Asexuality in the LGBT Community

[Meow Mix]

As I've been saying, LGBT shares a common history, including how we were all lumped together as queers. And the increased/mass inclusion has made it so the T is being pushed out by people who previously never even attached themselves to LGBT or were considered queer and don't have enough in common that we can relate with them. It's including those who do not share our history. It's including those who didn't have anything to do with us in past decades when prejudice against queers was far more widespread and severe than it is today, and even being gay was an accusation.

Do you believe ace people didn't exist (and weren't accused of being gay: "why haven't you settled down with anyone, Thomas?")? Or trans people that wouldn't/couldn't transition?

I'll agree that the lived experience is different, but I'm not sure I agree that the "history" is different; and I'm not sure that even if it were, that's grounds for exclusion.

This is all especially the case when if you really want to concentrate on just trans issues that meet your particular criteria, you can do that without excluding people from the wider community.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I understand this, but this seems like the medical professional's job; not for a community not to be accepting of someone.

That is what has been meant by saying "they need their own community," or have I gotten twisted around here? I'm talking to two different people about this and may be confusing their points.

It's been two different issues:
Those who claim to be trans but just are not and may not even be safe to be around, along with getting back to a more narrow definition so we can associate with people going through the same things and can relate to.
The other one, the "the need their own community," is more generalized and revolving around people who didn't have anything to do with us until very recently and don't share the same history or background as LGBT/queers.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Do you believe ace people didn't exist (and weren't accused of being gay: "why haven't you settled down with anyone, Thomas?")?

No. They've probably always existed, they just weren't criminalized or considered queer. It hasn't been attached to queer rights, it hasn't been present there, it's something from an entirely different background.

 

[Debater Slayer]

She's actually kind of right, and that is something that pains and torments us. No matter the mental image we have of ourselves, what we have does not match. It is this very mismatch that causes gender dysphoria. And we know modern medicine can only go so far. When proper standards of care are followed, we are made to be aware of that before we can even begin hormones. We know we are different. We know our body is different, we know our voice and speech patterns are different, we know we were raised different.

She's right in that trans women obviously never experienced life since childhood as females, but using that fact to invalidate trans women and exclude them from women's spaces seems to me to be a stretch and extremely discriminatory.

Great example:
I roomed awhile with someone who claims to be MtF. This person has been put on female hormones, but the person I got to know is someone who likes having a dick like a guy, who likes having erections like a guy, likes using them like a guy, and has a hard time with "no" like a douchy guy. This includes I'm pretty sure trying to take advantage of situation to make out with me, and helping himself to my bedroom while I was asleep and sleeping there after repeatedly being told no. He also believes women go around groping each other, dresses in clothing that reeks of toxic masculinity, and did I mention he doesn't handle "no" as an answer very well?
Proper screening, as we used to have, would have filtered this person out because he is not a good candidate for transition. And because he's unsafe to be around and has such levels of toxic masculinity that none of us who are trans should have to accept him as one of us.

If you got to know this person you wouldn't be saying that. Just trust me, I'm not the only one who's had problems with him and I'm not the only one who sees a sexually aggressive male. Even other trans people have refused to accept him. And there is no reason we should have to accept someone as one of us when they are very much behaving like a toxic male, sexual predator, and total lunatic. Even the way he looked and stared at me made me uncomfortable. If someone isn't safe to be around, are that toxic, and there is a very strong case to be made there is serious mental issues going on leading to an unstable identity there is no reason we should have to accept him. He just is not one of us just because he says he is and sometimes wears a skirt and takes hormones. If they clearly wouldn't be diagnosed with a fair and honest assessment (a few of us pieced together someone else's story and realized many lies were told in order to medically transition because legal and medical criteria are not being met), we should not have to accept them.
Kind of like how I doubt a lot of people when they say they have Asperger's, because often times a lot of people self-diagnose this and can't really name any symptoms or traits beyond poor social skills.

From what you've described, it's clear that the person in question should be excluded, but any sexual predator should be dismissed from any other group too regardless of their gender identity or expression. Is the exclusion about the person's gender expression or about their predatory, toxic behavior?

The thing is that, as I said, short of scientific standards to determine who belongs to which gender, all we have for now is assessment based on people's own words. It's similar with most kinds of mental conditions, and it's why I think the issue is very complicated. Where do we draw the line between healthy skepticism to make sure people are actually who they say they are and dismissive, casually exclusionary attitudes toward genuinely outcast people who struggle with not finding acceptance? I don't know the answer myself, and I think being hasty in answering this specific question could be extremely problematic.

 

[Meow Mix]

It's been two different issues:
Those who claim to be trans but just are not and may not even be safe to be around

Nobody disagrees that predatory behavior doesn't fly, so far so good. Though it has to be said that some "actually trans" people are predators. This is because any human can be a predator. Some lesbians are predators. And so on. So ditching predators has less to do with however we want to define "trans" and more to do with just the predatory behavior.

along with getting back to a more narrow definition so we can associate with people going through the same things and can relate to.

So it sounds like you want a subgroup with similar lived experiences: folks that can focus on the trans issues you want to focus on. Why default to gatekeeping and excluding when you can achieve this without hurting others seeking community and support? I've asked this multiple times with no clear answer.

The other one, the "the need their own community," is more generalized and revolving around people who didn't have anything to do with us until very recently and don't share the same history or background as LGBT/queers.

What do you mean "didn't have anything to do with us until recently?" Gender fluidity, nonbinary, non-presenting people, and so on have always existed. They have a different set of experiences, yeah. But why this need to exclude them from the general umbrella? You can literally just be an activist about the issues you care about, or hang out with the trans people that meet your criteria, or whatever you want to do, without turning to marginalized people and further marginalizing them by saying "you don't belong here, in general."

 

[Meow Mix]

No. They've probably always existed, they just weren't criminalized or considered queer. It hasn't been attached to queer rights, it hasn't been present there, it's something from an entirely different background.

Historically people that weren't married by a certain age were teased and sometimes accused of being homosexual. The social pressures they faced to be something they weren't by family, friends, community, etc. is pretty similar to what, say, I might have experienced had I been born back in the day.

 

[Meow Mix]

Let me give something like an analogy here from lesbian world.

I'm a feminine lesbian that's attracted to other feminine lesbians. We've been somewhat derogatorily called lipstick lesbians (Ellen made a play on this when she coined "chapstick lesbians"). We get accused of being attracted to femme lesbians because we're being performative for men and all kinds of things like this. I'm sure my lived experience is very different from more mixed-gender presenting or masculine lesbians.

How wrong of me would it be to try to exclude them because their experience is different from mine, or vice versa? We could even use the reasoning that I've suffered less because the way I present is extremely vanilla, so why shouldn't they kick me out of the club for being unable to share their exact experiences and "history?"

Where does gatekeeping stop once we start it?

(I had to try to remember this acronym I was called once: us "lipstick lesbians" apparently also get called LUGs, that's lesbian until graduation because it's assumed it's always just a performative, attention-seeking phase. Different experience for different kinds of lesbians. And nevermind that we're mean enough to each other that some of us use this stuff on each other.)

 

[PoetPhilosopher]

Great example:
I roomed awhile with someone who claims to be MtF. This person has been put on female hormones, but the person I got to know is someone who likes having a dick like a guy, who likes having erections like a guy, likes using them like a guy, and has a hard time with "no" like a douchy guy. This includes I'm pretty sure trying to take advantage of situation to make out with me, and helping himself to my bedroom while I was asleep and sleeping there after repeatedly being told no. He also believes women go around groping each other, dresses in clothing that reeks of toxic masculinity, and did I mention he doesn't handle "no" as an answer very well?
Proper screening, as we used to have, would have filtered this person out because he is not a good candidate for transition. And because he's unsafe to be around and has such levels of toxic masculinity that none of us who are trans should have to accept him as one of us.

Sometimes I get the vibe that the discussion is getting away from transgender issues and who should and shouldn't be a part of the LGBT+ community, and getting to people that one simply doesn't want in their life, and as a result, wants to kind of put red flags on them in a cancel culture way.

 

[Veyl]

Intersex shouldn't be thrown into it, either. Now people are throwing kink and polyamory into it. People are saying we should throw open the gates and just call it "Gender and Sexual Minorities" (GSM) instead of LGBTQQIABLAHBLAHBLAH. At that point, we can't complain too much when people think it includes all and sundry like pedos. I mean, we're already thrown in with straight up transvestite fetishists. Why not go further into the sewer?

I don't really see the sort of moral weight angle you're using for segregation; it seems more reasonable to separate it based off of the fact that each of those are heavily distinct categories and it would be useless to consider them to be part of a single group. Personally I've never been attracted to either gender, so I tend to see sexualities and fetishism as equal. If anything, it is rather unusual that the law makes the former a public affair with the institution of marriage.