Yes, Aces and Aros are Queer - Here's Why https://medium.com/@secretladyspider/yes-aces-and-aros-are-queer-heres-why-4c73297f6d3a

I found it incredibly difficult to condense this into a thread, but, I am going to post a thread below that discusses the main points of this piece. (links to sources are in the medium piece)

Defining a person’s aspec identity can feel like trying to define a negative space. How do you define yourself both by the positive of the orientation itself as well as the negative of the lack of attraction, especially when you’re told from everywhere you look from a young 1/

age that everyone wants romance and sex, queer or straight?

It can be incredibly confusing to consider that you were taught your entire life that everyone has sexual attraction, that sometimes this attraction is considered “wrong” or “deviant” but it is still there, 2/

and romantic attraction would naturally be right alongside it. It can be even more confusing to realize that these two feelings don’t coincide for you, or that you exist in some sort of gray area, floating between attractions and being unsure what they are unless you feel it. 3/

Definitions for asexual and aromantic spectrum identities matter immensely because they let us know that there are other people who experience that lack of attraction or rare attraction romantically and/or sexually. 4/

They let us know that the thing we were stressed about was trying to fit in, not with who we are.

This leads me to performative sexuality and romantic actions, which occurs based on the assumption that everyone experiences sexual and romantic attraction. 5/

This is called allonormativity and amanormativity. Allonormativity is the expectation that someone is allosexual and alloromantic, meaning they are not asexual or aromantic, or any orientation housed within. 6/

Allosexuality refers to someone not being asexual. Similarly, amanormativity is the expectation that everyone experiences romantic attraction, or is alloromantic. Allonormativity and amanormativity both play a significant role in heteronormativity. 7/

Heteronormativity houses the expectations of allonormativity and amanormativity, as well as the expectation to be cisgender (identify with the gender one is born with, not transgender or nonbinary). It is the expectation to be interested in sex, to be sexually attracted to 8/

the opposite gender as well as romantically attracted to them, followed by marriage and kids.

It is the expectation to have sex, to want sex, to want everything that is attached to sex, and the shame that comes to you culturally if you do not want sex. 9/

It is the expectation to fall in love young frequently and stay in love, perhaps divorcing in middle age, but always seeking partners that are the opposite gender. It is a cultural idea that men may bed many women and are not held to any social accountability, but that women 10/

are shamed for multiple sexual partners.

It is everywhere, both in the seen and unseen. It is our popular movies, particularly romantic comedies directed towards women, but in other genres as well. 11/

It is in the books we read our children when we tell them about the mothers and fathers of the children in the stories, never allowing them to hear about other family structures, and also in the movies we show them from a young age. 12/

Even our Disney films that we hold so close to our childhoods, even with so many dead parents, have a predictable father and mother figure in their family structure.

People of all queer orientations and genders have to deal with heteronormativity at some point. 13/

Heteronormativity survives off of the idea that we are all supposed to be completely, totally, straight and cisgender, and that other sexual, romantic, and gender identities outside of this are to be suppressed and pushed out of the rest of the world. 14/

It is also one of the reasons marches like PRIDE are so important; PRIDE shows queer people that they do have a community and that they don’t have to live in the shadows and on the fringes of society, and their lives are worth fighting for. 15/

It is nonsensical to think that a person who is asexual, aromantic, or one of the orientations housed under these umbrellas doesn’t or couldn’t experience harm at the hands of heteronormativity or isn’t at risk of it. 16/

If we aren’t experiencing sexual or romantic attraction, or we’re experiencing it rarely, and are being told that we need to reproduce and get married by the entire world, even to the point that those who do not experience sexual attraction have only very recently stopped 17/

being pathologized in the DSM-V, then of course we’re experiencing harm from heteronormativity. If asexuality was, until very recently, diagnosed as a disorder and can still be diagnosed as a disorder if a person cannot say if they have always been asexual, then of course 18/

we’re also experiencing harm at the hands of heteronormativity. And yet- I used to feel a similar pit in my stomach upon learning that I was demisexual and wondering if other queer people would accept me when I figured it out.
I still feel it all the time. 19/

Given that a person must be allosexual, alloromantic, cisgender, heteroromantic, and heterosexual in order to be straight, this should give everyone who is aspec room to breathe and feel free to be ourselves in the queer community. 20/

A person should need to not match just one of these groups in order to be queer.

An asexual heteroromantic cisgender person is not heterosexual.
An aromantic heterosexual cisgender person is not heterosexual. 21/

A demisexual heteroromantic cisgender person is not heterosexual.
A demiromantic heterosexual cisgender person is not heterosexual.

Sexual and romantic attraction for a person can split into two separate experiences regardless of a person’s gender. 22/

This also does not account for the different types of attraction that both aspecs and allos experience — including sensual, aesthetic, and platonic, which many aspecs feel instead of sexual or romantic attraction. We are not the only group of queer people who separate these, 23/

even if we are often the ones talking most about these separations. 24/

If most of the queer community can recognize that a person needs to be cisgender, heterosexual, and heteroromantic in order to be completely straight and not a member of the queer community, then surely these same people can recognize upon learning about asexual and aromantic 25/

orientations that these separations matter to us and do in fact ensure our position within the queer community.
Instead, we’re often told we don’t belong here. 26/

As I talk more and more about my demisexuality and graysexuality online, and how much and why they matter to me, the issue of belonging in the queer community is, unfortunately, more and more of an issue I’m urged to confront — or, more accurately, people who don’t think my 27/

demisexuality matters are quick to tell me I don’t belong. These people are quick to ignore my romantic orientation the moment I bring up demisexuality or defend hetero aspecs. I’ve watched queer people who I once looked up to tell me that who I am, the demisexual part of 28/

it, the graysexual part of me, does not matter — and then turn around and talk about how the expectation to be allocishet, or straight and cis, has hurt them, as if it isn’t capable of hurting me and my fellow aspecs, too.These people will say “asexual is enough”, but only if 29/

that person isn’t heteroromantic, as if this cancels out their asexuality. They will most often ignore aromantics completely. In the worse case scenarios, we’ll be met with people who are violent and abusive towards us directly, then we’ll be told by these same people 30/

we don't exist. Being aspec within the queer community is being a marginalized group within a marginalized group, and it’s especially hard when so many members of that marginalized community don’t want to call you queer.

But we are queer. 31/

It must be said again that yes,believe it or not,aspecs do experience harm at the hands of heteronormativity. We are, like our queer brothers and sisters, expected to get married to a person of the opposite gender, have sex, and fall into traditional gender and familial roles.32/

Being aspec does not exempt us from the expectations of a heteronormative world — and also from the expectations from the queer community to be in a relationship that’s considered queer “enough” by others.33/

This means many things for aspecs. It means we are expected to have a sex drive towards our partner and being questioned by doctors if we admit we do not have this, even if neither us nor our partner is bothered by it. 34/

It means being expected to have a partner with which we share a romantic and sexual relationship not just by a heteronormative world, but also by our queer community.
35/

It means psychiatrists telling us that we may need to be taken off of a medication that could be life-saving if it’s believed that it’s taking away our sexuality, which is often viewed as something vital to happiness and personhood, whether or not we consider this a loss. 36/

It means not telling doctors who see us concerning sexual health “No, I don’t have interest in that”, because we’re afraid of being put on medications that are meant to fix what we don’t consider to be broken. 37/

It means avoiding discussions of who we’re in relationships with at Thanksgiving dinner because we have that aunt or grandparent who would tell us that we need to get checked out psychologically and physically if we don’t have an interest in romance or sex.38/

It means denying an essential part of our personhood for years because we didn’t have words for our experiences and breaking down we when find out that there are other people like us and we could have had a community all along if we had just had the space to breathe.39/

It means never knowing who in the queer community is going to accept us. It means both knowing that queerness is not defined by suffering but also shouting in the void, “Can you hear me? My experiences are here too, I’m here too,” until you feel like you can’t shout anymore. 40/

It means being a marginalized community within a marginalized community and wondering why so many people around you just don’t think you’re here when you know you are. 41/

It means wondering what you would have to do to get them to recognize that the things they’re suffering from at the hands of homophobia is the same suffering they’re putting onto you.
It means feeling invisible, even within the invisible.42/

But queerness is not defined by suffering.

I want to make that point explicitly because so often what’s happening in gatekeeping is a mixture of people ignoring the experiences of those they don’t deem “worthy” and a sort of “oppression Olympics”- 43/

as if that’s what makes a person queer, rather than their sexual orientation, romantic orientation, and/or gender identity. This is frustrating not only because whether or not someone’s life has been hard does not define their queerness, but also because these same people 44/

are the sort who will look at all the things I listed above as effects of heteronormativity, allonormativity, and amanormativity on aspecs and say that we aren’t experiencing them. 45/

At the same time, I can’t leave it entirely out of the conversation. What aspecs go through both at the hands of heteronormativity and at the hands of exclusionists and gatekeepers within the queer community is very real and very painful, and it should not be ignored.46/

It is exhausting to feel invisible in a community that prides itself on defying the norms of a heteronormative world, to be asked continously to perform sexuality, to be told over and over that this part of me that is rooted in my very being negates any and all other 47/

queerness I and my fellow aspecs may have. I’m both told that suffering is what makes someone queer while being told explicitly that any pain I may have is exaggerated for attention. But again - QUEERNESS IS NOT DEFINED BY SUFFERING. 48/

Queerness is not defined by suffering, but it is a common experience for many aspec individuals. When it comes from other queer parties, it is especially painful. While I cannot ignore it, I also do not wish to romanticize it, or hold it up as a measuring stick for queerness. 49/

There are as many ways to be queer as there are queer people, and not all of us are going to have the same experience; we are a group of people, not a monolith predicated on martyrdom and suffering. 50/

Suffering is often a component of queerness, unfortunately — but I do not believe it should be the thing that ultimately defines us. Queerness is and should always be defined by queerness. 51/

By asking myself and my fellow aspecs to define our queerness by our suffering, these people are redefining queerness to be about an arbitrary line of hardship that they then dismiss, often within the same conversation. 52/

By defining queerness by suffering, we ignore the fundamentals of the queer community and the heternormative world we have found ourselves called to fight against. By both defining queerness by suffering and then ignoring or dismissing the suffering of aspec individuals, 53/

we are gatekeeping by suffering while creating suffering for an essential part of our community. It is, at best, a contradiction, and at worst, an act of violence.

The other thing prioritizing suffering like this does is ignore all the good parts of being queer.

54/

Prioritizing suffering ignores the good parts of our lives when they do happen. It says that the struggle is worth more than the end goal of the fight. It says that the end goals aren’t worth fighting for because they won’t be as meaningful to future generations as our 55/

hardship is now. As Bojack Horseman once aptly summarized,
“…when we valorize the idea of sacrifice — of loss, of suffering… When we grow up in a house that does that, we internalize this idea that being happy is a selfish act, but sacrifice doesn’t mean anything.” 56/

I think there’s something similar to that happening in the queer community prominently towards aspecs in our current climate. It doesn’t just happen to us, either; much of aphobia reflects discrimination towards bisexuals. 57/

Both groups face discrimination for the expected performance of their orientation and are scoffed at when they rightly point out that “passing privilege” is actually queer erasure within the queer community. 58/

While it is true that a straight passing couple is less likely to face violence, it should also be less likely that such persons are told that they do not belong in queer spaces because they don’t look on the outside like they’re having a hard enough time, 59/

and that their “passing privilege” does not promise that they will never face violence of some kind. 60/

The current climate towards aspecs online is one largely comprised of hostility. While we do have allies within the queer community, more often than not we must call on each other in order to find solace and understanding. 61/

Our problems are often ignored in favor of instead facing us with prejudice, and when we are brave enough to stand up and state out loud what our hardships have been we are gaslit by the very people who are supposed to want to accept us, as we are, in fact, queer. 62/

With this piece, I hope to sway some minds who may think that we are not. Even if we have not suffered for our orientation, this does not mean we are not queer as again, queerness is not defined by suffering -especially if the suffering presented is ignored by the very groups 63/

who claimed they wanted to know. It is not logical to ask people to tell you their woes and then tell them those do not exist; it is gaslighting that predicates queerness on hardship, not on queerness itself. 64/

Our queerness is based from queerness, not from hardship. Though it may include hardship, even those of us who have not been met with it are still queer. 65/

Think about it: we defy heternormativity, and even allo and amanormativity within the queer community as well. We challenge traditional relationship structures and expectations. We defy expectations for sexuality and romantic orientation. 66/

We can be of many gender identities, including cis, trans, and nonbinary genders. We defy expectations for sexual attraction and action. We defy expectations for romantic attraction and action. 67/

We are not lacking in our lives just because we’re lacking sexual and/or romantic attraction.

We are not distressed by our sexuality or romantic orientations.

We lead happy, fulfilling, rich lives all on our own, or with partners.

68/

We laugh. We have close, intimate friendships. We love. We have hobbies, pets, boyfriends, girlfriends, and queerplatonic partnerships. We experience grief, loss, and pain — but we also experience joy, laughter, and comfort from our loved ones. 69/

Our suffering is present, but it does not define us or our queerness; we are queer regardless. Our queerness defines us, and realizing we are aspec can be an incredible, healing experience.

70/

We are human; we are doing our best to navigate a world that tells us that we should not exist and to love ourselves anyway. With practice, and acceptance, we can succeed.

71/

I do not want to leave out the joy and the good. Since coming out as demisexual/gray ace, I’ve felt better about myself than I have in years. I’m watching my friends, both who are and aren’t aspec, grow in their understanding of aspec identities. 72/

I’m watching friends resonate with my own sexuality and realize that it fits them, too, and watching them be embraced by their queer families. One of my friends is an aroace lesbian and she’s in a polyamorous relationship and constantly talking about how happy she is. 73/

Another of my friends came out as demisexual and I was so happy to see them embrace themselves like that it nearly brought tears to my eyes — and then it actually did when they said my writing had helped them come to terms with it.
74/

I get a lot of hateful messages and abusive comments, but I also get a lot of questions from people who don’t know if they’re aspec. The question I get asked most — more than anything else,more than about definitions, even more than “do you think I’m ace/aro” -is “am I queer?”75/

I always tell them, with confidence, the answer is yes. I hope that with time and the increase in the spread of information about aspec orientations, more and more people will say yes, too. 76/

Asexuals, aromantics, and orientations under these umbrellas — demisexual, demiromantic, graysexual, grayromantic, and many more — are queer. We are here, right alongside you, and we’re asking for acceptance. I hope you will say yes. 77/

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Okay have a good night thanks for reading and stay safe out there, mask up, respect aspecs and sleep tight.

UPDATE: So me that's exhausted and has been writing too long should not be trusted to make edits. Me that has had a full night's sleep, tho, can make edits. Some edits to typos and things have been made on the medium piece. Twitter won't let me edit, but... well here we are