Stonewall releases report on "dehumanising" discrimination against asexuals

[GinAllAround]

I'm not doubting that you can be judged socially for saying you're asexual but is it really the same as being gay or lesbian?

Although I agree that it shouldn't be classed as a MH condition, I've never heard of anyone being denied a job or housing for being asexual or being beaten up or taunted in the streets.

And what extra legal protection/rights do asexual people need? Surely they have the same rights as anyone else?

www.stonewall.org.uk/about-us/news/new-research-shining-light-‘dehumanising’-discrimination-faced-ace-people

No much too simple. How dare you suggest this. This totally ignores my own particular, individual needs. You cannot lump ME with other people. I need to sit down in my safe space after you have traumatised me with your insensitive, inhumane comment. How dare you.

I honestly did ponder for a bit before posting my previous, because there are people who genuinely are oppressed and I didn't want to seem to be making light of that. Then I reckoned those people probably had real things to worry about than wot some random was typing on MN. I may have been oppressing myself 🤡

I am oppressed because I have nothing to be oppressed by. This makes me oppressed because I lack an actual disadvantage. It is discriminatory to me to not acknowledge my privileged lack of awareness of the rest of the world and how this means I handicapped in being able to empathise with real hardships in life.

Yes, you can perceive that people who are object oppressed are privileged in having the lived experience of being oppressed, in a culture where victimhood is everything.

*objectively oppressed

That would save a hell of a lot of time.

@IcakethereforeIam I suspect that people experiencing actual oppression simply do not need or want to identify into that.

Indeed the problem is generally far less about how people themselves are seeking to identify, than that the society around them has identified them and how it treats them on that basis.

Here we are being told that not having your self-defined asexual identity validated by all and sundry is dehumanising. And here (and on another thread) we’re being told that any expectation that people should have unprotected, heterosexual sex if they want to conceive a baby is discriminatory and oppressive.

This is through the looking glass stuff.

This

Indeed the problem is generally far less about how people themselves are seeking to identify, than that the society around them has identified them and how it treats them on that basis.

is, of course, the second central problem in the gender identity ideology: Things like sex-based oppression care not at all about someone's preferred pronouns. If it thinks you are a woman it will treat you as one.

Identities cannot be made to function in the solipsistic way this framework tries to enforce on the world, though only for one set of identities.

The first central problem is that I don't believe most people have floating, abstract gender feelings having nothing to do with the sex of the bodies they inhabit and with how the society treats people with bodies of that sex.

You are not correcting me to say they are self-selecting individuals; that is generally what focus groups are. I have never heard of a focus group formed from random sampling as people who are busy and content don’t want to spend their time that way.

I am a member of a focus group for a service provision. We ALL have an agenda which motivated us to want to take part. We have all experienced a poor service and considered that the focus group gives us a means to express our frustration and hopefully fix the issues we faced, ideally to our own benefit. No one is giving up their time for purely altruistic reasons. Nor are our expectations necessarily reasonable. I would like to think mine are but we have a strong conflict of interest with the efficient and cost effective running of the service. And our desires may well conflict with those of others accessing the service.

If you are using focus groups for research, the first thing you must do is acknowledge they are not representative and people have their own motivations for taking part.

If you are using focus groups for research, the first thing you must do is acknowledge they are not representative and people have their own motivations for taking part.

A lot of people just go for the social aspect and the (generally) free refreshments, I used to do commercial ones when I had just graduated. Did it for Volvic, Canon and various other brands.

I've also run public sector ones myself in the past, with service users, and we gave them a voucher for attending.

That in itself is a biased group then - people in need of social interaction and for whom modest refreshments are considered a significant return.

Yes I was building on your point.

Social media allows people to stay within the confines of their own social bubble which only reinforces blinkered self pitying beliefs.

It's all about the echo chamber.

Absolutely, RedToothBrush

Stonewall are really desperate for the ‘next thing’ to keep them afloat. What next (i shudder to think)?

Sorry to correct you but that's 29 self selecting individuals, who haven't been assessed for any other possible comorbidity that might influence how they feel.

And where have we seen a study before where there was a very small and self-selecting group in, say, statistics about suicidal tendencies in relation to those who call themselves the most oppressed and vulnerable?

The Scottish Schools Trans guidance quotes statistics from adults in, if I remember correctly, Montreal, who were identified by ‘snowball sampling’ (people being asked to pass the questionnaire onto their circle - who are likely to have the same opinions as them). Small sample size too. These were presented as relevant to children in Scottish Schools.

The frequently trotted out 'most lesbians' and 'most women' is equally based on such interesting approaches to information gathering and sharing.

Yes, it's beyond belief. Asexuality seems to cover everyone who's not up for it all the time with strangers, and anyone who is up for it all the time can still claim to be asexual as long as they're not attracted to the people with whom they're gagging to have sex. WTF?

Cynically it feels like a move to position being constantly up for sex (and with no limits on that) as the default human position.

I think there are some people who don’t fancy anyone and don’t ever fancy sex. Can’t they describe themselves with a label that is understood and not be seen as needing psychotherapy?

Perhaps all the subgroups described makes it meaningless (I expect we could all chose one of those labels as you say) but I do think that if saying that you are asexual could be taken at face value by health care professionals and during chats about relationships etc with friends, family and colleagues when it was relevant then it would be a good thing.

@IncomingTraffic Exactly. It's distasteful and slightly sinister. God Knows what message is being given to young girls. From one side they're constantly bombarded with sexual images and information suggesting it's normal to have a rush of animal lust for complete strangers and that it's expected of them to have sex from early in a relationship to keep a partner. From the other side they're told the same thing, only 'don't worry if you don't feel this way - you're completely normal, just asexual, one in a hundred, oh and by the way, you're going to have difficulty with relationships'. To be made to feel they need a label if, heaven forbid, they only experience attraction when emotionally involved, is potentially damaging.

Cynically it feels like a move to position being constantly up for sex (and with no limits on that) as the default human position.

Indeed. And who benefits the most from that?

Low libido can be indicative of medical issues. But also, as pointed out, ‘asexual’ does not mean they are not having sex or wanting sex. So if it is taken at face value by health professionals then that is a bad thing.

separately, it can also be a bad thing for women and girls assessing their risk in a situation to take such a claim at face value. “Come and have a sleepover - it is ok, I am asexual”