nadadoll:

prokopetz:

prokopetz:

I’m not ace myself, so I’m coming at the whole acephobia thing from an outsider’s perspective, and as such, it’s not my place to speak to the experience of those on the receiving end of it.

However, as a bisexual dude, I can observe that many of the arguments that are employed to establish that ace folks have no place in the queer community are strikingly similar – indeed, at times practically word-for-word identical – to the arguments that were for many years (and in some circles still are) employed to establish that bisexual folks have no place in the queer community.

It’s enough to make a guy suspicious on general principle, you know?

I’ve gotten a few messages asking for (well, in some cases more “demanding”) elaboration, so: here are a few of the primary areas in which I’ve observed that arguments against bi inclusion and arguments against ace inclusion tend to exhibit significant overlap. There may well be others – these are simply the ones I’ve run into most frequently.

The Passing Argument

It has been argued that bisexual folks don’t have any grounds to complain about discrimination and violence suffered in relation to their orientation, because a bisexual person is able to pass as straight simply by choosing partners of the appropriate gender. Therefore, any discrimination and violence that a bisexual person does experience must be construed as voluntarily undertaken, since they could have passed, and freely chose not to.

This argument is similarly applied to ace folks via the assertion that being ace poses no particular barrier to seeking a partner of a socially acceptable gender, so any failure to do so must likewise be construed as voluntary.

The Performativity Argument

It has been argued that bisexual folks ought to be excluded from queer communities because sexual orientation is purely performative; i.e., being gay is defined in terms of currently having a sexual partner of the same gender.  A bisexual person who has a partner of a different gender is functionally indistinguishable from a straight person, and must therefore be regarded as straight. Conversely, a bisexual person whose current partner is of the same gender must nonetheless be regarded with suspicion, because they could “turn straight” at any time simply by leaving that partner.

This argument is similarly applied to ace folks via the assertion that their orientation has no discernible performative component; an ace person is functionally indistinguishable from a straight person who simply isn’t involved in a sexual relationship at that particular moment, so ace folks must therefore be regarded as straight by default.

(An astute reader may notice that the passing argument dovetails neatly into the performativity argument: those who choose not to seek partners of a socially acceptable gender may be dismissed because any violence and discrimination they experience is a consequence of their voluntary failure to pass, while those who do seek such partners are performatively straight and therefore to be shunned. It’s a neat little system.)

The Mistaken Identity Argument

It has been argued that, while bisexual folks may suffer discrimination and physical and sexual violence, they’re not targeted by such acts because they’re bisexual. Any discrimination and violence a bisexual person suffers in relation to their orientation is suffered because they were mistaken for a gay person. Any effort on their part to discuss such experiences is therefore to be regarded as appropriative, in spite of the fact that they personally experienced it. In short, a bisexual person’s own experience of violence and discrimination doesn’t truly “belong” to them: it “belongs” to the purely hypothetical gay person their persecutors allegedly mistook them for.

This argument is applied to ace folks practically verbatim – no particular adaptation is necessary.

I have nothing to add except my gratitude for this

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rey-the-scavenger:

strawberryriver:

earthmoonlotus:

captain-pride:

tbh it makes me so sad how many girls dismiss their attraction to women

I’m not gonna label anyone’s sexuality for them but if you have crushes on girls then you’re probably not straight 

because believe it or not there are women who never experience any attraction to women 

it’s not some tiny little thing that everyone experiences

of course that’s not a bad thing, but no, not everyone is “a little bi” etc.

and we are all taught that relationships between women are inherently inferior to hetero relationships – it often takes years to realize that what you feel could be genuine attraction rather than just curiosity or admiration

whether or not you choose to acknowledge that in the label you choose for yourself or how you pursue relationships is up to you 

but if you consistently finding yourself having crushes on women or being attracted to women – even if you remain adamant that you love and prefer men – you may want to look into the possibility that you’re not straight

this would have really helped me out when I was younger

I used to think I was straight bc of the normalization of “girl crushes”

Then I met a girl who was actually straight & vocal about it (not in a homophobic way, she just talks to me about her love life a lot)

And I realized that I was not as straight as I thought. I am not straight at all. Even on top of being asexual.

Maybe just explore it, it might make some things easier or some things harder, but.

“The normalisation of girl crushes” – that’s an excellent statement and it’s really terrifying. There’s plenty of ways bisexuality is oppressed and silenced by heteronormative culture, eg: bi erasure ensures that the challenge bisexuality offers both to the boundaries of sexuality and the othering of queer culture is rendered invisible (which is why you can’t dress, speak, or generally act in a bi way, whereas you can for monosexual queer identities).

The girl crushes thing is just another way for heteronormative culture to silence us. If you say that being attracted to people of the opposite gender occasionally is a “normal” part of heterosexuality, bisexuality is absorbed into heteronormativity and prevented from becoming its own identity. Which means that women can go their whole lives just shunting part of their sexuality into the Occasional Girl Crush box, so they can ignore a part of their identity.

And this is why I don’t believe any statistics about how many lgbt people there are in the world (10%, 20%, whatever). Because there must be thousands, millions of people who don’t even realise they aren’t straight, thanks to silencing norms like this.

carbon-outfitters:

soloontherocks:

soloontherocks:

angryfeministwitch:

If you aren’t exclusively attracted to the same sex don’t fucking call yourself gay. 

Then stop using the terms gay marriage, gay rights, gay bars, gay pride, and gay community when you mean LGBT+ or same-sex. Stop saying “lesbian and gay organization” to refer to LGBT+ organizations – looking at you, pflag! If you don’t want gay to be an umbrella term, stop using it as one.

You can’t force the label gay on bi and pan people against our will and then complain when we use it. It doesn’t work like that.

I’mma gonna reblog this again because it’s making the openly transphobic radfem OP incoherently angry and I am all about that shit.

burnt to a crisp lmao