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Hey, homo/bi/pan, trans*, genderqueer, agender aces, etc.!


Miriel

  

1 member has voted

  1. 1. What's caused you the most trouble, your romantic/gender identity, or your aceness?

    • I'm heteroromantic or aromantic, and cis.
      13
    • My romantic/gender identity has caused the most, and the aceness not much.
      18
    • My romantic/gender identity has caused the most, but the aceness has also caused some.
      11
    • Equal: they've both been unbothersome.
      8
    • Equal: they've both caused roughly the same amount.
      8
    • My aceness has caused the most, and my romantic/gender identity not much.
      13
    • My aceness has caused the most, but my romantic/gender identity has also caused some.
      12

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By "trouble," I mean any sort of trouble besides simple confusion over what you are. I know a lot of us are kind of baffled by our romantic orientations or gender identities, but unless it causes you distress, it's not what I'm asking about here. "I can't tell what my romantic orientation is" isn't what I'm asking about; "I think I might be homoromantic and that scares me" is. I'm curious about are things like other people not accepting you, you not accepting yourself, depression or anxiety over what you are, relationship troubles, erasure, general societal attitudes towards your identity, etc.

This poll is open to:

  • Anyone on the ace spectrum who is or thinks they probably are homo-, bi-, or pan- romantic.
  • Anyone on the ace spectrum who is or thinks they probably are trans*, genderqueer, agender, bigender, etc.
  • Anyone who, at some point, identified as or thought they probably were on the ace spectrum and, at some point, identified as or thought they probably were homo/bi/panromantic or trans*/genderqueer/agender, etc.
  • Anyone on the ace spectrum who's had a same-gender romantic relationship, or something that looked like it from the outside.

If none of the poll options fit perfectly, that's okay; just pick the one that seems probably closest. If you can't even do that, please let me know what I've overlooked!

I'm doing this because a lot of the sexual LGBT haters floating around out there seem to regard homophobia and transphobia as the only things that cause substantial trouble, while acephobia (for lack of a better term) is regarded as a minor annoyance. I have my own theory about whether or not this is true, but I don't think anyone's ever done any sort of poll about this, and I'm curious how well my theory holds up. Help me shine a little light on this matter? :cake:

Edit: I just want to make clear that I'm not trying to play Oppression Olympics or dismiss anyone's experiences. But I am curious if people who've experienced acephobia (will someone please find me a better word?) and homo-, bi-, or transphobia tend to find that the former is small potatoes.

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is there such a thing as acephobia ... and even more so to compare it to homophobia?

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mylittlehazmat

If you're interested in the LGBT* haters that have been, as you put it, floating around ... my personal take on it was to show how their dividing us up by our romantic orientations erased our asexuality. I did a poll on tumblr that showed 7:1 people invested more in their asexual identity than their romantic identity. I think that they spend too much time trying to make us fit to their models than making their models fit to us, so they just erase our sexual orientation, and go for the thing they can understand, which is generally the romantic one. Then for us aromantics, we're just ignored because we don't fit in by either sexual or romantic orientation.

Anywayyy.

I've experienced more issue with my asexuality than my gender identity, though I am not strictly out about my gender identity to anyone who gave me shit for being asexual (no second chances, right?). I pass as cis anyway. Though, I know for sure, I am going to get a shit load and a half of trouble when I change my legal name to Greg, and I think that sits more on the gender line than anything else. I'm not sure how to vote in your poll, because for me, strictly speaking, the other shoe has not dropped.

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I did a poll on tumblr that showed 7:1 people invested more in their asexual identity than their romantic identity.

Aha! Yeah, that's definitely the sort of thing I've been interested in.

I think that they spend too much time trying to make us fit to their models than making their models fit to us, so they just erase our sexual orientation, and go for the thing they can understand, which is generally the romantic one. Then for us aromantics, we're just ignored because we don't fit in by either sexual or romantic orientation.

Agreed.

I'm not sure how to vote in your poll, because for me, strictly speaking, the other shoe has not dropped.

Hmm, good point. I should've thought of situations like that.

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i would also like to point out that within aven there is not so much hate towards the lgbt

there are passionate discussions about wether the movement of asexuality should come under the movement of the lgbt

but very little in the way of "haters"

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mylittlehazmat

i would also like to point out that within aven there is not so much hate towards the lgbt

there are passionate discussions about wether the movement of asexuality should come under the movement of the lgbt

but very little in the way of "haters"

Sorry, hate "toward"? None of the hate on tumblr has been going on because the ace community "hates" LGBT* ... the small faction of LGBT* people who have been harassing us on tumblr have been doing so because they take exception to those aces who identify as queer. It's not aces being heterosexist.

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Captain Paige

I have been having troubles with my gender ever since I was about 6 years old, to the extent that I've contemplated all sorts of stuff I would not wish upon anybody to think about, I've been to places I never thought I'd ever leave, although the one thing that got me through everything is music :) as for aceness though, It's been pretty minor, I've subjected myself to sexual relationships that have failed and been horrible during the sexual moments and afterwards, but i wouldn't say it's caused me massive amounts of troubles especially compared to my gender issues (Which are still massively bugging me and irritate me and depress me whenever I think about it....95% of the day :/)

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the Lady Ashuko

I voted before I realized that romantic orientation was grouped with gender identity and not asexuality.

I'd say that the part that's given me most difficulty has been my romantic identity. Even before I knew about asexuality, I'd tell potential boyfriends that I wasn't going to have sex with them so that never gave me an issue. Thing is, I kept trying at relationships even though I ended up as aromantic. For so long I identified as biromantic because I didn't understand what romantic attraction was.

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I'm a genderqueer female, but I would say that asexuality has caused more trouble, because I'm married to a highly sexual partner. I live as agender/androgyne (I don't make a very big effort to present as such since I don't get out much), but people assume I'm a tomboy so it doesn't really become an issue in everyday life. Sexuality on the other hand does cause friction between me and my spouse.

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I voted for "My aceness has caused the most, but my romantic/gender identity has also caused some."

Whilst I have of course experienced heterosexism, I've always had lots of support about being gay and it was never something that bothered me too much. I found it comparatively very easy to accept myself as gay compared to demisexual. The pressure to be sex/have sex was pretty hard to deal with.

(I'm not sure what the appropriate word would be; I try not to use the -phobia words because they can be ableist. I guess it is part of heterosexism, but also the existence of asexuals is pretty damaging for sexism and rape culture too. I'm not sure I believe that asexuals face systematic oppression in the way LGBT people do; I think we just fall victim to other -isms.)

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Hmm. I'm a heteroromantic cisgender ace (though I'm not a girly girl at all). Neither my gender identity nor my sexual identity have ever been problematic for me, but I'm really let down by all the trouble brought by mixed relationships. Don't know if that can fit the topic or not.

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My gender differences have cost me a home, safety, and access to medical care. It has cost me bruises and scars and x-rays and a stable childhood. It has made me unwelcome in schools and hospitals (guess who always gets his own room?) and places of worship, not to mention bathrooms. It makes me worry about being denied more significant medical care, as well as the small but real chance of assault.

My asexuality has cost me... bonding points? I think it does make people think I'm weird, but I'm autistic- it's extremely unlikely that they think I'm normal anyways. It would probably be a somewhat different issue if I was more romantically inclined, but I'm about equally asexual and aromantic (which is to say that neither fits exactly right but mostly).

It is WAY easier for me to tell people than I am asexual, emotionally, than it is for me to bring up anything to do with sex/gender.

P.S. Some LGBT people will experience a lot more hostility than others, based on exactly what their flavor of queer is, what communities they belong to, and to what extent they are or have been out, and at what ages.

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Finding out I was asexual caused a little, but it's been mainly my romantic identity that has caused the most. I have spent a long time figuring out if I was aromantic or not, but have recently identified myself as grey-romantic.

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never odd or even

gender and romantic identity (in that order) have caused me more trouble on the inside, particularly gender; and for much of my life. having said that, i pushed back those thoughts and didnt allow myself to think about them often to myself as i thought it was a lost cause, would never happen etc.... and then i found aven... and its gender forums :P so that let the gender cat out of its cage... for the first time i had found a place that talked openly and freely about gender and more importantly, i identified with a lot of what they were saying. romantic attraction just caused me some confusion and minor headaches about it, but i'm not too fussed, two or three have worked on me have helped me overcome these problems... i think :huh:

as for asexuality? it causes more problems on the outside when people come on to me....

hmmm... i suppose gender has come on the outside where i was rejected by the girls in the playground for not acting like a girl, and rejected by the boys for not actin glike a girl... constantly being the new kid didnt help either...

the small or large problems i've experienced are too numerous to list, these are only small examples...

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I know that being ace would cause endless trouble were I to tell people - so I usually just don't, unless the situation calls for it.

It is, however, diffucult for me to explain my gender and romantic-orientation to people. On telling a friend that I was not, in fact, cis-gendered, as she had supposed, her response was: "oh, but why on earth would you want a penis?" <_<

Oh, and then try explaining to people that when you're looking at someone who you find attractive, what you're actually doing is engaging yourself in the [largely objective] pursuit of artistic appreciation, rather than subjectively 'thrusting yourself' into the image of someone by means of the convenient rubric of 'sexual attraction'... Blank faces reign all round. :huh:

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I voted "My romantic/gender identity has caused the most, but the aceness has also caused some." 'cause the greater difficulty for me, it's been to accept my a-gender condition.

Asexuality ( pan-romantic in my own case) cause me trouble with other peeps, especially in my relationship with others, but it has never been a great issue for me to accepting.

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