(((I Will Outlive)))

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.

I’ve met new aces who know nothing about ace culture. We had rings, black for ace, white for aro. We had dragons and space and cake and all of it. All of it got mocked and erased and bullied so completely that it’s not on the site anymore. I still follow the aro/ace positivity tags and sometimes someone brings them up again and I flinch. I honest to god flinch.

Hell, I came out as aroace at the same time as that discourse - and AVEN got so thoroughly smeared that I’ve never gone looking for it. There’s culture I don’t know. It kills me.

I used to run a blog for ace rep in books, I deleted it out of fear that I was going to get harassed.

When ace folk talk about being forced back into the closet we are not joking. Anyone on the ace spectrum were so violently harrassed that it was legitmately safer for them to not ID as ace publicly. Literally anything would get you death threats.

Anti-ace folks were in bed with terfs and I'm sorry if that upsets people but yall really gotta understand that literally every anti-ace talking point was the exact same that is given to bisexuals, pansexuals, and trans women.

They talked about how we were "stealing resources", about how we were "predators" because we "sexualized children" with our identities as being asexual, about how we are "invading LGBT spaces".

There were multiple anti-ace "memes" that were just straight up death threats. "Take the shot Jessica" followed up with "Target Sighted" is one that still haunts me to this day.

Some of the biggest "exclusionist" discourse blogs all ended up being white women, several of whom race faked. One even claimed to be a Half-black half-jewish intersex trans woman who would become half of whatever race she was arguing with. It took a massive amount of people all pouring evidence into what she was doing for her to finally get dropped because oh yea, maybe its a bad look to have the white christian perisex girl be the "face" after all of this.

Ace people were routinely told that their sexual assaults didn't happen. People routinely told us that we can't have words to describe our oppression because it "groups gay people with straights". Ace people were routinely told that because we aren't sent to conversion therapy that we weren't "actually LGBT", and the people who did let it clear that they were sent to conversion therapy because they're asexual? "Oh that didn't happen." "Actually that was homophobia, not aphobia"

The "exclusionists" likewise, would REFUSE to not tie anything into conversion therapy. They'd literally use conversion therapy doctrine to dictate if you're gay enough.

The Acecourse was also around the time "queer is a slur" really started to gain traction, and guess what the exclusionists were doing? They were calling aces and our allies "Radikweers" without a fucking hint of irony while screaming about how queer is a slur and you need to tag everything with Q Slur

There was a DEDICATED sect of "exclusionists" who were lesbians obsessed with the idea of making the existence of asexual women a lesbophoic problem. I'm not even fucking joking. Same group of people would then claim that if you didn't have sex with them then you're abusive because you're "Witholding sex, which is an emotional need".

Exclusionists were by and large, white gays that were pissed off that they couldn't do assimilation and respectability politics because the rest of us were too weird rocked the boats too much to be able to slot neatly into the whole 2 kids white picket fence.

^nailed it. “Piss your pants” replaced “kys” and “up the road not cross the street” but we all knew what it meant. Most of the people targeted were like me - 18 and under who dared to like being aroace, ace, or aro. Almost all of us weren’t even “straight” (as in heterosexual or heteromantic). All trying to defend ourselves and our orientations while being attacked by people who proudly called us “kweer”s and “mogai trash” and told us to die. Told us we should be put in concentration camps, once. That we weren’t hurt or struggling or erased, we were just white kids trying to be different and quirky.

Edit: by the by, the reason they changed to piss your pants was because we were mass reporting their blogs for harassment for telling aces and aros to kill themselves. They changed it to piss your pants specifically because you can’t really report that to tumblr and expect a takedown. But again. We knew what it meant.

You'd go into the ace positivity tags and you'd see shit like "Trump ace moodboard uwu" from exclusionists. You'd see it regularly with all kinds of filth like him: Trump, Thatcher, fucking Hitler.

You'd have blogs PROUDLY TOUTING their aphobia. Blogs had titles like "aphobicrosequartz" (who was a fucking mess and a half), You'd have big name blogs reblogging from known aphobes, and when people asked "hey, are you aphobic/an exclusionist," they'd be like "uwu I don't want to get involved in discourse" and like, the post below that ask is a reblog openly making fun of aces.

You know how "lgbtpn" was briefly a thing? Yeah, that's because aphobes used it to explicitly exclude aces, while trying to appease people and include pans and nbs.

There was graphic porn and gore regularly in ace related tags from aphobes. That's how fucking bad it was. Even now I don't venture into the asexual tag. It really was horrific, how aspecs were treated. And a lot of aphobes never stopped, they just became quiet about it and started saying "I don't wanna get involved in discourse" while they openly rb from aphobes and never reblog anything written ace stuff, even in multi sexuality queer posts.

Yeah the whole "i don't want to get involved in discourse" while having urls that are (if you know what to look for) explicitly aphobic and continuing to reblog aphobic jokes and from other aphobes

It really sucks to follow someone new and scout their blog for any hint of where they stand, how they feel about you, and often there isn't any hint, so you think it's safe and for a while it is! And then you get one of those jokes or shitty moodboards and realize what they think about you

This was more of a thing back in like 2018 when I was on here but I still remember people talking about like...when that one openly asexual girl was murdered by an incel and people were posting pics of her body in the ace tags??

I vividly remember people insinuating ace people were lying about being raped or assaulted. It was the most absolutely vile shit, I found it so disturbing that I would just block anybody who said stuff like "I'm neutral on ace discourse uwu" on sight because it was such a cesspool

I’ve been told: 

I’m talking about being bi and trans, but I see every one of these things said to ace and aro people on a daily basis.

Saw a post saying the op wanted to ‘vomit’ after seeing an ace flag at Stonewall because it’s ‘disrespectful to the gays who were beaten and oppressed there’: I have had ‘gays get beaten, bisexuals don’t because Straight Passing Privilege’ used against me, and ‘where were you at Stonewall? Off with your het partners having it easy, cowards!’ 

People have said the trans flag should be ‘burned’ when seeing it at rallies and tried to get the bi and trans flags removed because they ‘don’t belong’.

I’ve seen the Pulse shooting used to shame ace and aro people. I have been told due to my ‘bi privilege’ it was ‘not my tragedy to mourn’.

Bisexual contingents frequently get booed at pride parades for ‘invading gay spaces’. Visibly bi people get shouted at and told to ‘go home’. Bi and trans people perceived to be in ‘het’ relationships get told ‘get away from our pride!’ 

I was accused of being ‘divisive’ for planning things for Bi Visibility Day by a cis gay man who then proceeded to tell me how trans people ‘didn’t belong’ in the community. I see ace and aro people get shamed for having their own events and then told they ‘don’t belong’ in the same breath.

These are the same fucking arguments if all you do is replace bi and trans with ace and aro. And I’m not going to let that be forgotten.

I was asked to provide reading material on bisexual exclusion in LGBT spaces, especially bisexual women’s exclusion.

M-spec people can refer to themselves as gay if they want to. Whether it feels more comfortable for them or it’s more convenient than having to explain a more complex identity, whatever reason it is they are allowed. It is not appropriation, it is not them stealing gay/lesbian culture, it is them making use of a term that gets used as an umbrella term including them anyway.

BUT

M-spec people are also allowed to not want to refer to themselves as or be called gay. They are allowed to be uncomfortable with how gay is used as an umbrella term for so much in the community. And they (and anyone else who gets put under that umbrella) are allowed to talk about erasure of their identity without people going “well actually you’re being erased by people in your community calling themselves gay so don’t you dare complain about a lack of visibility when this is clearly your fault”

Bisexual positivity blogs have big problems about throwing polyamorous people under the bus. We are both blamed for creating stereotypes about bisexual people being nonmonogamous and for oppressing them by wanting to have threesomes with them. To set things straight: we did not produce the stereotypes, monogamous heterosexuals who could not fathom bisexuality did and polyamorous people are not the cause of fetishizing bisexuality, it is monogamous heterosexuals treating bisexual and pansexual people like human sex toys who did. We are not the enemies of the bisexual community and they need to stop throwing us under the bus.

This is so important, folks. We need to always make sure the blame is placed squarely at the feet of heteronormative society, rather than throwing others under the bus.

We can be upset about the stereotypes without implying that it’s dirty or wrong to fulfill stereotypes. The problem is always with people who assume things about you due to stereotypes and ignore you as an individual, not with the stereotyped thing itself.

So do polyamory, have threesomes, be promiscuous if that floats your boat. Because really, no amount of “respectability” will make straight people stop hating us. WE don’t have to prove that we’re good bis and we’re just like them - THEY have to learn to respect our differences and treat us like human beings even if we’re not like them. Liberation, not assimilation, and no leaving anyone behind.

I really hate on this website that we erased the term monosexism as it was a very useful term m-spec people have being using for years but terfs decided it was bad becuse it group them with straight people and all of you believed it.

Monosexism is the belief that people who are only attracted to one gender is somehow better or more superior to those who are not monosexual.

Monosexism seeing everything as only gay or straight and if your not you either lying or making things up.

Monosexism is erasing multisexual people are seeing them as less memebers in tge community.

Monosexism is seeing multisexual people are dangerous and dirty

Monosexism is seeing m-spec men as gay men who havent fully accepted themselves as gay.

Monosexism is seeing m-spec women as either lesbians or straight women depending on who your talking to

Monosexism is not seeing multisexual as a full identity and only half of something or on the way of realizing our ‘true’ sexuality.

But you guys all decided it was bad becuase terfs said it ‘group gays with the straights and that it was inherently evil for that.’ And you believed it.

polyamorous bisexuals are not the reason biphobia exists.

bisexuals who have a lot of sex are not the reason biphobia exists.

bisexuals who have threesomes are not the reason biphobia exists.

biphobia exists because biphobes exist.

throwing bisexuals who fit some bi stereotypes under the bus in an effort to distance yourselves from those stereotypes is not going to stop biphobia. expecting other bisexuals to live a life and express their sexuality in a way that defies all bi stereotypes is not going to stop biphobia. sex shaming bisexuals who aren’t being “good bis” isn’t going to stop biphobia. doing these things are, in fact, biphobic themselves and these bisexuals don’t deserve to be sacrificed at the altar of respectability politics so that non-bi people won’t ‘think less’ of bisexuals as a whole.

i find so many ‘callouts’ about how people headcanon fictional characters to be extremely suspect tbh

what i’m talking about is this: people getting called out for headcanoning certain characters as being autistic are mostly autistic themselves, people getting called out for headcanoning characters of color as being a-spec are mostly a-spec poc, people getting called out for headcanoning certain characters as being mentally ill are mostly mentally ill people, people getting called out for headcanoning certain characters as being abuse survivors are also abuse survivors, etc etc etc

i swear that 90% of the time i see people going off over “headcanoning this character as being ___ is Problematic!” it’s people who are also ___ who are making those headcanons and getting the brunt of the anger about it and meanwhile it’s mostly people who are NOT ___ who are making the callouts against them, and the reasoning the people doing the calling out use for why these headcanons are “problematic” almost always comes down to either bigotry, gatekeeping, or respectability politics.

but like…people who are part of marginalized groups, who are mentally ill or neurodivergent, who are abuse survivors, who are whatever—people are allowed to headcanon characters as being like them. people are allowed to see parts of themselves and their lives in fictional characters. that imo is not “problematic” but telling them that they can’t, that they’re wrong, that seeing a piece of their identity or background in a character makes THEM bad is.

every time someone bashes an interracial couple bc they’re ‘hets’ i can actually hear my brain cells dying

Y'all go off on how its not wrong to insist characters are gay bc of “comp het” but considering a) media’s allergy to the word bisexual and b) y'alls hatred of bisexuals in general, I’m of the opinion that your “uwu I can headcanon them as gay bc of comp het and if they never confirm them as bi its fine” can go fuck itself when characters display that they’re bisexual on screen.

If characters explicitly expressing attraction to two different genders isn’t enough for people to fucking accept a character is bi, maybe everyone has a big fresh streaming pile of biphobia in their lives they need to fucking deal with.

Also fun fact: the term “comp het” was coined by a radfem for the inherent purpose of invalidating bisexuals and trans women, so discrediting character’s bisexuality in the name of “comp het” is honest to god a continuation of a radfem legacy. Hope your hatred of bisexuals made it worth it tho

Food for thought

Max

bisexuals are not being homophobic/lesbophobic when they tell you that it’s bi erasure to call canonically bi characters gay/lesbian

bisexuals are not being homophobic/lesbophobic when they take issue with you coming onto their posts talking about canonically bi characters with some “umm no sweaty they’re gay :)” bullshit

bisexuals are not being homophobic/lesbophobic when they call gays and lesbians out on their bi erasure and biphobia

Mspec identities have a lot of overlap. Sometimes people identify as more than one, as both bi and pan for example, or sometimes people find that there are multiple mspec identities that fit their experience but have reasons for choosing one over another. You could have two people who feel the same about their experience but one identities as bisexual and the other identifies as polysexual. There is a lot of overlap, but that does not mean that all mspec identities are the same or that it’s ok to misidentify mspec people.

You cannot tell someone who’s pansexual that they’re “essentially bisexual”. They’re not. They’re pan. That is the identity that fits them best and you need to respect that. Furthermore they do not owe you an explanation of why they identify the way they do.

You cannot tell someone who’s omnisexual that they “just fit under the b”. That is deciding for someone else that they are ok with using another identity as an umbrella term and thereby telling them they’re something they’re not. They’re omni. Respect that.

You cannot interrogate someone who’s polysexual about why they identify that way and tell them it’s basically the same as bisexual so there’s no reason to. They’re ply. There is no reason for you to question that.

You cannot tell any mspec person that they’re “really” ______ or “should” identify as ______. You can’t tell people they have to be ok with being seen as bisexual or being told that they “go under the b” or that bi pride/positivity is for them too so they shouldn’t expect their own. You can’t blame biphobia or lack of representation on other mspec people, that is seriously not ok. I don’t care if you’re monosexual or mspec yourself, you do not get to determine someone else’s identity. You do not get to decide that someone else’s identity is “harmful”.

You can either respect people’s identities even if you don’t necessarily “get” them (which, newsflash, you don’t have to) or you can butt out and go far away and leave mspec people alone.

“Bi doesn’t just mean two” does not mean “pansexuality, polysexuality and other mspec identities are unnecessary”

“You can be bi and attracted to all genders or experience attraction regardless of gender” does not mean “pansexuality, polysexuality and other mspec identities are unnecessary”

“Bisexuality is not inherently transphobic and doesn’t reinforce the binary” does not mean “pansexuality, polysexuality and other mspec identities are unnecessary”

“We would like you to listen to the bi community about the definition of our identity and it would be great if you’d try and learn more about it instead of just reciting ‘bi=2’ on repeat when we talk about how bi is more inclusive than that” does not mean “bi is the only valid mspec identity and the rest are unnecessary or made up”

There is overlap between various mspec identities but they are all different and necessary and great. There is no reason that trying to help people understand more about bisexuality should mean discrediting other identities.