gender". or, "boy is here, girl is here, no gender is here, and i am here" *points between boy and no gender*. they usually get it

13.Tell us a fun fact about yourself (gender-related or random!) i am absolutely obsessed with books and if you want a book of any genre or type or trope just ask me via asks or anon and i will throw ALL THE RECS at u

14.How did you find your name? I stole it from Nico Di Angelo <3

15.If you’re in a relationship, how did your partner react to your coming-out? I'm a single pringle who doesn't wanna mingle lol, but my FRIENDS were all pretty good (except one. she's a transphobic asshole and i kinda hate her now)

16.Do you prefer partner, datemate, significant other or something else? i mean i've never dated and don't really wanna but my theoretical partner would call me boyfriend or partner in crime. the "in crime" would not be optional and i would not date someone who would object to it

17.A piece of advice for questioning kids? don't treat labels like they own you. E.g. if you ID as straight then really wanna date a boy/girl/ur gender, don't jump thru hoops explaining away that emotion--just use bi or pan or something else that fits. Also, it's ok to change labels!! i did like 20 times before i settled on my labels i've been using for about 8 months now!!

18.Which flag(s) do you use? nonbinary, genderqueer, aroace, bi, trans, transmasculine, asexual, aromantic. Look em up urself, tumblr won't let me post the images

19.Any tips for bad days? read a book. write a story. draw a picture. it doesn't have to be good, just do it. it helps

20.Do you have a favorite nonbinary blog on tumblr? i like @neopronounsmybelovaed, @lgb-positivi-t (not NB specific tho), and @letters-to-lgbt-kids (also not nonbinary specific tho). idk i havent seen a lot of NB blogs--reccomendations are appreciated!

21.Feminine, masculine, androgynous - or none of those things? i would like to be all of them at once but also femme but also manly masc boy but also 'my gender is gay and my sexuality is nonbinary' but also do not percieve me but ALSO-- (u get the idea)

22. What are your three favorite things about yourself? ah fuck uh. i like my writing. I like my ability to usually find good friends. i like how i will literally consume All The Information related to the things i like (in other words, talk to me about the raven cycle or writing pls).

[whelpokaythen]

hey if you are a part of the lgbtqa+ community please read

*and give some advice if you’d like, i dont feel like i have anyone else to talk to about my sexuality — please be nice*

so i’ve been questioning my sexuality since i was 13 and identified as bisexual at age 17 came out to my friends as bi at 18 and now im 21 and questioning again (which im aware is perfectly valid :))

although it was known to me before, and when i was younger, i cant help but continue to find that people everywhere talk about sex all the time. it feels as if it is the only thing that is worth living for. i assumed it was because of how in today’s society we live with hyper-sexualization in media but now im not so sure.

so i thought maybe i just have a low libido like maybe it’s a side affect of my depression or something else medical but then i had a thought that perhaps, i am asexual

and over the past few weeks i’ve read alot of articles about asexuality and some make me feel like that label could apply and others make it sound like it’s not quite “me”

like yeah we could have sex or we could go to the aquarium, y’know? like as long as im spending time with you

so because my mind has gone dizzy in circles around the deciphering of my sexuality i decided to list the things i know for fact (because what else is there to do besides overshare on the internet to a bunch of strangers?)

i find some men attractive

i find some women attractive

i find some non-binary people attractive

i’ve figured out my “types”

personality of a partner is important but i think looks are important too (thats not shallow, right?)

the thought of sex sounds intimate and i would like it to be taken as a serious and personal moment, at least for the first few times

after dating someone for a while i’d like sex to be fun and funny and less intimate but also sometimes romantic and intimate

(dont know if this is because i am a virgin but) i will not have sex until im sure we could date a long while or until it feels right

i do not desperately crave sex

but the concept of it sounds nice

i do not masturbate more than like once every two months

i read and enjoy gay/lesbian/straight romance fan fiction (usually slowburn haha)

i’ve kissed people before

i like kissing people

i’ve cuddled people before

i like cuddling people

i am a virgin

the thought of oral sex is not appealing to me what so ever :/

i am a cis woman

i am also comfortable with labels such as gay (as an umbrella term), bi, sapphic (sorry if i use that wrong but it’s a comfortable label to me), femme, and now ace feels pretty comfortable too

and i’ve thought about demi-romantic which kinda fits but it doesnt seem right either depending, again, on the definion

basically i feel like a three way venn diagram

and i dont even know if this is a thing or if it is valid which is why i bring my case to tumblr so maybe someone can help or bring advice/comfort

like some people can be straight and ace right? so i can be bi and ace?

it feels safer to remain where i am under the bisexual umbrella but now that ace sounds safe too and oh man i just run myself in circles. then i breathe and i realize in the long run that the only title that really fits me best is “Me” so as long as i know that i’ll be alright :)

[afearing]

since apparently theres no consequences for delivering unto this website extremely long and good takes i will present to you my hot take on the ace d'escourse, with no sources because I Dont Feel Like It. its more words than is reasonable bc i have been stewing in this for like 4 years and if i dont type it out at some point im going to fucking lose it. no, literally, it’s 3 pages long in word about shit no one cares about anymore. please remember to like and subscribe.

some background on me, i id’d as ace for something like 8 years, from the first time i read the wikipedia page on it back in maybe 2009 or thereabouts. i also id’d as aro for about a year in 2016. that is to say, i have a lot of compassion and understanding for asexual individuals and feel i understand the inclusionist side of the argument pretty well, as i never questioned inclusionism until maybe 2014 or so, when the discourse blew up. i took some time off tumblr because i was so fucking distraught to think that, as i id’d as aroace at the time, that i had to come to terms with not being lgbt. lol i was a little too attached to being ‘gay’ because... fun fact, past dumbass self... you are gay. anyway, i really dont want anyone to feel that i hate them, but after i cooled off a little bit i realized that the exclusionist take on asexuality just makes more sense. hopefully i can explain why clearly enough.

i really believe that what is understood as aphobia is 100% of the time simply a manifestation of our culture’s expectations surrounding sexuality. while “expectations surrounding sexuality” as a very broad topic does indeed cover both the lgbt community and people on the ace spectrum, facing these issues does NOT make a person lgbt. i subscribe to the idea that lgbt is for people targeted directly by homophobia and transphobia. ace issues ARE super important to talk about and the whole inclus/exclus nonsense is entirely because this discourse has been put under the wrong category. im aware that probably most people will not care that much about my opinion on the correct framing of asexual activism as i no longer id as ace but i think this is important for everyone. sexual expectations also weigh on straight individuals, especially women, and i’m going to describe a few examples to try to demonstrate why i believe both that it doesn’t make sense to consider asexuality lgbt as well as why it does make sense to frame it as an issue based mainly in misogyny.

call out post for myself, i use reddit, and i think the r/childfree community is a good example of what i think the framing should be like. although it’s acknowledged that not wanting children has larger social consequences for women, both men and women talk about their issues in the forum, including horrific accounts of reproductive coercion and rape, the intersections with race/being lgbt/ageism (although they could do a LOT better with intersectionality, many posters do touch upon it), profoundly cruel comments made by those who have/want children, difficulty finding an understanding relationship partner, discrimination at work, misunderstandings and even hatred from family and acquaintances, discrimination in healthcare, etc.

i think you can tell where i’m going with this. even though being childfree cuts against the expectations for sexuality in most societies, even though it leads to unfair judgment from others, and even though they face discrimination on the basis of the way they express their sexuality, childfree people do NOT frame parenthood/childfreedom as an axis of oppression, nor do they claim that their lack of desire for children makes them lgbt. it’s not even a question if straight childfree people are straight, because duh? nor if the presence of lgbt childfree people makes the whole community fall under the lgbt umbrella, because it obviously doesn’t.

to drive the point home, the reason why this is NOT an axis of oppression is because parents face a ton of issues as well! they also face reproductive coercion as well as judgment over the number of kids they have, constant scrutiny and moralization over every aspect of their parenthood style, judgment based on parents’ age/wealth/sexuality/marital or dating status/race, housing and employment discrimination, especially for mothers, the government hating poor parents and cutting their benefits, and more i’m sure i’m not thinking of. again, this is due to societal expectations of sexuality. to complete the analogy, people who aren’t ace face their own set of challenges and discrimination. part of homophobia/biphobia is tinged with hatred of our sexual attraction; no one except for straight white men is allowed to really express their sexuality without backlash, and even then there is this shame leading to a lack of proper sex ed and horribly unhealthy understandings of sexual attraction in a large portion of the populace. so calling aphobia an axis of oppression is just not right. and in addition, the large proportion of lgbt aces doesn’t make asexuality lgbt, that’s not how groups work.

some more on what i mean by ‘expectations around sexuality’... in terms of my experience in the US, there is some blueprint in many people’s minds of what a person should be like in terms of sexuality, and that is something like “cishet, abled man, who is neither ace nor aro, who gets laid regularly (but not to excess) starting no later than 18 and ending no later than 28 when he settles down with one cishet abled wife, also neither ace nor aro, who has only had sex with up to three committed boyfriends, and they have precisely two children, approximately two years apart in age, whom the parents can financially and emotionally support to the utmost, because they are also moderately to very well off, and the parents work under traditional gender roles to raise their children as conventionally as possible.” and if you deviate from this script in ANY way that’s viewed with moral panic and scrutiny by someone. and the connection to misogyny is that women are seen as sort of the bastions of sexual morality. we are punished especially harshly for nonconformity.

if you’re poor you’re fucked because either you don’t have kids or you can’t send them off to private schools and feed them fancy organic shit. if you’re lgbt or polyamorous or aro or ace? fucked! if you dare to reproduce as a disabled person, and if your disability impacts your parenthood, especially for women, you’re practically crucified even in liberal circles. if you have too few kids or too many (don’t you know only kids turn out weird? / how can you possibly raise 5 children properly?), if you have too much sex or too little, if you split up the work in your relationship not along gender lines, if you do unconventional things in your parenthood, like accept your trans kids or move a lot or any number of other things, the social judgment rains down like the fires of fucking hell. meaning practically no one can escape it!! huge bonus to the screaming crowd with pitchforks if you’re a person of color or a woman, mega ultra bonus to women of color.

but does that make everyone i just talked about lgbt? no! although every single one of the groups i mentioned is tangentially related through this issue, even though all of them face a lot of horrible problems and discrimination, that does not make those issues inherently lgbt. again, they are tangentially related and i could see a good case for solidarity among many of the groups mentioned; all of them are fighting for greater acceptance of different kinds of relationships, greater acceptance of seeking happiness and being who you are rather than pressuring everyone to conform as much as possible to the LifeScript. but all of those groups are equally related to the lgbt community - that is, tangentially only. just as you can be childfree and straight, a stay-at-home dad and straight, a straight woman of color, so too can you be polyamorous and straight, ace and straight, or aro and straight.

that’s it for my main point. ace and aro people? your lives are hard. i’m not going to downplay it in any way because i know there are a lot of people who actually hate your guts. fuck, i’ve seen people full-on shittalk asexuality, in the internet and real life, in the most blatant of ways, so it’s not just something you can necessarily escape by logging off. not as much so for aro people tbh but i predict as much once the Public gets more wind of your existence. i fully believe that you face a higher risk of sexual assault; discrimination in relationships, housing, and the workplace; horrible comments from everyone who thinks their shitty opinion on your sexuality and love life matters; and I believe you that that hurts and is terrible and that you deserve a place to discuss and provide support.

but. those issues are not exclusive to you. they’re not exclusive to lgbt people, or oppressed people, and so those issues don’t and cannot make you lgbt, nor do they make ace/aro vs. allo an axis of oppression. our communities intersect, yes, considerably, but you are not a subset of lgbt. perhaps our rhetoric can help you, but because straight ace and aro people exist you cannot and should not consider yourselves lgb+. i think you understand that the issues you face are a form of oppression, but they are the result of the toxic and misogynistic sex culture in this society, which, yes, targets lgbt people but also, practically everyone, including groups which are definitively absolutely not inherently lgbt, such as parents, gnc straight people, poc, disabled people, the list goes on.

to conclude, what really converted me to being an ace exclusionist was the example of a straight grey or demi ace. how could you possibly argue that someone who falls in love with the opposite gender only, but with more conditions or less frequently than someone not aspec, is lgb+, can call themselves queer, etc.? exactly what material reality does that person share with a gay or bi person? i think that their issues fall in line with aspec community issues but extremely clearly not at all with lgbt ones. 

the end but post script since i brought up orientation modifiers: perhaps it isn’t my place to say, but i don’t think that microlabels are very healthy and that it would make more sense for the ace community to work on expanding the idea of what sexuality is than to try to create a label to describe every single person’s experience of their sexuality. not that i think you should necessarily kick grey ace people out of the aspec community or that they’re not valid or whatever, but that perhaps it makes more sense to say that some people experience sexual attraction less frequently, and that’s alright. i don’t know.  i spent sophomore year of high school poring over those mogai blogs looking for some new orientation label that would make me go like, oh my god that’s me! and believing that if those labels helped people feel that way they weren’t doing any harm. but what actually finally made me feel like that was expanding my understanding of what attraction is and a better conception of lesbian issues and why i might feel so disconnected from my sexuality and why i might be obsessing over every interaction with a guy looking for signs i was attracted to him but feel super disgusted whenever they exhibited interest in me. i spent so long trying to go like maybe im cupioromantic lithsexual and feeling terrified that that i had such a weird and esoteric sexuality that no one could ever possibly understand enough to be in a relationship with me... like, ok dyke! i know a lot of people have had similar experiences and i don’t think i know a whole ton of people now in college who are still doing that, which makes me think those labels are more harmful than not. 

i guess that’s anecdotal but it’s easier for me to believe that a person could cling to those labels due to internalized homophobia than actually have a new form of sexuality heretofore undiscovered throughout all human history, but that’s just me. and so many of them just sound so unhealthy, like dreadsexual. i really wish people would work on expanding what not being asexual can mean and look like and i dont think there would be this drive to create these labels anymore. even demisexual which i think is probably the most mainstream conditional orientation, i think many people who have never heard of it and are perfectly content not to would describe the way they experience sexuality a similar way and just consider it normal. sexual attraction isn’t necessarily having your nethers set aflame upon first making eye contact with someone, it looks different for every person and it’s alright to just be how you are without making it part of your whole identity.

The End II. this is 2,200 words. if you read this far you’re a fucking mad l- *the academy cuts my mic line while looking directly at the camera like in the office*