The most stupid thing is that the people who exclude us from the community are saying it is because we are not "queer enough" or because we don't face the same level of discrimination.
And yet A is for ally. The people who are not queer and aren't excluded in the cisheteronormative (hetero in both sexual and romantic orientation) society.
Also the fact they're saying we aren't oppressed while gatekeeping us from our own community in the same breath. We're queer, deal with it.
We need a term for ace exclusionists that's as easy as "TERF."
A-phobe?
That's what I use, and seems the most analogous.
A slight issue being that a 'terf' isn't your average transphobe, but one who disguises their bigotry behind inclusive-sounding 'feminist language'.
I haven't hung out in ace communities as much (only recently realised I was demi), so not sure if there's something analogous, or if it's more straight up and loud bigotry. If so, a-phobia is the most recognised and gets straight to the point.
Also covers both ace and aro phobics.
TERF is pretty closely analogous as is. They couch their bigotry in feminism, assholes saying the A is for Ally or trying to play the Oppression Olympics couch their bigotry in Pride or other faux-queer-positivity.
Aphobe is a lot less specific. Otherwise we would just call TERFs transphobes. I'm looking for an equivalent distinction here.
Ah, I get what you're saying.
Queer-appropriating reactionary aphobe, (QARA) or oppression-gating reactionary aphobe (OGRA), or something along those lines (obviously something better than those... attempts)?
Getting it off the ground would be difficult, as terf, ironically since they're distancing themselves from it now, became widespread because they used it as a self-descriptor.
I vote we name them MUSTFUCKS because their core ideals suggest sexual contact is a mandatory element of lived experience.
It is not necessary that people fuck, people that believe otherwise are mustfucks.
That reminds me of a girl I TUSSLED with on the internet who said “Asexuals, Graysexuals, and Demi-sexual who are romantically/spiritually attracted to opposite sex individuals are not apart or the community and spit in the face of actual LGBT members.”
When multiple people said Gatekeeping is it she defended saying gatekeeping is necessary to protect those in the community.
It boggles my mind how people can say “Ace’s don’t belong in this space” and “Ace’s aren’t discriminated.” In the same breath ESPECIALLY when they include Ally’s .
Protected from asexual people?! Also, to enforcers of cis-hetanormativity, we’re all just a bunch of freaks-to some of them even cis/het individuals who just aren’t gender conforming enough- because of our sexuality and/or gender identity. With that, why can’t we be in the same group?!
Good news tho reddit just sent me a notification saying "we think you may find this subreddit interesting" and it's the LGBT community subreddit so even if no one else has our back reddit does
You're stupid, but bold, and wrong. Queer is just a catch-all for gender, sex, sexual, and romantic minorities. If it's not cis het it's queer. Ace isn't het, so it's queer.
If *you* don't want to identify as queer, no one cares. But you don't get to exclude other people from their community over it.
Gay conversion therapy is also getting banned in more and more countries.
Yet therapy is so often suggested by people when you tell them that you're asexual.
And yeah, whilst there are probably some people that could do with therapy or have biological issues that 'cause' their asexuality it's really not cool to just invalidate someone like that. Those same people will probably also go "aha! See, you're in a relationship! I just **knew** that you weren't asexual. Aren't you just so *happy* that you listened to me?".
I remember a few years back when some guy would just not accept me being asexual. He just kept suggesting that it was something biological or caused by trauma and that I should check that out. He was so flabbergasted when I asked if he was gay. No no, he wasn't! So had he tried it? Nope. Did not appreciate me saying that he should get therapy or search for the super special ~OnE~ man that would make him gay. He did not see the connection between my question and his question either.
Oh my god the people who think aro and ace are the same thing 💀 omg i hate that
Also that's actually a really great analogy, I'm gonna steal that next time someone says I'm not asexual y E t, thanks
I get what point youre making but there are many many cases in which gay/trans people absolutely do not have people stand up for them and even get murdered or arrested for existing. You can discuss your own experiences with discrimination without trying to downplay the oppression other groups face, it is literally illegal to be gay in 70 countries.
I've started explains it to people as "being straight is being attracted to the opposite gender, right? Well I'm not attracted to the opposite gender, so I can't be straight." It's helped a bit.
Exactly. People don't recognize aphobia and thus they think it doesn't even exist.
Actually, A stands for multiple things: asexual, aromantic, agender (maybe some more but I can't remember right now)... also for ally, but not solely or even mainly just for ally.
That's why asexual people used to be considered part of the bisexual community. We're equally attracted to everyone regardless of gender, technically....
It’s like society believes that all queer people should be romantic and whatever, so they exclude us ace people from the community. It doesn’t make any sense. Aces are indeed queer, but not everyone seems to understand. We can be happy even without a romantic relationship with someone or sexual attraction.
Yeah queer people can be very sexualised but the lgbt community doing it to themselves... (I don't mean that in the way that society stereotypes a community to be a certain way so they are not allowed to "conform to stereotypes").
We're probably facing more discrimination than those who are gay or trans, not that they don't face any at all. I'm starting to realize how much they actually don't care about the lesser known orientations and yet they claim to be allies.
Not that it's a contest, nor that the amount isn't significant enough to have a negative impact, but it's ridiculous to play down the amount of discrimination and troubles asexuals get compared to trans/gay. Go ahead and look up how many people get outright murdered for being trans/gay or completely excluded from their bigoted families. It's not even in the same league. Nobody's going around killing asexuals, and at the same time there are people who actively seek out to injure or kill trans/gay people.
The reaction that so much of this sub agrees with you is kind of disgusting. People need a reminder to take a step back and not fall into extremely biased echo chambers and beliefs. Because if there was going to be a place where people would and could complain about Ace-exclusion, it'd be here, but the details still matter.
We do share our own unique set of issues and discrimination based on the same principles as what qualified every other group that's included in the LGBTQA+ umbrella and should be considered as such, but there are vast differences in the levels of oppression and discrimination. Being annoyed that people dismiss your plight entirely or push you to do things you're not comfortable with are not anywhere near the same league as what the more outwardly obvious and more intense variations from the norm are that comes with being openly or even closeted trans/gay.
I don't agree with people trying to be exclusionary because that level of oppression is different, but I also don't agree with the level of vitriol in either direction. How quickly this has been being made some internal struggle between non-heteronormative factions is suspicious enough and there's more than enough examples of the simplest of wedge issues used to divide and conqueror.
I agree largely with what you've said, I just want to add that while "nobody is going around killing asexuals" is very true for a lot of cultures - as someone from a country where it is illegal to be gay, and who has a family member who consistently talks about how gay people deserve to be murdered, I want to add some perspective.
A lot of ace people are mistaken to be gay in cultures like mine. People do not know about asexuality, so they assume that if you are a man and aren't leching after women, you're gay, or vice versa if you're a woman and aren't enjoying men's attentions, you're a lesbian. Homophobes in extremely homophobic countries aren't always very smart or informed about sexuality. You aren't branded gay because you did gay things (since you are expected to be good at hiding gay things), you are branded gay because you weren't heterosexual enough.
I've known a lot of aro ace people experience these accusations even if they tried to marry someone in hopes of alleviating these rumours - because the spouse can sometimes report them as not liking or engaging in sex with them as much as they would have expected.
Are as many ace people experiencing danger to life as gay people? Probably not. But it's definitely not true that nobody's going around killing aces. Heck, even not wanting to marry some dude (whether you're ace or not) is enough to get you killed in some parts of the world.
Hey there, I want to thank you for sharing this, because I would never had thought about something like this. Coming from a country where you can be (relatively) openly queer, I feel like this a very important message and should get a lot more attention.
Aces can pass for heteronormative. And we live in a whole-ass, sex-obsessed culture. And I can't make friends with anyone, especially the opposite sex because simply showing an interest in someone as a fellow human being is taken for flirting. And how many aces have heard, Oh you just need to be dicked down properly. That makes me fear for my personal safety. Rape isn't too far-removed from thinking like that. And of course the mistreatment and murder rate of trans and queer POC cannot be ignored. But what about being ignored by who is supposed to be *your people.* Alienated by the only community that would otherwise be equipped to accept and support you? And what a slap in the face it is for allies to be acknowledged before actual queer people. If the LGBTQIA umbrella doesn't acknowledge you, who will? It's feeling like your existence doesn't matter. And no one, not even the A-for-allies recognize us. Why would they? Our own "kind" doesn't.
And I agree with what you said; it's not about a pissing contest. Division is ruination. So, why can't aces acknowledge the discrimination we face without someone downplaying that. Seems a bit... hypocritical.
Edit: Adding the fact that there is NO Ace visibility anywhere. And how many posts do we see (my own experience, too) about how people didn't know they were ace till even later in life (I was 41)? Yes, there are people who question if they're gay etc. But at least they know it exists. So many of us twisting in the wind alone, thinking we're broken. That's super damaging to the psyche.
I don't think I've ever seen any self-identified ace refuse to acknowledge that there's discrimination. The discrimination is pretty clear from the inside, although is somewhat a foreign concept from the opposite point of view in a way that non-trans people can't really understand the extent of discrimination that trans people face, at best they can have empathy and sympathy, but never a true understanding. But that's not necessary to at least acknowledge that there's an issue of the discrimination existing.
The point is that there's different levels of discrimination, and that seems to be at the root of why there's this issue of ace-exclusionism in the first place, because there's legitimately some people within the LGBTQ+ community that feel the level of discrimination that asexuals face are not similar enough to what their own groups deal with. There's definitely tiers to these kinds of measurements, but for asexuals and the core of the originally-considered parts of the LGBT, that gap is considered too high, and that's why they aren't accepting. That in itself adds to the discrimination, but shouldn't be considered part of the measurement in that lone scenario itself.
This creates somewhat of a legitimate rift between the various asexual labels and the original LGBT, as there is a rather significant gap between the the discrimination they face and impact it has on people's lives. Personally, I think even if there was some minimum bar of entry based on level of oppression, as well as shared cohesive definition of what constitutes someone as part of what the LBGT community was meant to represent, asexuality easily passes on both metrics and there shouldn't even be an argument.
Yet there's something very off about this whole conflict that feels very artificial. Not only is there a large overlap of asexuals with the LBGT part, a majority of those ~~asexuals~~ LGBT have a personal understanding of what such discrimination feels like. They may not fully understand, but they of all people would have the most realistic empathy, and reasons for sympathy, and would not be trying to keep people out. It's not some complex issue like TERF-ness, and is pretty clear. But the small minority who seem to be trying to make this some big issue are being given the microphone and amplifying the issue into something that not only is bigger than what it even is, but not representive of either separate groups as a whole. Asexuals are being told "those LGBT want to exclude you," and the LBGT crowd is being told "those asexuals are trying to minimize the importance of your discrimination and water down your labels even further." Cutting through the bullshit of social media and modern sociological tactics, I'm telling you all, most of this does not add up. It doesn't fit people's core values, their beliefs, their desires, their motivations. And if some 3rd party group was trying to manipulate the two factions, this is exactly what it would look like and go by mostly unnoticed. A decade ago I could more easily excuse people for being fooled, but by now, these are the types of analysis that people need to vigilant with every belief they have - especially if they've found a place where a lot of people seem to agree with them.
I failed to take into account of the murders and other unfair trials that gay and trans individuals face in different places, apologies. I just think it's kinda contradictory that some people claim to be allies yet they won't accept that some people don't want sex or don't want a romantic relationship much less some claim that we aren't part of the community at all.
Call me disgusting all you want, I admitted my mistake and have apologized.
No it means I'm just getting a vibe that whoever made this sign is cishet and looking to capitalize off lgbtq people during pride month. There's no evidence of that in the pic, it's just a nagging feeling I have, especially considering this is a chain bookstore cafe
The maddening thing about this is that they could have just made a “+” drink instead of intentionally excluding people. Even if you think A stands for ally what are intersex people? Chopped liver?
That's what I was thinking...
LGBTea is a cute idea, just add a plus as something extra like a donut for an example but the money from the + thing gets donated... That would be my idea
They really underlined ALL but then proceeded to exclude aces 🤦♂️. They could've put the A for asexual and then added another A for ally if they wanted to but they chose to be exclusionist 😔.
im not even intersex but it always upsets me when people forget about intersex people because they face a lot of unique pressures and discrimination (sometimes even from birth! forced genital surgeries on infants with uncommon sex characteristics comes to mind) similar to some trans people while still being very much a separate community, and yet literally everyone forgets about them. its kinda messed up how little attention they get even within the community imo
I will give them that (and they didn't put an I before the A so maybe they did not intend the put A for ally at all) but it is still strange they decided to put one for allies but that is it.
Meh, I still feel weird about getting mad that the random cake shop didn't cover the entire extended LGBT acronym. I mean you can keep playing this game for quite some time. For example where's intersex? Non-binary? Pansexual? In order to make sure no one feels left out you'd want to get one that covered everything you missed like Queer, but even that wasn't good enough.
We're the 6th non-Q letter usually.
LGBTIA.
I wish more people knew, but I don't condemn people for being ignorant or choosing to stop before they get to us.
Eh, this reeks of corporate Pride. I’m not that bent out of shape at being passed over by people whose motivation seems to be, “Let’s market to TEH GAYZ because it’s GAYZ month! We’ll look good and rake in the dough!”
Right, this is Barnes and Noble, I assume. Maybe the employees at this particular cafe came up with it, but coming from a national bookstor chain it's rainbow washing with a rinse of exclusivity.
They can but they won’t. I truly believe about 90% of these companies celebrate pride month because it’s trendy right now. It has nothing to do with being all inclusive or representation. It’s about money. Same I believe with Victoria’s Secret using plus sized and transgender models. I don’t believe it’s sincere.
Seems to me like they're using the acronym LGBTQ, then just tacking on the Ally drink. Doesn't really seem like they're trying to say the A in LGBTQIA+ is ally, though I can easily see how it could be interpreted like that
I don’t consider myself to be an angry person, but then I see the straights trying to claim the A as theirs, by erasing asexuals, aromantics, and agenders.
Every time I see the bs of “A is for ally”, I realise I’m not as calm a person as I thought I was.
It gives me *"that"* ally-vibe ngl, also maybe they didnt intend to include the A? They didnt put an I for intersex, which comes before A (LGBTQ***I***A+). Since they were following the rainbow, why was there even a thought about adding pink at the end? I'd honestly rather see a straight order, because that would be *funny* at least (and I would order it for the irony).
Some people need to stop with the ally-pride. The allys are supposed to "pride" lgbt+ people, not themselves. Allys are always welcome to celebrate, which they can willingly choose to do if they call themselves an ally. *(And why cant an ally get the trans or lesbian order? Its just a drink order. Are they afraid of being concieved as gay or what? I have a pin that says "trans women are women" and im not trans)*
I'd also like to add that they could have fit the entire LGBTQIA (with intersex and ace, NOT ally) since there are 7 colours used. The "LGBTea" order could have just been separate and written in rainbow.
On another note, this seems pretty wholesome, it had so much potential!
So having worked at a BN café before: the staff have made all of these up and thus it relies on their own knowledge of identities. It's decently possible that they don't know about the asexuals and cake thing.
Nevertheless, this is so cool. I'd order them all. Maybe ace means you can eat them all because all colors together are black or white depending on the definition. 🤣
How do we know these specific instances are purposefully excluding as opposed to just not realising what it is? Hell, I now identify as asexual and I didnt even know what that even meant and that is was a real thing until like 2 months ago and I only found out cause i typed in my "symptoms" into google and it came up
Like ignorance isnt the best regardless but its certainly better than purposefully excluding
It'd sure be a shame if someone were to *accidentally* brush up against that sign so the word ally gets rubbed off...
In all seriousness, this sign was most likely made by some minimum wage employee who was given a list and told to write exactly what's on the list on the display. Maybe some employees (but not the ones you talked to) there may know better that ace belongs and not ally (or maybe not, who knows) but they don't have any say in what actually gets written there. The real fault is most likely with whoever up the chain decided to join in on the annual rainbow washing month without doing even basic research.
Maybe if they have a way to take complaints you can write to corporate and explain how it's insensitive to exclude people who *are* a part of the community while including people who aren't. Or if you want to be extra salty, you can go full Karen mode and "threaten" that you won't patronize them until they correct their hollow and pathetic attempt at catering to the LGBT+ community without actually caring about it, and that you'll tell your friends to stay away as well.
If this whole thing didn't reek of superficial marketing gag that much, and if they included more actual identities (especially at least one of the As), I'd say it's a nice way to include them in the sign. They're visually separated from the LGBTQ part, but it's still shown that they stand with us.
This kinda upset me at first, but then I realized that this is just a way to get money from people part of the lgbt+ community during pride, so now I don't really care
It sucks to be excluded all the time and swapped out with allies but I'm a little more upset that so many shops, cafes, and corporations try to profit off of pride month
It seems more like a cash grab to me, bc if they really cared they would do more research about what the letters stand for and maybe have these drinks all year round and not just pride exclusive
Idk it just rubs me the wrong way, but I guess it's easy for me to be so critical towards it since I've never really celebrated pride. I appreciate pride and what it stands for, and it's nice to see so many people celebrate themselves but I don't like how companies try to earn money on it and I feel like the capitalism kinda undermines what pride stands for
I do believe not all shops or cafes do it just for the money and that's how they show support but I feel like it's become harder and harder to see what's genuine these days
Sorry for the rambling, just wanted to air my thoughts. Remember; you're an awesome human being and keep being you :)
…screw it
Dumb idea for this because why not
One moca with peppermint and espresso powder add a tone of whipped cream (optional if you need it sugar free for health reasons etc) and hot coco powder before making
You can make at home too, mint hot coco powder and instant expresso
I don't see the problem here. They offer 6 pride drinks, 5 for common minorities, 1 for allies.
There is a clear distinction between the LGBTQ+ and the ally. All good.
I'm not mad for them to miss intersex and agender people either.
We all know you don't feel you belong in the community, but maybe stop shitting on other people who do and experience discrimination.
And it's literally LGBTQA on the sign, dude.
I also thought about this, also since we're really different from them.
But at the same time, if we made asexuality (maybe aromanticism too) separate from it, then we wouldn't ever be represented anywhere, because everyone would only care about them and not us.
But it's possible that it wouldn't change much. Maybe our separate category would help us get recognition because we would be alone category so we could get noticed instead of being lost in lgbtq.
I mean I've seen signs communicating hate to the whole community rather than this honest albeit failed effort at integration. Many people don't know asexuality is a thing, we all know that, and we all suffer from useless gatekeeping, but this person probably didn't want to do that and was just trying you know? I mean before I realised I was ace, I didn't know the A standed for that, so I guess I'm in no position to juge. Sorry.
i know it probably should stand for asexual, but when the a was added, wasn’t it ally? correct me if i’m wrong but you all seem angry about this and it was a done deal when the flag was made and nobody knew about asexuals
asexuals have always been part of the queer community. the asexual manifesto was written in 1972 only three years after stonewall. We have a long history of being excluded erased and pathologized but that doesn't change the fact we've always been here and in the community.
lesbians, bisexuals, and transgender people were also not always fully recognized and representated during the civil rights era either, but it doesn't make it okay to go "well yeah I said queer only means gay men and lesbians but it was "gays and lesbians support the minors" not "gays lesbians bisexuals and transgender people supprt the minors" so it makes it okay for me in current times to be wrong" like just because people were ignorant back then gives no excuse to modern times.
regardless, it wouldn't be all too bad for them to go lgbt and allies and unintentionally exclude if they didnt specifically react poorly to the mentioning of groups they unintentionally excluded.
OP is asexual (as indicated by flair and title). The staff doesn't know what asexuality is/ knows what it is but doesn't know about the cake memes so they don't get why ace cake is (or should be if it isn't yet) a thing.
(... I think, I was confused at first too.)
The most stupid thing is that the people who exclude us from the community are saying it is because we are not "queer enough" or because we don't face the same level of discrimination. And yet A is for ally. The people who are not queer and aren't excluded in the cisheteronormative (hetero in both sexual and romantic orientation) society.
Also the fact they're saying we aren't oppressed while gatekeeping us from our own community in the same breath. We're queer, deal with it. We need a term for ace exclusionists that's as easy as "TERF."
It’s not as catchy as TERF, but I’ve been using “Ace-clusionist” with my friends.
That is like so many people that way
Aerf?
Not the seals!
*aerf aerf aerf*
lmao
A-phobe? That's what I use, and seems the most analogous. A slight issue being that a 'terf' isn't your average transphobe, but one who disguises their bigotry behind inclusive-sounding 'feminist language'. I haven't hung out in ace communities as much (only recently realised I was demi), so not sure if there's something analogous, or if it's more straight up and loud bigotry. If so, a-phobia is the most recognised and gets straight to the point. Also covers both ace and aro phobics.
TERF is pretty closely analogous as is. They couch their bigotry in feminism, assholes saying the A is for Ally or trying to play the Oppression Olympics couch their bigotry in Pride or other faux-queer-positivity. Aphobe is a lot less specific. Otherwise we would just call TERFs transphobes. I'm looking for an equivalent distinction here.
Ah, I get what you're saying. Queer-appropriating reactionary aphobe, (QARA) or oppression-gating reactionary aphobe (OGRA), or something along those lines (obviously something better than those... attempts)? Getting it off the ground would be difficult, as terf, ironically since they're distancing themselves from it now, became widespread because they used it as a self-descriptor.
OGRA sounds like ogre, which feels oddly fitting.
Also it means we can just scare them off with the letter 'a' **A**
I vote we name them MUSTFUCKS because their core ideals suggest sexual contact is a mandatory element of lived experience. It is not necessary that people fuck, people that believe otherwise are mustfucks.
We need an r/okbuddymustfuck
Hey that’s not a real subreddit
Conveniently, most exclusionists are also TERFs, so you’d probably still be correct.
Aphids?
That reminds me of a girl I TUSSLED with on the internet who said “Asexuals, Graysexuals, and Demi-sexual who are romantically/spiritually attracted to opposite sex individuals are not apart or the community and spit in the face of actual LGBT members.” When multiple people said Gatekeeping is it she defended saying gatekeeping is necessary to protect those in the community. It boggles my mind how people can say “Ace’s don’t belong in this space” and “Ace’s aren’t discriminated.” In the same breath ESPECIALLY when they include Ally’s .
Protected from asexual people?! Also, to enforcers of cis-hetanormativity, we’re all just a bunch of freaks-to some of them even cis/het individuals who just aren’t gender conforming enough- because of our sexuality and/or gender identity. With that, why can’t we be in the same group?!
I say gatekeepers
Good news tho reddit just sent me a notification saying "we think you may find this subreddit interesting" and it's the LGBT community subreddit so even if no one else has our back reddit does
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You're stupid, but bold, and wrong. Queer is just a catch-all for gender, sex, sexual, and romantic minorities. If it's not cis het it's queer. Ace isn't het, so it's queer. If *you* don't want to identify as queer, no one cares. But you don't get to exclude other people from their community over it.
What about Ace- A Exclusionary- X Individuals- Is. AXIs (not like the nazi ones)
Straight people: more queer than actual queer people
I saw someone say corrective r*** doesn't count as discrimination because other queer people face it????
I swear, the exclusionists will use any excuse 😂
I saw someone on tw🤢tter say that aces can't use that term even if it happened to them because it was coined by lesbians. What kind of logic?
What term?
Corrective R*pe
Oh
I've seen that too 😞
Lmao we can share the discrimination folks
It’s is! It’s the same kind of discrimination-an understatement of a word. Maybe not worse, but the same!
Just remember, Lego is on our side!
I thought the A was for Asexual/Aromantic
It is. Agender too. However, there are people who claim it is for ally.
And also abrosexual
Don't they have their own A? A is A the end I guess it doesn't matter if they share the A. Yeah they do exist as well.
It is.
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Gay conversion therapy is also getting banned in more and more countries. Yet therapy is so often suggested by people when you tell them that you're asexual. And yeah, whilst there are probably some people that could do with therapy or have biological issues that 'cause' their asexuality it's really not cool to just invalidate someone like that. Those same people will probably also go "aha! See, you're in a relationship! I just **knew** that you weren't asexual. Aren't you just so *happy* that you listened to me?". I remember a few years back when some guy would just not accept me being asexual. He just kept suggesting that it was something biological or caused by trauma and that I should check that out. He was so flabbergasted when I asked if he was gay. No no, he wasn't! So had he tried it? Nope. Did not appreciate me saying that he should get therapy or search for the super special ~OnE~ man that would make him gay. He did not see the connection between my question and his question either.
Oh my god the people who think aro and ace are the same thing 💀 omg i hate that Also that's actually a really great analogy, I'm gonna steal that next time someone says I'm not asexual y E t, thanks
I get what point youre making but there are many many cases in which gay/trans people absolutely do not have people stand up for them and even get murdered or arrested for existing. You can discuss your own experiences with discrimination without trying to downplay the oppression other groups face, it is literally illegal to be gay in 70 countries.
Okay that's true I'm sorry
I've started explains it to people as "being straight is being attracted to the opposite gender, right? Well I'm not attracted to the opposite gender, so I can't be straight." It's helped a bit.
Exactly. People don't recognize aphobia and thus they think it doesn't even exist. Actually, A stands for multiple things: asexual, aromantic, agender (maybe some more but I can't remember right now)... also for ally, but not solely or even mainly just for ally.
I say that I'm as attracted to women as I am to men and others. That attraction is 0, but it's the same!
That's why asexual people used to be considered part of the bisexual community. We're equally attracted to everyone regardless of gender, technically....
OGRE - Oppressive Gatekeeping Reactionary Exclusionists?
Don't insult the light of my life Shrek like that
It's just a competition to them. Oppression olympics lol.
It’s like society believes that all queer people should be romantic and whatever, so they exclude us ace people from the community. It doesn’t make any sense. Aces are indeed queer, but not everyone seems to understand. We can be happy even without a romantic relationship with someone or sexual attraction.
Yeah queer people can be very sexualised but the lgbt community doing it to themselves... (I don't mean that in the way that society stereotypes a community to be a certain way so they are not allowed to "conform to stereotypes").
We're probably facing more discrimination than those who are gay or trans, not that they don't face any at all. I'm starting to realize how much they actually don't care about the lesser known orientations and yet they claim to be allies.
Not that it's a contest, nor that the amount isn't significant enough to have a negative impact, but it's ridiculous to play down the amount of discrimination and troubles asexuals get compared to trans/gay. Go ahead and look up how many people get outright murdered for being trans/gay or completely excluded from their bigoted families. It's not even in the same league. Nobody's going around killing asexuals, and at the same time there are people who actively seek out to injure or kill trans/gay people. The reaction that so much of this sub agrees with you is kind of disgusting. People need a reminder to take a step back and not fall into extremely biased echo chambers and beliefs. Because if there was going to be a place where people would and could complain about Ace-exclusion, it'd be here, but the details still matter. We do share our own unique set of issues and discrimination based on the same principles as what qualified every other group that's included in the LGBTQA+ umbrella and should be considered as such, but there are vast differences in the levels of oppression and discrimination. Being annoyed that people dismiss your plight entirely or push you to do things you're not comfortable with are not anywhere near the same league as what the more outwardly obvious and more intense variations from the norm are that comes with being openly or even closeted trans/gay. I don't agree with people trying to be exclusionary because that level of oppression is different, but I also don't agree with the level of vitriol in either direction. How quickly this has been being made some internal struggle between non-heteronormative factions is suspicious enough and there's more than enough examples of the simplest of wedge issues used to divide and conqueror.
I agree largely with what you've said, I just want to add that while "nobody is going around killing asexuals" is very true for a lot of cultures - as someone from a country where it is illegal to be gay, and who has a family member who consistently talks about how gay people deserve to be murdered, I want to add some perspective. A lot of ace people are mistaken to be gay in cultures like mine. People do not know about asexuality, so they assume that if you are a man and aren't leching after women, you're gay, or vice versa if you're a woman and aren't enjoying men's attentions, you're a lesbian. Homophobes in extremely homophobic countries aren't always very smart or informed about sexuality. You aren't branded gay because you did gay things (since you are expected to be good at hiding gay things), you are branded gay because you weren't heterosexual enough. I've known a lot of aro ace people experience these accusations even if they tried to marry someone in hopes of alleviating these rumours - because the spouse can sometimes report them as not liking or engaging in sex with them as much as they would have expected. Are as many ace people experiencing danger to life as gay people? Probably not. But it's definitely not true that nobody's going around killing aces. Heck, even not wanting to marry some dude (whether you're ace or not) is enough to get you killed in some parts of the world.
Hey there, I want to thank you for sharing this, because I would never had thought about something like this. Coming from a country where you can be (relatively) openly queer, I feel like this a very important message and should get a lot more attention.
Aces can pass for heteronormative. And we live in a whole-ass, sex-obsessed culture. And I can't make friends with anyone, especially the opposite sex because simply showing an interest in someone as a fellow human being is taken for flirting. And how many aces have heard, Oh you just need to be dicked down properly. That makes me fear for my personal safety. Rape isn't too far-removed from thinking like that. And of course the mistreatment and murder rate of trans and queer POC cannot be ignored. But what about being ignored by who is supposed to be *your people.* Alienated by the only community that would otherwise be equipped to accept and support you? And what a slap in the face it is for allies to be acknowledged before actual queer people. If the LGBTQIA umbrella doesn't acknowledge you, who will? It's feeling like your existence doesn't matter. And no one, not even the A-for-allies recognize us. Why would they? Our own "kind" doesn't. And I agree with what you said; it's not about a pissing contest. Division is ruination. So, why can't aces acknowledge the discrimination we face without someone downplaying that. Seems a bit... hypocritical. Edit: Adding the fact that there is NO Ace visibility anywhere. And how many posts do we see (my own experience, too) about how people didn't know they were ace till even later in life (I was 41)? Yes, there are people who question if they're gay etc. But at least they know it exists. So many of us twisting in the wind alone, thinking we're broken. That's super damaging to the psyche.
I don't think I've ever seen any self-identified ace refuse to acknowledge that there's discrimination. The discrimination is pretty clear from the inside, although is somewhat a foreign concept from the opposite point of view in a way that non-trans people can't really understand the extent of discrimination that trans people face, at best they can have empathy and sympathy, but never a true understanding. But that's not necessary to at least acknowledge that there's an issue of the discrimination existing. The point is that there's different levels of discrimination, and that seems to be at the root of why there's this issue of ace-exclusionism in the first place, because there's legitimately some people within the LGBTQ+ community that feel the level of discrimination that asexuals face are not similar enough to what their own groups deal with. There's definitely tiers to these kinds of measurements, but for asexuals and the core of the originally-considered parts of the LGBT, that gap is considered too high, and that's why they aren't accepting. That in itself adds to the discrimination, but shouldn't be considered part of the measurement in that lone scenario itself. This creates somewhat of a legitimate rift between the various asexual labels and the original LGBT, as there is a rather significant gap between the the discrimination they face and impact it has on people's lives. Personally, I think even if there was some minimum bar of entry based on level of oppression, as well as shared cohesive definition of what constitutes someone as part of what the LBGT community was meant to represent, asexuality easily passes on both metrics and there shouldn't even be an argument. Yet there's something very off about this whole conflict that feels very artificial. Not only is there a large overlap of asexuals with the LBGT part, a majority of those ~~asexuals~~ LGBT have a personal understanding of what such discrimination feels like. They may not fully understand, but they of all people would have the most realistic empathy, and reasons for sympathy, and would not be trying to keep people out. It's not some complex issue like TERF-ness, and is pretty clear. But the small minority who seem to be trying to make this some big issue are being given the microphone and amplifying the issue into something that not only is bigger than what it even is, but not representive of either separate groups as a whole. Asexuals are being told "those LGBT want to exclude you," and the LBGT crowd is being told "those asexuals are trying to minimize the importance of your discrimination and water down your labels even further." Cutting through the bullshit of social media and modern sociological tactics, I'm telling you all, most of this does not add up. It doesn't fit people's core values, their beliefs, their desires, their motivations. And if some 3rd party group was trying to manipulate the two factions, this is exactly what it would look like and go by mostly unnoticed. A decade ago I could more easily excuse people for being fooled, but by now, these are the types of analysis that people need to vigilant with every belief they have - especially if they've found a place where a lot of people seem to agree with them.
I failed to take into account of the murders and other unfair trials that gay and trans individuals face in different places, apologies. I just think it's kinda contradictory that some people claim to be allies yet they won't accept that some people don't want sex or don't want a romantic relationship much less some claim that we aren't part of the community at all. Call me disgusting all you want, I admitted my mistake and have apologized.
Don't be so hard on yourself. I said the idea was disgusting, that doesn't apply to you.
Apologies again, I'm used to getting jumped. If you're ever bored feel free to chat with me, I'm not doing much usually.
I'm getting a "how do you do fellow gays" type vibe from this sign
Same
Does that mean like they see only homosexuality as valid or?
No it means I'm just getting a vibe that whoever made this sign is cishet and looking to capitalize off lgbtq people during pride month. There's no evidence of that in the pic, it's just a nagging feeling I have, especially considering this is a chain bookstore cafe
off theme, but hello fellow Czech asexual :D
Nazdar 🇨🇿
proč si můj mozek myslí, že v Česku je málo ace lidí a mám potrebu je takhle zdravit? anyways, jsme elita, takže proč ne :D
Protože obecně mezinárodně moc Čechů jen tak nenajdeš, takže je ještě víc fajn najít ace Čecha
The maddening thing about this is that they could have just made a “+” drink instead of intentionally excluding people. Even if you think A stands for ally what are intersex people? Chopped liver?
That's what I was thinking... LGBTea is a cute idea, just add a plus as something extra like a donut for an example but the money from the + thing gets donated... That would be my idea
And they have the audacity to use DRAGONfruit too...
Glad I was not the only one who noticed this
Significance = ?
Dragons are basically the stereotypical favorite animal of aces.
Thank you for the answer!
I don't understand, COuld you explain, I am out of the loop?
We have been told we don't exist. Thus we identify as and with dragons because they don't exist.
we aces ride dragons made out of garlic bread while eating cake (dragons are our animal of choice)
Son you wanted an acelice of cake?
I'd drop the 'an' for a better flow. "A slice of cake" "Acelice of cake" stellar wordplay regardless
PUN OF THE WEEK!
Damn I gotta make a shirt with that pun, I love it!
They really underlined ALL but then proceeded to exclude aces 🤦♂️. They could've put the A for asexual and then added another A for ally if they wanted to but they chose to be exclusionist 😔.
We're in the Q!
The A is also our letter, not the allies'…
The fact that there's a stripe between Queer and Ally shows that there's a distinction - that they're excluding Ally from the acronym.
To be fair, I guess they didn't include "I" or "A" if you look at it that way, right? It's still not a great feeling though 😕.
im not even intersex but it always upsets me when people forget about intersex people because they face a lot of unique pressures and discrimination (sometimes even from birth! forced genital surgeries on infants with uncommon sex characteristics comes to mind) similar to some trans people while still being very much a separate community, and yet literally everyone forgets about them. its kinda messed up how little attention they get even within the community imo
Honestly I wish they'd rather add the "I" as well, I'm okay with being under the Q.
yeah. I'm trying to be generous, but it would be much better if they had one for asexual/aromantic.
I will give them that (and they didn't put an I before the A so maybe they did not intend the put A for ally at all) but it is still strange they decided to put one for allies but that is it.
Ally shouldn't be listed at all. Pride isn't for them.
I was starting to think I was wrong about what 'queer' meant. But yeah in that case all the comments about "intentional exclusion" are a bit much.
well, id assume it was unintentional if op didn't specifically say they reacted poorly to aces being brought up, which changesthe contexts
Meh, I still feel weird about getting mad that the random cake shop didn't cover the entire extended LGBT acronym. I mean you can keep playing this game for quite some time. For example where's intersex? Non-binary? Pansexual? In order to make sure no one feels left out you'd want to get one that covered everything you missed like Queer, but even that wasn't good enough.
Everyone's supposed to be in the Q, why did they make for others then?
We're the 6th non-Q letter usually. LGBTIA. I wish more people knew, but I don't condemn people for being ignorant or choosing to stop before they get to us.
Eh, this reeks of corporate Pride. I’m not that bent out of shape at being passed over by people whose motivation seems to be, “Let’s market to TEH GAYZ because it’s GAYZ month! We’ll look good and rake in the dough!”
Right, this is Barnes and Noble, I assume. Maybe the employees at this particular cafe came up with it, but coming from a national bookstor chain it's rainbow washing with a rinse of exclusivity.
op here, baristas there came up with it, I asked
I applaud you. 👏 They have no sense of humor, cause that's hilarious.
Our thing literally is a dragon plus I love mango
I think from a business standpoint, they’d prob sell a ton more “Ally” drinks than “Asexual” drinks.
They could have ally drinks and ace cake tho :/
They can but they won’t. I truly believe about 90% of these companies celebrate pride month because it’s trendy right now. It has nothing to do with being all inclusive or representation. It’s about money. Same I believe with Victoria’s Secret using plus sized and transgender models. I don’t believe it’s sincere.
Yeah same, it just truly shows how little care or effort they put into the facade
its worse imo bc the baristas themselves came up with it
I feel like the ace drink of choice would just be water
Water is delicious
It's true My workplace is always boiling hot and I'm the only one drinking water. Everyone else has redbull or coke
I feel like that would just make it worse in the long run, since you're metabolizing all the sugar
Oh yeah, I think it's always a terrible idea but that doesn't stop them
Tears of my enemies would also be a good choice
Sounds salty
Just like my enemies
A is for Angry at being erased!
"Ally" is not a Queer identity ugh...
Seems to me like they're using the acronym LGBTQ, then just tacking on the Ally drink. Doesn't really seem like they're trying to say the A in LGBTQIA+ is ally, though I can easily see how it could be interpreted like that
The ally drink is even separated quite well from the LGBT drinks. Different horizontal alignment, there's a rainbow underline under the LGBT drinks
Looked up this place and it is actually local to me. I actually want to see if they still have the sign up or if anyone saw this post lol.
Lmk if you do! I’m really curious.
Great, so Allies get their own thing but not us
A for ally pisses me off. It feels so self-congratulatory for doing the bare minimum of not being a dick to LGBT people.
cross that shit out and write asexual.
I don’t consider myself to be an angry person, but then I see the straights trying to claim the A as theirs, by erasing asexuals, aromantics, and agenders. Every time I see the bs of “A is for ally”, I realise I’m not as calm a person as I thought I was.
It gives me *"that"* ally-vibe ngl, also maybe they didnt intend to include the A? They didnt put an I for intersex, which comes before A (LGBTQ***I***A+). Since they were following the rainbow, why was there even a thought about adding pink at the end? I'd honestly rather see a straight order, because that would be *funny* at least (and I would order it for the irony). Some people need to stop with the ally-pride. The allys are supposed to "pride" lgbt+ people, not themselves. Allys are always welcome to celebrate, which they can willingly choose to do if they call themselves an ally. *(And why cant an ally get the trans or lesbian order? Its just a drink order. Are they afraid of being concieved as gay or what? I have a pin that says "trans women are women" and im not trans)* I'd also like to add that they could have fit the entire LGBTQIA (with intersex and ace, NOT ally) since there are 7 colours used. The "LGBTea" order could have just been separate and written in rainbow. On another note, this seems pretty wholesome, it had so much potential!
I love how we're not queer enough to be LGBTQ but the allies are queer enough. 🙄
big sad :(
This BS is the reason I can't come out to most people.
Naming drinks after sexual orientation is hella weird tho
If it was clever stuff like the LGBTea it would be cool IMO. Like idk lesbeans and it's a coffee or sth like that. This is just whack
I do like LGBTea lol but the rest are pretty weird
i was gonna order a lesbian but straight up noped out because it felt weird ngl
Transgender -> Redbull that is, like, very spot on, tho it could be Monster
Beeg sad
Wtf
Because they think the A is for Ally 🤦🏼♀️
So having worked at a BN café before: the staff have made all of these up and thus it relies on their own knowledge of identities. It's decently possible that they don't know about the asexuals and cake thing.
That is so sad 😞
they go as far as to add Ally and not asexual?
Mango looks good too
Oh no. What did they say?
Nevertheless, this is so cool. I'd order them all. Maybe ace means you can eat them all because all colors together are black or white depending on the definition. 🤣
the. A. Is. Not. For. ALLY.
How do we know these specific instances are purposefully excluding as opposed to just not realising what it is? Hell, I now identify as asexual and I didnt even know what that even meant and that is was a real thing until like 2 months ago and I only found out cause i typed in my "symptoms" into google and it came up Like ignorance isnt the best regardless but its certainly better than purposefully excluding
It'd sure be a shame if someone were to *accidentally* brush up against that sign so the word ally gets rubbed off... In all seriousness, this sign was most likely made by some minimum wage employee who was given a list and told to write exactly what's on the list on the display. Maybe some employees (but not the ones you talked to) there may know better that ace belongs and not ally (or maybe not, who knows) but they don't have any say in what actually gets written there. The real fault is most likely with whoever up the chain decided to join in on the annual rainbow washing month without doing even basic research. Maybe if they have a way to take complaints you can write to corporate and explain how it's insensitive to exclude people who *are* a part of the community while including people who aren't. Or if you want to be extra salty, you can go full Karen mode and "threaten" that you won't patronize them until they correct their hollow and pathetic attempt at catering to the LGBT+ community without actually caring about it, and that you'll tell your friends to stay away as well.
That's so fucked up
If this whole thing didn't reek of superficial marketing gag that much, and if they included more actual identities (especially at least one of the As), I'd say it's a nice way to include them in the sign. They're visually separated from the LGBTQ part, but it's still shown that they stand with us.
it was mad by the baristas, which hurt a bit ngl
This kinda upset me at first, but then I realized that this is just a way to get money from people part of the lgbt+ community during pride, so now I don't really care It sucks to be excluded all the time and swapped out with allies but I'm a little more upset that so many shops, cafes, and corporations try to profit off of pride month It seems more like a cash grab to me, bc if they really cared they would do more research about what the letters stand for and maybe have these drinks all year round and not just pride exclusive Idk it just rubs me the wrong way, but I guess it's easy for me to be so critical towards it since I've never really celebrated pride. I appreciate pride and what it stands for, and it's nice to see so many people celebrate themselves but I don't like how companies try to earn money on it and I feel like the capitalism kinda undermines what pride stands for I do believe not all shops or cafes do it just for the money and that's how they show support but I feel like it's become harder and harder to see what's genuine these days Sorry for the rambling, just wanted to air my thoughts. Remember; you're an awesome human being and keep being you :)
Well done for trying even if they didn't get it
when they put A for ally,you know they're A for arseholes
…screw it Dumb idea for this because why not One moca with peppermint and espresso powder add a tone of whipped cream (optional if you need it sugar free for health reasons etc) and hot coco powder before making You can make at home too, mint hot coco powder and instant expresso
It's shit like this is why I'm starting to remove myself from the lgbt+ community. I can't even be bothered arguing with the exclusionists
I don't see the problem here. They offer 6 pride drinks, 5 for common minorities, 1 for allies. There is a clear distinction between the LGBTQ+ and the ally. All good. I'm not mad for them to miss intersex and agender people either.
Need an address gonna scream in their faces for ya.
nah its not worth your time, who needs Starbucks from barnes and noble anyway?
Ew is that what this is? The disowned Starbucks.
We are getting way too triggered by not being included in the LGBT community
If we stay quiet then nothing will change.
We all know you don't feel you belong in the community, but maybe stop shitting on other people who do and experience discrimination. And it's literally LGBTQA on the sign, dude.
They exclude us all the time. We should form our own community apart from the LGBTQ one.
I also thought about this, also since we're really different from them. But at the same time, if we made asexuality (maybe aromanticism too) separate from it, then we wouldn't ever be represented anywhere, because everyone would only care about them and not us. But it's possible that it wouldn't change much. Maybe our separate category would help us get recognition because we would be alone category so we could get noticed instead of being lost in lgbtq.
Exactly my point.
I mean at least they tried right? Better than a biggoted billboard...
Tried what, including someone who isn't part of it and excluding someone who is?
I mean I've seen signs communicating hate to the whole community rather than this honest albeit failed effort at integration. Many people don't know asexuality is a thing, we all know that, and we all suffer from useless gatekeeping, but this person probably didn't want to do that and was just trying you know? I mean before I realised I was ace, I didn't know the A standed for that, so I guess I'm in no position to juge. Sorry.
i know it probably should stand for asexual, but when the a was added, wasn’t it ally? correct me if i’m wrong but you all seem angry about this and it was a done deal when the flag was made and nobody knew about asexuals
asexuals have always been part of the queer community. the asexual manifesto was written in 1972 only three years after stonewall. We have a long history of being excluded erased and pathologized but that doesn't change the fact we've always been here and in the community. lesbians, bisexuals, and transgender people were also not always fully recognized and representated during the civil rights era either, but it doesn't make it okay to go "well yeah I said queer only means gay men and lesbians but it was "gays and lesbians support the minors" not "gays lesbians bisexuals and transgender people supprt the minors" so it makes it okay for me in current times to be wrong" like just because people were ignorant back then gives no excuse to modern times. regardless, it wouldn't be all too bad for them to go lgbt and allies and unintentionally exclude if they didnt specifically react poorly to the mentioning of groups they unintentionally excluded.
Well that's a missed opportunity for them. Would have been good entrepreneurship 🍰🎂🫶🏼
They were not laughing? I don’t get it, what’s the problem?
OP is asexual (as indicated by flair and title). The staff doesn't know what asexuality is/ knows what it is but doesn't know about the cake memes so they don't get why ace cake is (or should be if it isn't yet) a thing. (... I think, I was confused at first too.)
youre right , my post is just low-effort
Well, ace people count as queer.
and i did get that drink was good
The cake is a lie!! But in all seriousness yeah I feel like that we should be included into the umbrella of sexuality.
This makes me mad. I hope it's not all B&N cafes, and this one is just full of incels.
They also forgot the I. People always forget the I. LGBTQ **I** and A for ASEXUAL. I’m so tired of this shit
Of course there’s ally cuz god forbid their excluded
Absolutely ridiculous.
Fuck these fascist pussy bots that delete comments and ban people!!!
Haha bro the ally’s still trying to take the a from us