Tumblr repost: [untitled pro-ace inclusion post]

[packbat]

(Original post, 2016-04-19)

Thinking about this whole “should asexuality be included in the queer umbrella” argument. (Apologies if you’re already sick of it.)

I mean, if you are looking at people being explicitly targeted, there’s a vast difference between the situation of LGBT people and ace people. The former are being denounced in church sermons and stripped of antidiscrimination protections on the daily - I don’t know that I’ve heard of a single explicit condemnation of asexuality.

On the flipside, neither fit into what Mads Ananda Lodahl called “the straight world order” (cw: bullying, slurs, hate crimes). Cishet ace people might not be denounced from the pulpit, but they’re probably being told that they have a duty to their spouses in one of the side rooms down the hall. They might not be disowned for their deviance, but they’ll be asked, “when are you going to settle down?” every family reunion. They might not be killed off in fiction all the time due to old homophobic tropes, but good luck seeing them made visible in the first place. They might not be considered sinful abominations, but they are probably considered broken.

Like … I don’t care about the misery poker side of things. A lot of awfulness gets excused under the banner of “but I’m oppressed!” - being the target of bigotry does not automatically make you righteous. What I do care about is people being damaged and damaging themselves because of false ideas about who they are. And breaking down those false ideas to free people from their constraints is part of what the queer community does. So I think ace people should be a part of that.