#not all aphobes are exclusionists

[resdayn]

yet another parallel between ace discourse and transmasc discourse:

2017: "aces arent nearly as oppressed as lesbians so they dont need to be in the community! nobody is hatecrimed for being ace."

"2024: "trans men arent nearly as oppressed as trans women so they dont belong in the community! nobody gets mad at someone becoming more masculine."

Meanwhile, aces face the highest rates of conversion therapy among ALL queer people. Transmascs have the highest rates of suicide and sexual assault among all trans people. This will be true whether exclusionists like it or not. Oppression is not a competition. Anyone who acts like it is reveals their own fundamental misunderstanding of intersectionality and queer solidarity.

[transmaverique]

amab and afab, if they were used as shorthand for the actual full phrases that they signify, with emphasis on the "assigned" part, and an understanding that they are enforcements of normative (ie, dyadic and cisgender and binary) sex, would be like. really useful. but people took the terms and started using them as shorthand FOR normative sex instead of the ENFORCEMENT OF normative sex. so when other trans people (almost always dyadic trans people) ask for your agab they are almost always asking for your Original Genital Situation. your starting point, so to say. and the reason FOR asking is also almost always bc they are trying to also enforce a certain kind of normativity within queer spaces (which is stupid bc being queer is inherently non-normative but here we are). like, you cant be a lesbian if you're ftm, bc you ARE m, so if you ARE a lesbian, then that means you're lying about some aspect of your identity. does that make sense?

it is always always always incredibly.... i do not trust dyadic trans people that use cagab terms, even moreso than i do not trust dyadic trans people that just use agab terms. agab is also coopted intersex language, but the "coercive" part of cagab SPECIFICALLY refers to medical "intervention" of intersex characteristics, such as "corrective" surgeries and hrt. i am deeply fucking suspicious of any dyadic trans person that uses those terms exactly the same as described above, even moreso if they do so bc "all gender is coercive".

like. yeah. that's true. but you use these terms to erase and overtake intersex discussions on the medical abuse of intersex infants. and i cant help but wonder why you would feel the need to do that.

[captain-acab]

👮‍♀️ ant1k1nkster14 Follow

We can't let those sexually deviant freaks participate in the annual We Are Not Sexually Deviant Freaks Parade!

[bandtrees]

early mtmte color scheme w the duller greens n such is PEAK to me i love it sm. ft a pride alt ^_^

[currantlee]

Okay, so, apparently this post attracted some unwanted attention from the exact cultists who I was calling out (seriously, why are these people so insistent on seeking out stuff that upsets them? It's unnormal). I've done my best to moderate the comment section and reblogs because I do not want this post to become a vehicle for their misantrophic bullshit, but here are some things I have to say in response to some of these takes.

"The I in LGBTQAI+ stands for Imaginary" It actually stands for Intersex. If you would like to know what that means, here is some information about it.

"Being non-romantic or non-sexual doesn't make you a member of an oppressed group" First up, the people you're talking about are not "non-romantic" or "non-sexual". They experience romantic and sexual attraction in a different way from the allosexual / alloromantic people, similar to how I experience romantic and sexual attraction differently from heterosexual people (I'm a Lesbian). That's what being queer is all about: experiencing love, sex and attraction differently from the allocishetero norm. Secondly, this take is uninformed. Asexual people are common victims of corrective rape and conversion therapy (in fact, they are more likely to get roped into the latter than other orientations). Also, constantly getting asked when you'll get a partner by your family, having a beloved partner leave you because they don't understand your needs in regards to sex, being constantly reminded that something that society considers the purpose of life probably isn't your purpose? I imagine that is very difficult. Even if all of that wasn't the case, this isn't some sick contest of who is more discriminated against. It's about creating a space where we all can feel like we belong.

"Special Snowflakes treat gay people like they're a club for anyone who feels different" You do realize you're reblogging from someone who refers to themselves as a Lesbian Snowflake (see: my blog bio), right? That aside though, no one was talking about the gay subcommunity specifically. We're talking about the queer community, which is largely built around all of our shared experience of not fitting into an allocisheteronormative society - feeling like we don't belong. Creating a space where we do belong has kind of been the entire point from the beginning, so if you think that's a bad thing, 1) I don't know what the hell you're doing in the queer community and 2) you're clearly misinformed.

"Make your own community! You have nothing in common with gay people" Hi. Gay lady here. I disagree. In fact, I believe I have more in common with aros and aces who are trying to live their best life than with some bigots, who try to compensate for their own misery by hurting others. Seriously, what's so bad about having more people be part of your community? It's not a zero-sum game and if anything, sharing the space makes all of us stronger.

The A in LGBTQAI+ does not stand for ally. Yeah, allies are cool and all, but the A isn’t for them. The A is for all lovely aros and aces who are just as queer as I am.

[mspectral]

former exclusionists: huh maybe exclusionism is bad. i accept now that it doesn’t matter what someone’s labels are, we all count as queer in this community. learned my lesson! all good!

the aspec, mspec, nonbinary, polyamorous, and other queer folks who have had to deal with years of harassment and invalidation from exclusionists in their own community: we don’t trust or forgive you.

[stonebutchery]

it's kind of baffling to me that entire sub-groups of queer folks endured a decade of being singled out and targeted for being asexual, aromantic, bisexual, pansexual, nonbinary, polyamorous, etc. and i have yet to see any substantial apologies from people who were directly responsible for causing genuine harm. i find it completely bizarre that there are so many people who want to sweep their past contributions to widespread lateral aggression toward specific queer groups under the rug like it didn't happen so they can wash their hands of it... there are people who are irreversibly traumatized because of this. there are people who took their lives because of it.

i'm wording the post like despite the fact that exclusionism targeting these groups (and more) continues to persist partly because it was a really frighteningly common trend to harass people just because they were ace, aro, bi, pan, nonbinary, poly, etc... and it's crazy to me that many of the people who were affected by this massive multi-pronged public online bullying campaign against the 'unacceptable types of queers' are the ones still receiving messages like "my url got put on an aphobe blocklist in 2016 because apparently a post i made making fun of asexuals got some teenage asexuals harassed and i still distrust asexuals to this day because of that" ...are you fucking kidding me?

we will never achieve any kind of unity as a queer community while we are insisting upon ignoring the hurt that lateral aggression has caused, and acting like the burden lies on the shoulders of the people who were harmed to forgive the people who harmed them and 'just move on', many of whom are not sorry for what they did! or they don't consider what they did to be wrong! how is that not deeply disturbing and troubling to more of you?

03/06/2024 edit: i’m putting a complete moratorium on this post because i am really sick and tired of having my point not only completely misconstrued and distorted entirely but also weaponized against transfems (particularly in replies i have decided to delete about how “ugh yes, exclusionism, and now transfems are bullying transmascs”) i find that really sickening and i’m demanding that it stop, and i can make it stop by turning off reblogs. so i have.

my objective in writing this post was never to request an apology from people who have been laterally-aggressive exclusionists in the past. i don’t think we’ll ever get more than a handful of apologies from those people, anyway. my point was that it was pretty terrifying to witness and experience a lot of lateral aggression that transferred from the real, in-person world to the deeply online spaces back into the real, in-person world in a really fucked up feedback loop and being a young queer person during this time and having that shape me, snd shape the experiences of my queer friends who have been traumatized by it.

however, it is absolutely unacceptable to me that the issue of transmisogyny is so blatantly overlooked by our entire community. for decades, transfems have experienced oppression and exclusion from transmisogyny-exempt women and queers. their exclusion from political queer liberation movements has caused many of the major schisms within our community we are still having arguments about to this day. if you want collective queer liberation, you must uplift transfems. there is no other option. you don’t get to write off all transfems just because one person who happened to be transfem was mean to you online or something.

i have answered and responded to way too many conspiracy-brained transmisogynist reactionaries to allow this post to keep fucking snowballing with people writing paragraphs in the tags about “transmisandry” or “transandrophobia.” please get your heads out of your asses.

this absolutely is the transmisogyny website, as always, and the place where all basic textual comprehension skills go to die, apparently.

[aro-barrel]

i was blissfully ignorant of how much that one poll blew up. all i gotta say is, yikes.

i guess, just a PSA for aspec folks? even if it's tempting, don't get dragged into discourse with aphobes. many of them are set in their beliefs about us. (apparently, they've just been waiting for an opportunity to voice their aphobia.) generally, i see too many aspec people bringing up instances of oppression to prove exclusionists wrong, and honestly? a lot of them don't care. they tend to adhere to some strict definition of queerness that we cannot meet. if we say we face oppression, they'll just move the goalposts.

don't interact with these bad faith actors. you won't change their minds.

on the other hand, it was nice seeing non-aspec people stick up for aspec identities. maybe i saw the poll too late but i saw way more people in the notes supporting aspec identities than not. i genuinely don't think this would've been the case a few years ago. i'd like to believe we're making good progress. crossing my fingers and hoping we don't bring the discourse into 2024.

[ohno-anyways]

At the risk of being super depressing on a positive post, trans might not have been the best comparison to use here.

Aphobia and transphobia often go hand in hand, with aphobia being the start of a pipeline towards becoming a TERF. If you go looking for aphobic posts (or don't, they are fucking vile to look at) you'll find that the people making and rebloging them are mostly TERFs and/or part of the LGB community (you will notice that they have very deliberately dropped the T and several other letters).

My point being, the sort of person who doesn't think aro and/or ace people belong tends to also be the sort of person who would be completely comfortable clicking "no" on this poll.

See how fucking stupid this poll is? This is what all those "are aspec people actually queer" polls are like. This is no different. Stop making these dumbass polls

[ugly-anarchist]

Ace-centric aspecs will literally call alloaros "violently aphobic" for politely asking to be included and to stop pretending like we don't exist

Who cares that I constantly get kicked out of aspec spaces for being alloaro and talking about my sexuality

Who cares that I have people in real life constantly be like "you're ace right?" When I've mentioned being aro before

Who cares that other aspecs tell me that I'm invading their spaces

Who cares that other aspecs throw me under the bus as an argument against exclusionists

Who cares that 90% of alloaros don't know they're alloaro because they either don't know what aro is or assume they have to be ace to be aro

Who cares that aces constantly derail every single non-ace aspec post to make it all about them and erase every single trace of alloaros

Who cares that people specifically want me to be ace because having sexual attraction without romantic attraction is disgusting and shameful and it makes them more comfortable if I lack attraction completely

Who cares that every single aromantic character in media is immediately assumed to be aroace and my representation is seen as "lesser" and unimportant compared to asexual representation

Who cares that the aro flag is constantly left out of pride merch lineups because either people don't know what it is or assume the ace flag is enough

Who cares, right? Who cares that I don't feel safe in either the aspec or the allox2 queer communities?

You can't separate aro and ace so clearly that means you get to tell me I'm aphobic for saying that I don't want to be called aroace.

Fuck me, right? Clearly it's a lot to ask that people just make an effort to include non-ace aros in aro posts that apply to us. Clearly it's too much to ask that non-ace aros just don't fucking derail OUR explicitly alloaro posts to make it about them, right?

Clearly alloaros are the aphobic ones for asking the most represented part of the community to stop actively silencing us.

I'm just a violent aphobe who's disgusted by the mere existence of aroaces.

No no no. Aroace are the victims because I *checks notes* asked them not to contribute to my oppression.

[gray-ace-space]

the other day i got a hate ask aimed at mspec lesbians. i blocked it without fully reading it, but i think it merits a mention that, of what i glimpsed, it was mostly just blatant fatphobia. and it made me think about how, when i see an aphobic comment, 9 times out of 10 it's left by a terf.

though they may hide behind wanting to protect some marginalized groups, exclusionists are never actually progressive. it's all just the same bigots every time.

anyway here are some reminders to the rest of you

[transmaverique]

[image id:

several screenshots of asks sent by the original anonymous asker. they read,

screenshot 1: so eventually they may go 'okay, maybe i should leave'--because, you know, if you're told that all your existence does is /hurt the person you're around/, you'd rather not do that anymore. and the response is 'see! i knew you'd leave! all you do is isolate trans women! so much for love every trans woman before it's too late!' ect ect ect. 2/5

screenshot 2: i GET why trans femmes/women may feel that way but it feels like certain discourse spaces only hype up that paranoia and catastrophizing. i think it results in a lot of trans women expecting-- and even 'testing' their afab friends thinking that innevitably they'll be the transmisogynists the internet said they'd be. waiting on baited breathe for when they'll be ganged up on. it's like the 'you see more red cars when you expect them' or whatever thing. 3/5

screenshot 3: of course, trans women are targeted in a LOT of ways in their own friend groups-- and like, obviously trans women have been horribly targeted elsewhere. and this isn't to dismiss those feelings-- but like... i feel like looking at your friend group and expecting them to attack you like wolves... isn't a healthy way to live. 4/5

screenshot 4: it becomes a very 'damned if you do damned if you don't' moment for everyone else that, from personal experience (with said person STILL convinced i am GOING to personally attack her at ANY moment when i've never indicated such and if anything just want her to leave me tf alone), ends up being an emotional hostage situation created because sometimes the internet convinces you it's better to act like caricature of your real self because vulnerability and honesty is the enemy. 5/5

end id]

(long ask there's gonna be a lot of parts-- if u get these please put them 2gether)i think specifically the thing w some transfemmes and paranoia around 'tmes' (usually trans men and afab nonbinary people lets be real) is it's like a really fucked up game of chicken. They (used collectively, like as in, the group) psyche themselves up for how they'll 'inevitably' get transmisogyny and hurt by their 'afab friends'-- no matter how much said friends may reassure them. 1/5

Yeah, that kind of thinking doesn't help anyone. It just perpetuates a constant culture of being afraid to say anything at all or approach anyone. It should be obvious that's exactly what we need less of.

[carcinoxygen]

G-d I just remembered why you don't get into internet arguments, it's exhausting, you don't change anything, and all that happens is the people your arguing with get more and more disingenuous until they piss you off enough to quit or to say something regrettable.

I was about to continue an extended argument with an exclusionist t3rf who used the asexual tags specifically to call us freaks, but when I read the rest of their reblogs with like, the two dozen other people they were already arguing with, I realized that this person wasn't contributing anything and only pissing myself off and giving this person this person what they actually wanted.

PSA to fellow aspecs: don't argue with the aphobes, exclusionists or the t3rfs, it just feeds into what they're really after: more ammo to show how hostile their "enemy" is. All you will be doing is making yourself more bitter

There's been a lot of good things going on for the aspec tags, focus on creating, uplifting other people, and more than anything, prove to everyone else that you aren't going anywhere.

And remember that filtered tags are a thing, use them (not foolproof, sometimes aphobes will "invade" our tags but it helps)

[qilingxiong]

one thing is that like, yeah there's always going to be ace/arophobes and exclusionists in this world but if you get offline enough and give it time you're going to find queer people who genuinely do not give a shit, or will be happy that you're one of them with a different label. yesterday i was out for drinks with people after we did a gig and we ended up comparing who at the table wasn't straight (it's acappella let's be honest, we're the majority), and one person sort of hesitantly asked "uhhhhh i don't know, do i count if i'm ace?" and the rest of the (allo) table immediately jumped to say that yes, they're queer, of course they count, we're all together here. nobody in that group, queer or not, has ever had a problem with me being aroace, or made any assumptions about me/asked weird questions as a result. idk just. if you feel like aphobes are everywhere and especially online where it's easier for them to be vocal i promise one day you're gonna find a place and people for yourself in your life where they're drowned out

[our-arospec-experience]

The Split Attraction Model (SAM)

*keep in mind, not everyone uses or accepts this model, and wherever you stand with this model, you are valid. This is purely informational, not a guideline.

The Split Attraction Model (SAM) differentiates attraction into different forms.

The SAM allows individuals to describe their orientations separately, for example, aromantic and pansexual.

some individuals may also include a tertiary attraction in their identities.

Not all a-spec individuals use the SAM, most notably, non-SAM aros.

Some individuals prefer more precise terms for differentiation such as "romantic orientation", "attraction types", etc.

Not every individual who experiences different types of attraction necessarily have a distinct romantic orientation, and not every individual who has a romantic orientation necessarily experiences multiple types of attraction.

History:

the idea was first recorded in 1879 by Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, who published several books on non-heterosexual attraction

it's next use was in 1979 by psychologist Dorothy Tennov in 'Love and Limerence: The Experience of Being in Love'

became common in a-spec circles by 2009

The term was origionally developed from aphobes and exclusionists who insisted the a-spec community of forcing everyone to split their orientation into multiple parts.

The term was adopted by a-spec communities in order to talk about the issue.

SAM flag:

[ijustwannamakeemojis]

To find all of our pixels look -> rentry link <- text is a link

-> Request list <-

I use pixel studio by hippo to make the hearts

While not perfect I keep every flag of pixels I've made if you need it

Adult anons are always allowed to flirt with me and send anon love letters ♡

I follow from @spadescrewcoining and Our Main Main is @spadesmidnightcrew We have a few different blogs because having too much on our dash makes us overwhelmed

The pixels will always be free but if you wanna support a mf here is my kofi link if y'all manage to donate 25$ I'll start streaming pixel making

Our wife adds the links to the posts please send them thanks

rules:

-> Won't do tranx flags unless reclaimed like a transautistic which is for people who are trans and autistic

-> -> Will do Dissomei and other anti radqueer terms

-> Won't do flags by aphobs, pan/biphobes, sysmeds/antiendos, antikin, or other exclusionists of harmless things

-> There is no limit to the amount of flags in one request

-> Will do any liom flags queer, mental/physical health, kin/therian, objectum, countries or videogame/fantasy worlds either i just like flags

We are 24 and completely okay with NSFW terms

⚠️Boundaries when it comes to making your own pixel hearts: Link one Link two⚠️

I do ten shapes now! You can now get emojis in ♥️♠️♦️♣️

Our spouse& is also willing to make personal system flags in the & sign!

The Homestuck House Gif Rules

-> Link for og

-> Please send one request at a time but you may send as many asks as you want we don't have a request limit

-> For the time being I will only be doing simpler flags and no flag symbols unless I find an easy way to do them (I am far from an expert animator I've made like 4 gifs in my life and the idea of trying to rotate a part of a flag symbol is a little stressful at our skill level of 1)

Flag designs we've done rentry (the list was getting long)

Other cool pixel/edit artists!

@goofylittleprideflags (small flags!) @eparchclass (SCP flag edits & coining!) @redacted-coiner (pixel circles and coining!) @dizzy-lights (Pixel hearts, stars and animated flags) @dragonpride17 (Pride blinkies, hearts, venn diagrams and coining!) @synthsys (Hazard symbol pride edits) @lunaridae (small flags and other graphic)

DNI: cthonicascendant and his fucking BIL (IRL abuser who had their BIL stalk our tumblr)