sometimes I remember that I’ve had the same blog for my entire tumblr career and that there are backlogs and backlogs of cringey shit from my various regrettable phases just there for anyone to see if they want and I feel as if someone has tred across my grave
Do you ever think about the fact that Ed’s entire life goal almost hinged on whether or not he’d be able to pass the state alchemist test, and yet when he actually got to the test he decided to demonstratively try to assassinate the president
[video: a black and white cat sits on a hill on a mini golf course. Someone putts a golf ball towards the cat, which alerts and chases the ball. The cat bats it back and forth a bit until it lands in the hole. A group of people off-camera laugh and cheer indistinctly.]
idk can we stop…treating a.ce disc.ourse like it’s some haha funney cringe compilation or whatever the fuck because it fucking destroyed the entire ace and aro communities. there is no solid aspec community on tumblr anymore (which was by far the biggest number of aspec ppl). exclusionists took our community and fucking smashed it to pieces and y'all treat it as this fucking stupid joke when they traumatized, gaslit, and abused an entire group of queer people back into the closet. fuck every single person who doesn’t take that seriously.
My personal experience is just that, but it’s really indicative that I have watched almost every single ace and aro person I know, irl and online, actively recloset themselves as a direct result of the consequences of The Disc Horse™
I watched irl queer groups disintegrate bc a few ppl who got into leadership positions used that to make the space hostile towards ace ppl (among others as well), saw friends go from being loud and proud aces n aros to actively avoiding any mention of it and letting ppl assume their sexuality. I myself, having been IDing as ace for 10 years at least, have in the past couple since this whole “"discourse”“ came into being, actively and intentionally stopped telling anyone at all that I’m ace. To put that in some kind of perspective, I am incredibly out as trans and will actively out myself pretty constantly except to total strangers I will never see again. I feel safer telling ppl I’m trans than ace. Especially in queer spaces. It’s fucked me up so much I didn’t even quite grasp how much but today my therapist asked me for the first time about like romantic relationships and I physically could not say I am aro and ace. Completely incapable, utterly frozen, and I just kinda let her believe what she will. Ironically the fact that I’ve gone from being willing and ready to tell ppl I’m ace as just another facet of myself to entirely unable and unsolicited to tell anyone, is probably a thing one might want to talk w one’s therapist about.
This has really fucked not just the community at large but fucked up individual ace ppl in so many ways. It’s not something “funny” or remotely harmless, it’s absolutely devastated us.
like even if you believe that ace people aren’t truly oppressed or what the fuck ever can you maybe realise that when i, a Confirmed Lesbian who will share that identity with anyone who stands still to listen for two minutes:
a) will no longer tell people i am ace until months into a knowing each other & even then am completely prepared for rejection, bc that is what my online experience has taught me to expect.
b) am more afraid to tell queer people that i’m ace than straight people - genuinely! i am more concerned that queer people will react badly to that than straight people!
can you maybe then accept that somewhere along the line we fucked up? can you accept that whatever your belief is on what the experiences which, as a community, ace people share - & boy oh boy do i wish you would listen to us about that - the real effect that all of this has had on individual people is unacceptable? bc it is not acceptable, not at all, & i am so tired of keeping my mouth shut about it
Of course this was exactly the idea behind it popping off in the first place. In case it’s somehow not obvious.
Because there’s still people out here convinced it’s somehow a necessary conversation
I mentioned this to some people in the discord server I’m in, but because the president of the LGBTQ+ club at my first college was an exclusionist, I never dared to go.
And I needed that club. I went to a small college that was full of homophobia. You could be kicked out if you were not in a straight relationship. You could be removed from your job for being LGBTQ+. My friends lost their RA positions. I was terrifed to even talk about it.
The club was a secret. It was every other Thursday and called the gay dinner. They met in a back room for dinner and it wasn’t an official club… And I needed to be there to know more people like me.
And I felt unwelcome because I was ace and had heard the president make aphobic (and biphobic later) comments.
When I first joined this website, there was such a large, active, and growing ace and aro community. 2011/2012? Well before the ace discourse.
REAL discourse used to happen here. Discussions about what it means to be asexual spectrum in a world where most people are not, living a good life as a happy asexual person, what support for the asexual and aromantic communities would look like, connections between ace and/or aro folks who had never met another ace or aro person before.
The ace community on this website introduced me to demisexuality and gray-asexuality. The ace community on this website helped me understand and learn to accept a part of myself.
Before the discourse, the ace community was thriving on this website. The ace and aro activists born here were spreading their work off tumblr. They were publishing on other websites, including in mainstream media. I think, a book on ace identity was published even? Ace groups we’re increasingly being represented at pride. LGBTQ+ organizations began to include us in their support and causes, in their messaging, in their work.
Luckily, my brief experience with a college GSA was during that time, and it was positive. I never came out as ace spectrum during my time with them, but other ace people held leadership positions.
Most of the impact of the discourse I’ve seen has been online. Particularly on social media. During the height of the discourse, I lost long-time friends. People who, overnight, began to show outright hatred for the ace community and for any ace person who wasn’t an exclusionist.
The pressure on my identity has been so real. It’s the worst part of interacting with the LGBT community on this website. The pressure to be quiet about my aceness. To be acceptable and silent in my queerness. To give up my lesser known identities and fall back in line under the L, G, B, or T.
In ways it has worked. On me. And on our communities.
The result has been disappointing, but not surprising. The ace discourse was terribly effective.
So effective, in fact, that exclusionists have replicated the model–in order to target the pansexual, polysexual, queer, genderqueer, and intersex communities. Among others.
I’ve watched the same thing that was done to the ace community happen to other communities. I don’t even know of any active polysexual or pansexual blogs anymore. So many people have been harassed off this website. Or simply left, too tired to fight for their space anymore.
When our communities are gone, we’re left with two choices: fall back into the acceptable LGBT communities, even though they often do not want us–or no community at all.
It’s a lot of damage. Damage is still being done. I don’t know how we rebuild from it.
