Hello there! As you may or may not know, I am Asexual, and therefore a part of the asexual spectrum. And today I’d like to talk about a problem us A-specs often face. So, as you can see on screen, about a week ago I saw this comment somewhere. I blocked out the names of the people who said this, as the last thing I want is to start drama, I just want to raise awareness. But to fully understand this situation, you do need to know these people 1. Are both queer in multiple ways 2. Are very proud and vocal about their place in the queer community and 3. Are not just some annoying kids on the internet who decided to ragebait by saying homophobic stuff. Both of them are people who are pretty prominent in the scratch comic community and both of them were people I looked up to. So I hope you can see why these comments affected me so much. If this had come from some guy who joined a month ago and is just trying to be mean, I wouldn’t care. But this is very different. OK so first off. Why is this a homophic thing to say? A-specs are a part of the queer community, and in my eyes any sort of hate towards any identities in the community is homophobia (or rather Queerphobia I suppose). But if you don’t view it that way, this is still Acephobic. On first glance it might seem like a fair claim to make, yes most people don’t have very strong romantic feelings at 11, so how can you know if they aren’t there? But from the eyes of an ace person like me, it’s a lot different. It’s hard to explain, but you can still tell you’re ace, or aroace at that age. For perspective, many people can figure out that they’re gay or trans at that age, so why is it different for Aroace people? So yes, Ace people can know their Ace at 11. But it’s not wrong to ask these questions kindly to an ace person! If someone asked me how I knew I was ace when I was 11, I would happily answer them! But the problem is how this comment is framed. It is very aggressive and purposefully hurtful to Aroace people, saying “Get off the internet and go play outside” and putting down the feelings of Aroace people like this is really, really hurtful. I am not 11, I am a teenager, and this still really hurt my feelings. People are constantly saying things like this to A-specs “Everyone feels attraction” “You just haven’t met the right person yet!” “You’re just confused” “You just want attention”. We are surrounded by people saying our feelings aren’t valid, and the worst part is just like these people, so many of those people are also LGBTQ+. And it causes so much imposter syndrome for us, so much doubting who we are. I have had a lot of imposter syndrome towards my identity in the past because of words like these, and when you say things like this, you ARE hurting A-specs. So yes, this is homophobic, and this IS hurtful. Alright so now we’re through that, why am I saying this? Well, I want to explain to people why saying stuff like this really isn’t OK, and I want to raise awareness for the voices of A-specs. As I said, it’s super great to ask questions to understand communities! I but this is not a question, this is an attack. This person has not made any attempt to understand how we feel, or they wouldn’t be saying this. This person has decided that they know how A-specs feel and that because they think you can’t really be Aroace at 11, all Aroace people at that age are just wrong about themselves or lying for attention or something. And that's not OK. It's hurtful to A-specs. Any sort of mentality like this is very bad, and can lead to hurting a lot of people. So it’s important to think before you say something that could be hurtful in public, try and learn about the communities you’re talking about before you do. and So with all the said, thank you for reading this! I really appreciate you taking the time to listen me! And I hope you’ve learned something! - Sincerely, Rainii <3 (Also if you'd like to support an Aroace person and read an amazing comic about the A-spec experience, read 's comic!
