Fun fact - they added an umbrella for "sex workers" on the official Pride flag and...the flag is just so ugly now. We might as well just have a quilt style flag where every group gets their own swsire at this point.
Oh yes I saw that version a few years ago! Progress pride + SW umbrella like... if you want an inclusive flag, just make a new inclusive flag. Stop pasting random elements on the rainbow flag (which was pretty ugly to begin with, let's be honest).
I'm gonna push back for my ace friends, because pushing back against "Ace just basically means heterosexual with no sex" is part of the issue with ace erasure in places like pride! Ace doesn't mean heterosexual with no sex, ace means that functionally a huge part of human experience communication doesn't translate because what everyone assumes you desire isn't the case. Sure, there are heteroromantic asexuals, but I am way more likely to encounter biromantic/panromantic or full ace asexuals than I am to meet other people on the ace spectrum but "still basically het."
I think a part of the reason this discourse cuts so hard for asexual folks in the community is it feels like saying that the asexual part of them isn't really queer when for asexuals (and aromantics, idly, speaking up for myself!) it's some of the queerest-feeling parts of ourselves. Saying that someone counts as queer when they're a homoromantic asexual but not if they're an aromantic asexual feels genuinely weird to me but it's an argument that I have seen.
There is something to be said for the ways in which trying to make an umbrella community has failed as far as Discourse goes, but it's also true as we have been discussing that queer spaces are often where people go to figure themselves out when they come to the conclusion, "I'm not Normal, but I don't know what I am." Figuring out your own gender and sexuality and romantic attractions from the entire spectrum of human existence rather than from the boxes your doctor checked when they looked at your genitals on your first day is what the queer community is about to me, and I think that asexuality (and to an extent aromanticism as well!) really needs that in the flood of "If you are a dude obviously you want sex with women" and "if you are a woman you want a man with a checkbook because that will make you want to have sex with him" messages we get otherwise.
I mean I don’t particularly romanticize the queer community as a place to find oneself given my… mixed!… experiences with queer community but YMMV. I don’t think everything has to be under the same umbrella to support and be in alliance with one another.
Absolutely, but you're still upset if someone tells you that because bisexuals don't have the same experiences as monosexual queers they don't belong at Pride or in the community, right? The argument "Asexuals really belong in another group that better fits their interests" is both ignoring the fact that yes, asexuals do have their own groups that do better fit their interests, and that the argument is about policing asexuals out of queer spaces. Are all queer spaces good for all people? Obviously not! Do we need more rhetoric that suggests asexuals aren't "really" queer and don't belong at pride? No!
I was coming here to say something similar to this. There was another post (I forget which) that asked what a straight cis ace man has in common with an alloseuxal trans lesbian, and my answer to that is "they're both part of groups targeted for conversion therapy to make them cis, straight and allosexual". Like, it goes beyond "we're all harmed by cisheteropatriarchy"; straight aro and ace people are targeted by many of the same attacks as queer aro and ace people, and I think that saying that they "aren't queer" or "don't inherently have a place at Pride" hampers their ability to get support for the queerphobic attacks they face. I don't think someone has to have *personally* faced conversion therapy to be considered queer, but I think that it's a pretty obvious sign that their identity is considered queer by cis-het-patriarchy. (This also doubles as an argument for the inclusion of polyam and kinky people, since both of those groups are also subjected to conversion practises.)
I think when you try and take the middle path of "straight ace/polyam/kinky people aren't queer, but queer ace/polyam/kinky people should represent themselves at pride", you're saying that ace/polyam/kink identities and experiences can't be queer in their own right. IMO that's harmful to queer people who also have those identities, since it encourages onlookers to recategorise their experiences as "just homophobia" rather than seeing the anti-ace (etc) dimensions that are present as well -- even if the anti-ace dimension is the most important one in the mind of the person it happened to.
I've also seen it lead to harassment of people who identify as ace and refuse to say whether they're a "straight ace" or a "gay ace" -- not everyone uses the split attraction model, and they shouldn't have to in order to be in queer spaces. But that's only possible if asexuality is accepted as a queer identity in its own right.
Straight polyam people may be at political cross-purposes with monogamous queers, but they *aren't* at cross-purposes with polyam queers, and it seems odd to me to prioritise the difference rather than the similarity. There are loads of instances of groups working against each other in the queer community; using that as the deciding factor in excluding ace, polyam, and kinky people feels to me like it's falling into the above issue of treating those experiences as inherently non-queer, and only becoming queer if they're experienced by a gay, bi, or trans person -- even if the discrimination is the exact same in both cases.
I get being lukewarm about the concept of "the queer community" in general, I am too -- you basically get shit from all sides if you're a bisexual trans man. At the same time, I think the queer community is also often the only place offering support for the kinds of harms that ace, polyam and kinky people face, in no small part because of the gay ace, kinky, and polyam people experiencing those harms.
There are obviously separate communities for those groups, and I think that they're important too, but communication between those communities and queer communities can be patchy -- not least because of anti-ace/kink/polyam antagonism from queer people who aren't those things and think that they're "just straight people trying to invade the community". So resources to support ace/kinky/polyam people created within the queer community don't always filter out to the specific communities they're addressing. I think that considering ace/kinky/polyam people to be queer (regardless of their other identities) is helpful to people who need to access that support and isn't really that damaging to the queer community.
Fun fact - they added an umbrella for "sex workers" on the official Pride flag and...the flag is just so ugly now. We might as well just have a quilt style flag where every group gets their own swsire at this point.
Oh yes I saw that version a few years ago! Progress pride + SW umbrella like... if you want an inclusive flag, just make a new inclusive flag. Stop pasting random elements on the rainbow flag (which was pretty ugly to begin with, let's be honest).
I wish more people would be open about this!
I'm gonna push back for my ace friends, because pushing back against "Ace just basically means heterosexual with no sex" is part of the issue with ace erasure in places like pride! Ace doesn't mean heterosexual with no sex, ace means that functionally a huge part of human experience communication doesn't translate because what everyone assumes you desire isn't the case. Sure, there are heteroromantic asexuals, but I am way more likely to encounter biromantic/panromantic or full ace asexuals than I am to meet other people on the ace spectrum but "still basically het."
I think a part of the reason this discourse cuts so hard for asexual folks in the community is it feels like saying that the asexual part of them isn't really queer when for asexuals (and aromantics, idly, speaking up for myself!) it's some of the queerest-feeling parts of ourselves. Saying that someone counts as queer when they're a homoromantic asexual but not if they're an aromantic asexual feels genuinely weird to me but it's an argument that I have seen.
There is something to be said for the ways in which trying to make an umbrella community has failed as far as Discourse goes, but it's also true as we have been discussing that queer spaces are often where people go to figure themselves out when they come to the conclusion, "I'm not Normal, but I don't know what I am." Figuring out your own gender and sexuality and romantic attractions from the entire spectrum of human existence rather than from the boxes your doctor checked when they looked at your genitals on your first day is what the queer community is about to me, and I think that asexuality (and to an extent aromanticism as well!) really needs that in the flood of "If you are a dude obviously you want sex with women" and "if you are a woman you want a man with a checkbook because that will make you want to have sex with him" messages we get otherwise.
I mean I don’t particularly romanticize the queer community as a place to find oneself given my… mixed!… experiences with queer community but YMMV. I don’t think everything has to be under the same umbrella to support and be in alliance with one another.
Absolutely, but you're still upset if someone tells you that because bisexuals don't have the same experiences as monosexual queers they don't belong at Pride or in the community, right? The argument "Asexuals really belong in another group that better fits their interests" is both ignoring the fact that yes, asexuals do have their own groups that do better fit their interests, and that the argument is about policing asexuals out of queer spaces. Are all queer spaces good for all people? Obviously not! Do we need more rhetoric that suggests asexuals aren't "really" queer and don't belong at pride? No!
I was coming here to say something similar to this. There was another post (I forget which) that asked what a straight cis ace man has in common with an alloseuxal trans lesbian, and my answer to that is "they're both part of groups targeted for conversion therapy to make them cis, straight and allosexual". Like, it goes beyond "we're all harmed by cisheteropatriarchy"; straight aro and ace people are targeted by many of the same attacks as queer aro and ace people, and I think that saying that they "aren't queer" or "don't inherently have a place at Pride" hampers their ability to get support for the queerphobic attacks they face. I don't think someone has to have *personally* faced conversion therapy to be considered queer, but I think that it's a pretty obvious sign that their identity is considered queer by cis-het-patriarchy. (This also doubles as an argument for the inclusion of polyam and kinky people, since both of those groups are also subjected to conversion practises.)
I think when you try and take the middle path of "straight ace/polyam/kinky people aren't queer, but queer ace/polyam/kinky people should represent themselves at pride", you're saying that ace/polyam/kink identities and experiences can't be queer in their own right. IMO that's harmful to queer people who also have those identities, since it encourages onlookers to recategorise their experiences as "just homophobia" rather than seeing the anti-ace (etc) dimensions that are present as well -- even if the anti-ace dimension is the most important one in the mind of the person it happened to.
I've also seen it lead to harassment of people who identify as ace and refuse to say whether they're a "straight ace" or a "gay ace" -- not everyone uses the split attraction model, and they shouldn't have to in order to be in queer spaces. But that's only possible if asexuality is accepted as a queer identity in its own right.
Straight polyam people may be at political cross-purposes with monogamous queers, but they *aren't* at cross-purposes with polyam queers, and it seems odd to me to prioritise the difference rather than the similarity. There are loads of instances of groups working against each other in the queer community; using that as the deciding factor in excluding ace, polyam, and kinky people feels to me like it's falling into the above issue of treating those experiences as inherently non-queer, and only becoming queer if they're experienced by a gay, bi, or trans person -- even if the discrimination is the exact same in both cases.
I get being lukewarm about the concept of "the queer community" in general, I am too -- you basically get shit from all sides if you're a bisexual trans man. At the same time, I think the queer community is also often the only place offering support for the kinds of harms that ace, polyam and kinky people face, in no small part because of the gay ace, kinky, and polyam people experiencing those harms.
There are obviously separate communities for those groups, and I think that they're important too, but communication between those communities and queer communities can be patchy -- not least because of anti-ace/kink/polyam antagonism from queer people who aren't those things and think that they're "just straight people trying to invade the community". So resources to support ace/kinky/polyam people created within the queer community don't always filter out to the specific communities they're addressing. I think that considering ace/kinky/polyam people to be queer (regardless of their other identities) is helpful to people who need to access that support and isn't really that damaging to the queer community.