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Original poster

Young adults who identify as asexual feel excluded from the wider LGBTQ community

365 replies

IwantToRetire · 07/04/2023 01:03

From a survey of 3,695 young adults aged 18-25 27% said they “rarely or never” feel a part of the LGBTQ community. Aside from those who said they were questioning their sexual or gender identity, asexual people were most likely to say this.

18% said they “rarely” felt included and 9% said they “never” felt included.

30% of asexual young adults said they “always” feel included and 30% said they “sometimes” feel included.

39% of asexual people of colour said they rarely or never felt part of the LGBT+ community, compared to 24% of white asexual young people.

It’s also estimated that between 0.44-1 percent (295,768 to 672,200) of the UK population identifies as asexual.

The data paints a disappointing picture that suggests a significant portion of young adults identifying as asexual don’t always feel like they’re a part of the LGBTQ community.

“I hope that this research makes clear the need for greater awareness of the lived experiences and realities of asexual people, especially as we can see a wider pattern here of LGBT+ people of colour feeling excluded from our community.”

https://www.attitude.co.uk/news/a-quarter-of-asexual-young-adults-feel-excluded-from-lgbtq-community-430087/

OP posts:
Whattt44 · 07/04/2023 14:17

Everyone wants to be included but all of these separate groups are doing the exact opposite.
Why can't everyone just get on with their lives, if they meet someone and they both want sex , fab , have sex , if they just want to be friends, just be friends. All of these communities are doing more harm than good.

matis · 07/04/2023 14:13

So that's not a geneticist then that's a statistician. Unlike your other thread where you're expounding on chromosomes and claiming you're right because you're a geneticist.

Dougalskeeper · 07/04/2023 14:12

This "identity" nonsense needs to stop, it's utter garbage and we need to stop pandering to these precious flowers

Nimbostratus100 · 07/04/2023 14:12

matis · 07/04/2023 14:06

I thought you were a geneticist?

I was a statistician specialising in genetics and some virology - I still do some of this work freelance

I am also a maths teacher

Wonderingiforifnot · 07/04/2023 14:09

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

I don't get the joke here. What's funny about young people feeling excluded and unhappy?

matis · 07/04/2023 14:06

I thought you were a geneticist?

Nimbostratus100 · 07/04/2023 14:05

ReadersD1gest · 07/04/2023 14:02

I don't know where you're hanging out, op, that 99% of conversations you earwig overhear are about sex.
Are you doing this deliberately, when you've no interest in the subject? Ask yourself why, maybe.

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school playgrounds and canteens mostly, that little thing called break duty.

As to why -that is what teachers do

ReadersD1gest · 07/04/2023 14:03

Random789 · 07/04/2023 13:32

The main problem with young asexuals feeling excluded from the LGBA community, is that they will most likely also feel totally excluded from the mainstream community, particularly during teenage years, when all their friends, school peers and associates suddenly start prioritising sex

If 'young asexuals' feel excluded from 'the mainstream coomunity', don't you think that the solution to that is a reversal of the ever-more insense sexualisation of young people's experience? Rather than recasting a lack of interest in sex as an identity within a movement for people who are persecuted precisely because of their sexual orientation and activity

A lack of interest in sex isn't a sexual identity any more than being vegetarian is a preference about how you like your steak cooked.

We have so bullied and squashed young people into a hypersexualised society that we now seem to be telling them that the only way avoid the pressure to be sexually active is to attach a label to themselves that defines them in terms of what they are not (ie defines them in terms of other people's priorities and experiences) - a label that confines them just when they should feel unconfined and free to evolve.

It is a NONSENSE. Many or most (or all?) girls and young women, and plenty of young men, are deeply uncertain about sex and need time, space, a lack of pressure in order to explore and work out whether and when it will be relevant for them. What they don't need is a movement telling them that their uncertainty is some kind of special niche sexual identity. Leave them alone FFS

👏👏👏

matis · 07/04/2023 14:02

Mostly (which I still disagree with but) isn't 99% which is what you said.

I'd expect a maths teacher (albeit one who didn't know you can do AS levels) cum geneticist cum virologist to know that.

Youngishone · 07/04/2023 14:02

I think people are trying to say it would be like a group of atheists coming together to talk about not being religious - rather than just doing something else with their lives.

Most of the TQIA stuff is about community building and in this day and age that in itself isn't a bad thing

ReadersD1gest · 07/04/2023 14:02

Nimbostratus100 · 07/04/2023 13:36

ok but look at my camel post and try and imagine 99% of all conversations around you are about camels, as well as 99% of all music, books, films, dramas, in fact all media in general

Show quote history

I don't know where you're hanging out, op, that 99% of conversations you earwig overhear are about sex.
Are you doing this deliberately, when you've no interest in the subject? Ask yourself why, maybe.

EndlessTea · 07/04/2023 13:59

Why not talk about was does interest you? Or is it a more generalised apathy, where you have no enthusiasm for anything?

ReadersD1gest · 07/04/2023 13:57

Nimbostratus100 · 07/04/2023 13:55

we will have to agree to disagree there.

I have listened to thousands of teenagers for decades

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Maybe you need to stop earwigging, particularly when you don't like what you're hearing 🙄

Nimbostratus100 · 07/04/2023 13:55

matis · 07/04/2023 13:52

They really aren't.

we will have to agree to disagree there.

I have listened to thousands of teenagers for decades

matis · 07/04/2023 13:52

They really aren't.

Nimbostratus100 · 07/04/2023 13:51

matis · 07/04/2023 13:40

99% of teenagers conversations aren't about sex or sexuality though?

mostly it is! directly or indirectly.

EndlessTea · 07/04/2023 13:46

Surely this is just a new way to guilt-trip people into self-censorship?

Oh don’t talk about your relationship - it’s such a social faux pas - button your lip in the name of inclusion otherwise you might make an asexual person feel bad.

Wonderingiforifnot · 07/04/2023 13:45

Greenfairydust · 07/04/2023 10:22

@RaininginDarling

''No, what's sad is people needing to create more and more niche 'identities' to feel part of a community at all.

I find it really really sad that young, mostly straight, people need to box themselves into inevitably transient labels to improve their social standing.

Meanwhile, everyone else gets on with their lives.

Get outside more, stop navelgazing, you'll be much happier''

Again, just pure ignorance, and probably a fair amount of fear of anyone who is not like you.

When you have to resort to petty comments like ''get outside more...'' you have already lost any kind of credibility and any point you were trying to make.

I think the only person who is not ''getting on with their lives'' is you as you seem to have an unhealthy interest in other people's sex/love lives and how they choose to express and describe themselves.

This is also conveniently passed as concerns for young people to make your views sound acceptable, when it fact it is just good old intolerance and lack of understanding.

Definitely agree with you here. Well said

matis · 07/04/2023 13:40

99% of teenagers conversations aren't about sex or sexuality though?

Random789 · 07/04/2023 13:39

Oh, and if what these young people need is a community that 'doesn't prioritise sex', what about one or two of the million communities that don't prioritise sex (swimming club, football training, chess, sea cadets, etc etc etc) rather than the one community which (for good anti-discriminatory reasons) is explicitly about sex.

Nimbostratus100 · 07/04/2023 13:38

Eann · 07/04/2023 13:28

Boo hoo. Why don’t asexual people set up their own ‘community’? LGB prople have been through enough without narcissistic assholes demanding access to everything. Asexual people have no right to be included in the LGB just because they want to be, anymore than anyone else does.

asexuals are part of the LGBA community, and fit in very much, and are very much welcomed by the L the G and the B, in my experience

Whattt44 · 07/04/2023 13:37

RaininginDarling · 07/04/2023 09:40

No, what's sad is people needing to create more and more niche 'identities' to feel part of a community at all.

I find it really really sad that young, mostly straight, people need to box themselves into inevitably transient labels to improve their social standing.

Meanwhile, everyone else gets on with their lives.

Get outside more, stop navelgazing, you'll be much happier

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100% agree with this.

Nimbostratus100 · 07/04/2023 13:37

missingthewinchesterboys · 07/04/2023 13:30

You are contradicting yourself here.

The LGB kids will be behaving just the same as the betrothed kids. Exploring and experimenting with their sexualities so of course asexual kids are going to fell on the outside of all of them.

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no, I am not contradicting myself, because the LGBA community is not like that, and asexuals are very much part of it, and fit in.

Nimbostratus100 · 07/04/2023 13:36

terryleather · 07/04/2023 13:05

There's huge amounts of chat in everyday life about relationships and dating and sex. Huge discussion about representation of gay/bi/trans people in media etc. Conversations around sex/relationship education and what children should/shouldn't be taught. Asexuals as a group are completely left out of all of that. I can understand why that's difficult.

I don't believe they are left out, but if they are so what?

Despite the current obsession with everything being inclusive, that's not always possible or desirable.

I don't have kids and what's been said above could equally apply to me wrt being "left out" of conversations around families/parenting. I wouldn't necessarily expect to be included either, I think that would be quite entitled tbh.

ok but look at my camel post and try and imagine 99% of all conversations around you are about camels, as well as 99% of all music, books, films, dramas, in fact all media in general

Nimbostratus100 · 07/04/2023 13:34

WarriorN · 07/04/2023 12:35

I hope you can try and imagine what it is like to be young, and asexual, and alone, without understanding and recognition

Surely all children are asexual ffs?

It's a sad draw of affairs when a whole identity has to be created for consent to be upheld.

no they are not, many already know they are gay or straight or ace from very early on.

But the time I am particularly talking about it secondary school, and I assure you children in secondary school at largely NOT asexual 😂

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