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/

I don’t suppose Attitude gives a flying fuck about the number of lesbians & bi women who feel that they lost their community to the alphabet soup of homophobic gender ideology?

When I came out it was all about same-sex relationships. Now it’s all about gender bollocks with more & more letters being added on.

I do get that asexuality isn’t a gender. But my view is that the longer the acronym gets, the more lesbophobic it becomes. See Stonewall calling lesbians ‘sexual racists’, for instance.

Except usually them being straight is the least interesting thing about the situation. It's a fact, not the main event, so to speak. This would also be the case if they were "openly" asexual.

Tbf you did say 'Its a nonsense'. And used capital letters for NONSENSE. So I'd dispute that's it's obviously not what you said!

I agree with you that asexual people shouldn't be grouped in with the LGB group. There is no more common ground there than with straight people. Other than they're both outside 'the norm'.

I have to disagree that it's new or that it isn't as key to someone's identity as being gay/straight is. It's a huge thing to completely lack an urge/feeling that the vast majority experience. It is isolating. It's upsetting. It's often something that people desperately try to fix about themselves. People feeling that deserve a community and support just like gay/bi people do. It's a shame that there can't be more support. It's a shame that we need to describe something fundamental to someone's identity as nonsensical.

I would question what you feel the harm would be in just being a little bit kinder to this community? Or not getting involved at all? I know I'm here arguing this side of the debate because I think greater understanding and representation would make people feel more accepted and less isolated. What's your drive to dispute all of it? To pick apart representation? To suggest a show featuring a asexual character would be fucking tedious? What's your goal?

I've got to bow out now, but I hope anyone reading this and not commenting isn't too hurt by the comments here. Some of it is tough reading.

I'd try reading it all back and substituting asexual for gay and seeing if it all sits comfortably.

It is an imposition on people: It others them, marginalises them by recasting their lack of interest in something as a requirement to identify themselves precisely in terms of that something
Very well put.

This is 100% what we need!

A character who just happens to be asexual. Not the main thing about them. Just boring old asexual with their boring gay mate and their boring straight mate.

Bit of representation.

Gay is something you are, as opposed to something you're not. Why can't you see the difference, and stop trying to conflate two things that are completely unrelated?

I don’t understand why there needs to be asexual representation?
LGB - was necessary to bring their rights in line with rights non-LGB had.
I think educating children about LGBT+ must nowadays be so confusing and put yet more pressure on children at a time when they really don’t need it. Beyond biological function, how babies are made, how some people are same sex attracted, I think much of sex education creates more problems than it solves.

Whilst asexuality is now an identity, I can’t help but feel that this is on a spectrum - some people have very high sex drives, others none at all, most fall in a bell curve between the two.
Presumably those with very high sex drives are too busy having sex to put a label on it and focus about their representation?

I also wonder if compulsory heterosexuality has anything to do with asexuality. I know many women who didn’t know until middle age that they were lesbians - most of them thought they hated sex until it became clear that they hated sex with men.

Lots of gay/lesbian teens don’t know they are, so are very vulnerable to suggestion from all round - that they’re asexual, or trans. Surely it would be better to try to draw back from the weirdness that expects everyone to know exactly who they are at a young age, and display their labels wherever they can.

(Thank fuck I grew up decades ago. I cannot get my head around any adult encouraging this fucked up ideology to any young person)

No, we don't . It has no relevance whatsoever.

Is this like if an atheist complained she wasn't included in 'faith groups'?

Didn't know this one. Thanks!

(Have to get off this thread!!)

Apologies, when I said 'we' I meant the asexual community. Clearly, from your posts it has no relevance to you!

Asexual is something you are.

They're completely related.

Listen to the 'Out' podcast, so much of what's said applies to both groups. Particularly the young adult/teen experience of thinking there is something wrong with you/no-one else feels like this etc.

I am a maths teacher.

teachers have other qualifications, experiences and sidle lines as well as teaching you know.

I am a geneticist, specialising in statistical analysis. I did this for years full time, and I still do some free lance

My main job now is maths teaching. Hence spending hours a week on break duty

very strange indeed to be called "creepy" for this! 😂parents complain enough that there are not enough teachers around their children during breaks and lunchtimes

Particularly the young adult/teen experience of thinking there is something wrong with you/no-one else feels like this etc.

I don’t remember anyone thinking or talking this deeply about their sex lives.
I agree with the poster who suggested these are all symptoms of a pornsick society.

@Nimbostratus100 are you a geneticist or a statistician who specialises in genetic analysis? Or are you a virologist? Or are you someone who works with sex offenders? If you're a maths teacher how come you didn't know that AS levels still existed?

I meant being gay is a sexuality, rather than lacking one completely. There's no relationship between the two.

there are a very small number, at it is far more common in literature and films etc for it to be assumed that everybody is gay straight or bi, this is one of the issues that leads to isolation and confusion among young asexuals.

That and the very negative portrayal of asexuals in some modern stories, such as George Orwell, where they are portrayed as weird, or James Bond, where they are called "dangerous"

of course they are, it can be constant, and it can and does lead to total break down of family relationships.

It might not be when you are a young teen, but it is common as a young adult.

Just look at some of the responses on here - 1-2% of the population is asexual - if you have 2 children, then there is a 1/25 chance one of them is asexual

you can see by how unpleasantly some people respond to asexuality that many young people are either going to cover it up and lie and pretend, or else tell their families and get rejected

One pertinent Q.

After major surgery, medicalisation over many years, unresolved inner angst over wrong gender etc, how would you be expected to feel anything sexual?

Assexuals will be the high growth gender in the alphabetti spaghetti community, if greater and greater numbers scupper their puberty, ruin their adult lives etc.

We gonna put A ahead of QI+ etc?

@Nimbostratus100 I am sorry you experienced that in your family of origin but that's not my experience either mine or my children.

sherlock holmes is a heroin addict, and hercule poirot is not asexual in the books

miss marple is from a time and class when whether she was asexaul or not would not be disclosed, and most women in her position were not asexual.

nobody has "created" asexuality - it is innate in 1-2% of women and men, and has been since the beginning of recorded history

hence the need for more education, people have massive misconceptions

No harm to you but I couldn't be less interested in what sexuality my adult children are. That comes under not my business - it's for them to have their sex lives however they choose.

That's a bit creepy that you're so fixated on "if you have two children there's an x % chance one of them will be asexual"

So what?

The internet has really fucked us. Pre social media ramp up, we got on with our lives, we somehow found like minded souls, sometimes stayed lonely.

Now we're intimately immersed in the phenomena of others, but the isolation is greater. With more and more compulsion to self regard and inflict this on the world.

it doesn't have to be specifically about sex, but indirectly about sex and relationships