How I got involved in “the discourse”:
Someone: “aces+aros aren’t inherently LGBT+”
Me: reads some of the discussions, goes back to other things
Someone: “aces are so shitty and embarassing”
Me: ???
Someone: “aces r terrible, ace tumblr™ is the worst”
Me: ??? (tries to move on)
Someone, much later: “aro men attracted to women r misogynic and treat women badly”
Me: gets highly highly uncomfortable, thinks about saying something, finally moves on and just unfollows bc too freaked out
Someone: “aces+aros aren’t inherently LGBT+”
Me: still not involved in ‘discourse’
Someone: “demisexuality does not exist it’s a shitty label ppl need to not use it” (wrong definition of demisexuality gets used throughout entire post, it has a good deal of notes)
Me: “um I think that’s not good to say please don’t, it’s also not the actual definition?” (gets blocked, moves on)
A lot of people: “aros r misogynic”
A lot of people, many of them white: “aces+aros are all so white and racist”
Me: “heyy stop maybe, a lot of this stuff harms aces and aros of color and I’m VERY uncomfortable here, stop stop?”
Some ppl: immediately assume I’m white
A ton of other “exclusionists”: don’t take note at all, keep shitting on aces and aros including those belonging to additional marginalized group, I see worse and worse, anons come to me telling me most aces+aros are “cis, het and white”. Ace+aro PoC upset about all this outright get called ‘tokens’
Me: … … okay u know what I’m DONE
(Of course, the worst was yet to come)