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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’ll add The Contribution Argument, which involves one of these gatekeeping behaviors:
1) rewriting history to erase bisexual and asexual contributions to political LGBTQ rights movements, and then claiming that bisexuals and asexuals have never done anything for the community at large
2) arguing that modernday bisexuals and asexuals should be excluded from current political movements because our goals are distinct from, or even contradictory to the goals of the LGBTQ rights movement at large
3) interpreting any attempt on the part of bi/asexuals to make safe spaces for ourselves within the community as an attack on LG safe spaces, generally by reframing bi/ace pride as homo/lesbophobia, or by dismissing accusations of bi/acephobia as inherently homo/lesbophobic
In other words, arguing that bisexuals and asexuals, rather than being contributing members of the community, are parasites on the community, leeching from, and undermining the community and its goals.
The Contribution Argument is an interesting one because it goes way beyond popular biphobia.
It’s often been asserted that bisexual folks ought to be excluded from the LG community because that community is specifically for folks who experience homophobia, and bisexual folks don’t experience homophobia, save by misidentification. (See the Mistaken Identity Argument, above.)
However, anybody who’s over the age of 30 can tell you that the positioning of the experience of homophobia as the community’s great unifier is, itself, a relatively novel development.
Up until quite recently (and by “recently” I mean as recently as the mid 1980s), even lesbians were routinely characterised by the leaders of mainstream gay rights activism as unwelcome parasites, riding on the movement’s coattails and contributing nothing in return.
Not only is identifying the experience of homophobia - defined narrowly as discrimination against those who are actively involved in sexual relationships with persons of the same gender - as the sole qualifier for inclusion a totally arbitrary place to draw the line, it’s baldly ahistorical.
Historically, a great many folks who do experience this type of homophobia have routinely been left out in the cold by mainstream activism for gender and sexual minorities - and the Contribution Argument, as you’ve outlined it here, is one of the primary tools that’s been used to justify that exclusion.
this post is literally just “why won’t those big meanie gays let asexuals in their club??? :(” written in the form of a jargon-filled essay for a philosophy class
I love your wording; because that’s precisely it. Its the “gay club.” As in, its the same fuckers who wanted us bi people to be excluded. It’s the same people who argued that we should drop the “T” to focus on the “gay movement.”
Newsflash: no one wants an invitation to that party. No one is “invading.” No one wants to be included in your “gay club.”
What we want is shits like you to quit perpetuating intra community bigotry and hatred in the LGBT+; because the only ones treating it like a “club” are those of you that check the “queer credentials” of everyone looking for a safe space and stamp their hands with “gay enough I guess” to let us pass through the gates. (Not that we get the same treatment as the ~VIP cis gays~ anyway.)
Anyway, nice to know that you people are still ignoring when bi ppl speak and repurpose that biphobia as ace hatred in the same breath :)))))) kinda :))))))) reinforces the points above :))))))))))
Also the idea that you have to have the consistent ability to perform your sexual orientation on a daily basis in order to be oppressed enough to be welcomed into the exclusive “gay club” is pretty shitty. The point of having inclusive spaces is to allow people a specific space where they feel they can comfortably perform and express their orientation/identity/etc, but if you gatekeep, what you’re telling people (bi and ace people in the case of this discussion) is that they must subject themselves to a constant barrage of discrimination in order to be worthy enough to access a space where they do not feel discriminated against, which just defeats the purpose of said “inclusive” space, doesn’t it?
Why should anyone demand that certain members of the LGBTQ community must run a trial by fire first in order to have enough oppression points to pay for a spot in The Gay Club? And then on top of that, tell them that even AFTER they subject themselves to said discrimination, they’re only accessing the same discrimination “real” gay people face and are therefore somehow insincere in their experiences because they aren’t “gay enough” every day of their life to constitute a real place in the community.
This is more of a personal note, but nothing hurts more than your family/peers calling you broken and sick, then going to an LGBT+ “safe place” and being told that your family/peers were right.
