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

[IwantToRetire]

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/

So what?

I think people do care actually. I think en masse people are very interested in other people's lives/sex lives/relationships. 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.

No. Not to the extent that it totally excludes everything else.
And so what if this excludes people who don't relate to it? How will recognising their non interest include them?

You are going to keep talking about something that you are not interested in or wanting to talk about?

You people.

I'm middle-aged, Lesbian, and definitely interested in sex with another L! I'm sexually attracted to women; that's what Lesbian means ffs.
When I was a teenager in the closet, I had plenty of hobbies and interests and listened to my straight friends witter on about boys. It's called life; stop whining and get on with things

What a horrible thread. The LGBTQ+ community isn't just about sex!
Some (not all) asexual people experience romantic feelings and seek partnership and that can be from a variety of orientations.
With people expressing comments like this it's no wonder asexuals don't feel welcome.
Society can often feel obsessed with sex (just look at advertising!) and that can feel just as exclusionary as only showing heteronormative relationships.
There's been a lot of mean-spirited threads about asexuality on here recently and I don't get it.

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.

With people expressing comments like this it's no wonder asexuals don't feel welcome.
Welcome where, exactly?

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.

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.

Betrothed??? Heterosexual

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

I'm bi. I think I'll start complaining I'm not being included in the lesbian or heterosexual communities.

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 😂

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

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.

100% agree with this.

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

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.

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

Definitely agree with you here. Well said

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.

mostly it is! directly or indirectly.