#theres a subset of exclusionists going ''wait wait hold on we're not supposed to send the leopards to eat MY face!!''

[caffeineandsociety]

Let's not forget the false flag operations. I remember seeing so, so fucking many fake ace blogs that were literally just there to say the most batshit, completely unreasonable, racist, misogynistic, homophobic, transphobic, sex-negative, body-shamey, parody conservative Christian nonsense you could IMAGINE - think "gay people and trans allos are INHERENTLY aphobic for caring about icky sex, being horny on main is oppressive ESPECIALLY if you're LGBT" and "allos can't wear ANY black jewelry or talk about space or dragons because it's cultural appropriation" and "gay and trans people don't have the right to talk about conversion therapy because more people know it's wrong than ace conversion therapy" and "I'm not attracted to ANYONE it's not bigoted of me to ramble in the tags of every drawing or photo of a Black or fat person about how I DEFINITELY don't want to fuck them lol" and "why would anyone be turned on by MUTILATING their GENITALS I'm way too ace for this transsexual shit lol" and "my asexuality just means I'm a better person than you nasty sex-obsessed PERVERTS who REFUSE to stop OBJECTIFYING each other" and so much more - one of the most well-known of these blogs was still active as recently as 2020 (I think that was the year at least?), only FINALLY deactivating after getting mocked offhandedly in a popular video essay. Most of them were...disgustingly, comically obvious about it, but some were subtle enough to pass for a real person with just some internalized Societal Bullshit (and of course, there were some ace bloggers who did suffer from that for real, but no more so than any other queer subgroup)...which was, of course, never allowed to be just that, oh no; whether an ace blogger putting their foot in their mouth was a real teenager who hadn't unlearned EVERY bad lesson of their bigoted community, or part of an aphobe-to-aphobe circlejerk, whether the latter was believable or obviously fake to anyone willing to spend 0.3 seconds using their brain, it was proof that ALL ace people were just horrible, evil bigots...

And some of them were subtle enough to actually get accepted as...good and true talking points, especially the sex-negativity. Which surprised me at first, but in hindsight, considering how much of it came from terfs and other people whose worldview is basically "sex is bad and objectifying so not wanting it is good RIGHT up until you actually IDENTIFY as ace"...honestly that line of thinking deserves its own whole deep dive, but it's common enough that it sure had an impact on this hellsite.

Of course, it finally died down, so you'd probably want to think this means exclusionists realized how awful they were being and learned their lesson!

Unfortunately...it doesn't. The only lesson they learned was to be a little subtler about it. They also haven't all agreed as THOROUGHLY on a target since, so each wave hasn't been AS all-consuming (quick! who are we supposed to hate right now? The history-denying perverted anime-loving autogynephiles trans girls? The horrible traitorous trans men who transitioned for male privilege, totally definitely got it with no caveats, and STILL dare to complain? The greedy bi lesbians who CLEARLY just want MEN in LESBIAN SPACES? The multigender people who CLEARLY only exist to VIOLATE our precious gendered spaces? The blue-haired and bepronouned transtrenders theyfabs?) - but they're still fucking at it.

And, of course, some of them still think they were always right in hating ace people. There are still fairly popular bloggers who think that asexuality is a disease or a medication side effect. There was an attempt to rehabilitate a notorious sex-negative transmisogynist after deactivation, citing this view as a POSITIVE. They just get more pushback now, because ace discourse is cringe.

I don't think younger/newer users fully grasp the shit show that ace discourse was around 2014-17

It was so hostile that, to this day, discussions that begin to derail just enough can make me physically nauseous, some specific mockery trigger crying sessions years later. We lost most accounts with any sort of ace positivity. There was no information, no support, and all this damage was done predominantly by other queer people.

All this to say that you, however you identify yourself, should be engaging with aphobic comments the same way you do any hate. We don't sugarcoat or try to be comprehensive with people who are blatantly racist, homophobic or terfs, so why give it a pass just because it's coming from a queer person? I see how this tolerance goes and it's done enough damage as it is.