To not understand why 'asexual' would be considered part of LGBT?

[BalletBunting]

I've seen all sorts of 'call outs' on twitter/facebook for 'ace inclusion' during pride month which I found frankly baffling. I mean if you don't want to shag anyone, fine. But I thought the LGB movement was started to resist homophobic oppression. Have people who don't fancy a shag been historically oppressed?

I would say I generally don't think it is (I work in an LGBT related field), but I think perhaps that discussions around inclusiveness of all sexualities has often been associated with Pride. There are lots of smaller movements within Pride, including Queer and Intersex movements and I wouldn't be surprised if some people who were asexual found a home there. I don't imagine most people who are asexual would really want to be affiliated with Pride, tbh? I certainly haven't seen it in the more mainstream orgs that I am involved with.

I think it's more that Pride/the LGBT+ movement has become a home for anyone whose sexuality or gender expression doesn't fit the supposed 'norm' - i.e. heterosexual person who is interested in sex with someone of the opposite gender.

So much of society revolves around the idea that people want to have sexual partners - advertising uses sex to sell, shows like Love Island exist, comedians joke about sex, you are seen as weird if you're the virgin at sixth form, it's presumed if you're dating someone you're having sex, there's jokes about people who have too much or too little sex.

So I think it makes sense that someone who doesn't feel sexual (or romantic - aromantics are a thing too!) attraction would feel a similar sense of isolation and 'difference' to someone whose sexuality isn't hetero, and therefore feel more welcomed by a community whose sole purpose is to provide a home for the people who don't fit the perceived standard model.

A lot of the Pride and LGBT+ movement is about visibility and normalising what it still seen as 'abnormal' - and I can totally see why someone who is asexual would like to be considered normal and valid.

I can understand how it can be included in as much as the movement is now a broad church for those who don't fit under the 'norm', as it were. That said, it's gone too far.

To clarify - not that LGBT in itself has gone too far. In many respects it's not gone far enough as there's still people being criminalised for being gay. What I refer to is a lot of terminology to differentiate for example, maybe on Mondays you prefer to have sex with a man, but on Tuesdays with a woman. The term Bi-sexual - isn't enough; you'd now need to use some amalgamation of a bizarre term which is separate if you prefer to have sex with a man instead on Friday.

I can understand why it should be included. It's way outside the norm. People can be aggressive and inconsiderate and make assumptions and think it's another person's duty to perform to please them: Give me grandchildren, or I need to see you settled down before I die etc. There are expectations that are pretty narrow, and if you know you'll never fulfil them, I imagine you might feel a bit isolated and rejected. LGBTQ is about inclusion of all sexual types, which includes asexuals.

I'm asexual. I don't understand it either.

I'll admit that having the 'label' is privately helpful - I assumed as a teenager that I was just a late developer and I'd experience attraction to men or women at some point. I'm in my thirties now and it hasn't happened yet, and there was a brief time in my twenties when I felt bad about it, as if something was wrong with me. But it isn't something I talk about and I've never described myself as asexual to anyone in person. If I'm asked about not being in a relationship I just say I'm busy with other things. It's private. I tick 'prefer not to say' when forms ask for orientation.

Nobody is oppressed or discriminated against for being asexual and I don't know why an asexual person would want to be part of Pride. Sure, some of the comedy making fun of people who aren't having sex makes me a bit uncomfortable sometimes, but making a big identity-politics point of 'look at me, I don't have sex and I'm valid!!!' seems far, far worse.