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

I know.

Keep going, I say. Let's have it.

Yes, let's have all local authorities etc mark "Asexual Day of Visibility" and fly the flag. And people can learn in their jobs about the plight of asexual people in the U.K. in 2023.

No one is trying to ‘cure asexuality’ by pointing out that you and your partner could just try having sex to make a baby or accept that you aren’t having one because you aren’t interested in having sex.

I've only read the first 40-50 posts in the thread so apologies if I'm repeating a point someone else has made subsequently. Do asexual people like the couple mentioned think that everyone who has a baby the usual way always does so through joyous enthusiastic sex that they are permanently turned on for? Do they have any conception (sorry) idea of how many babies are conceived through grit-your-teeth-and-do-it-anyway, means-to-an-end-style sex when neither of you are really in the mood but the fertility tracker says you're about to ovulate? That's especially the case when you're facing the possibility of actual infertility and starting a family isn't happening as easily as you hoped, but you have to prove to the clinic that you've been trying for X amount of time before they'll even give you an appointment.

"This was discrimination against opposite sex couples who were asexual but wanted a partnership without the sex- as marriage always implies sex."

I don't remember any questions about my sex life when getting married or anything in the vows that suggested anything to do with sex.

I think that it's less that marriage implies sex and more that some people have mistakenly inferred that marriage always means sex.

Until recently, only same sex asexual couples could have a civil partnership. This was discrimination against opposite sex couples who were asexual but wanted a partnership without the sex- as marriage always implies sex.

What? How is this an example of discrimination against asexuals? This applied to ALL opposite sex couples, not just ace ones!

There are a lot of unhappily married people out there who will tell you that marriage does not always imply sex.

Everything you've said here could apply to single people who don't claim a special genderist identity.

Try again.

If you have no sexual partner you are often view suspiciously especially if a male of being a paedophile or other pervert

I don't know anyone who'd think like this, what a load of nonsense.

How on earth does this make sense?

The woman who conceives a child after a three minute bunk up, then carries the child, gives birth to the child and raises the child is no more worthy or valued than the woman who conceives a child through IVF, then carries the child, gives birth to the child and raises the child.

If you honestly think the value of pregnancy and motherhood lies in the sex that results in conception rather than everything else, that is ridiculous.

No one should be forced to have sex to become a parent in this day and age

I despair! Seriously, is this the level of discourse we've sunk to as a society?

If people who don't have sex want to have a baby then crack on with IVF, just don't expect the NHS to fund it.

Jo Bartosch wrote this excellent and very amusing article:

https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/10/31/asexual-rights-and-the-endless-quest-for-victimhood/

"The complaints documented in the report are predictably ludicrous. Some respondents bemoan the fact they can’t ‘come out’ as asexual at work, as if British employees are mandated to chunter on about their sex lives to management.

Others whinge that when they’ve mentioned their lack of sexual interest to ‘healthcare providers’, asexuality was ‘not recognised as a type of sexual orientation’. Instead it ‘was treated as a disorder that needed to be fixed’. And while, on the one hand, the authors argue that asexuality ought not to be pathologised, with their other free hand, they note that 41.8 per cent of ace respondents ‘considered themselves to have mental-health issues, most commonly with anxiety or depression’."

1. How does this make asexual people different from single people?
2. This is a funding issue. There isn't enough funding for all heterosexual couples who have been having unprotected sex for years and still can't conceive to access fertility treatment on the NHS. All the couples I know in the UK who have had a baby through IVF had to pay to go privately. Even lesbian couples who cannot conceive without a sperm donor are required to try several rounds of IUI before they are eligible for IVF. There simply isn't enough money to help all the people out there with proven infertility, but you want it to be used to fund fertility treatment for people who aren't known to have any fertility problems? What?
3. Asexual women are not prevented from accessing contraception.
4. Asexual people are not prevented from accessing STI screening and treatment.
5. Asexual couples have exactly the same marriage and civil partnership rights as all other couples.

If anyone declared to me that they were "asexual", my reply would be "Is that a way of saying that you're not interested in me sexually? Good to know."

Because I wouldn't be able to think of any other reason they'd tell me that.

(Well, politely ignoring the possibility of the *I'm so different and special, me" aspect )

At work, half of ace people (49%) weren’t out to any colleagues, more than twice the rate of all LGBTQ+ respondents (18%).

50% of all the people who responded to this survey tell their work colleagues that they aren't having sex. The other 50% are apparently oppressed by the fact their colleagues don't know about their sex lives.

I suspect the people surveyed might not be representative of the general population.

I suspect the people surveyed might not be representative of the general population.

I think it's a tiny convenience sample, from something I read about it.

Me either.

Why would you tell someone that unless they were coming on to you and you needed to explain it was a non starter?

I might as well explain to people on arrival that I'm a Dark Winter Libra Kibbe Dramatic Classic bibliophile. Why would they care?

Not wanting sex doesn’t mean asexual people do not want to be parents. They deserve access to fertility treatments even if they are not having sex.

Asexual people do have access to fertilitiy treatments. Oh, wait. You don't mean access do you? You mean you want it paid for because you are super special.

No one should be forced to have sex to become a parent in this day and age.

Nobody is 'forced' to have sex to become a parent (at least not by the state).

It always is with Stonewall. They just manipulate the results to get whatever bullshit answer they want (and probably because they have no-one with the skills to put together valid data or even to udestand why what they are doing is invalid).

Definitely tiny convenience sample.

It’s also comparing dissimilar things.

People with a single sex partner ‘out’ themselves at work by doing prosaic things like saying ‘my wife’ or referring to a partner by name. They generally are not talking about their sex life.

To ‘come out’ as asexual anywhere you need to instigate a conversation about your sex life and sexual preferences. Generally people don’t do that at work.

Otherwise people will just assume you are single. Loads of people are single.

And those married asexual people - literally no one cares if you are having sex. They might remember that your husband is called Clive and he’s very keen on cycling though.

Asexual people can be mocked, eg the stigma about being virgins or childish. I do think they're judged as tragic or as having something wrong with them.

But this is not the same thing as homophobia. Not every slight hardship needs an identity, hate laws and a campaigning group behind them.

And still, the quotations and examples given in that report are the best they could cherry pick out.

In healthcare settings, our analysis found that asexual people were around 50% more likely to have never told healthcare staff about their asexuality

Presumably because the only reason you need to discuss your sex life with a healthcare professional is if it's relevant (e.g. giving blood) and not having sex is unlikely to ever be relevant.

It's fucking weird if you tell your dentist you aren't getting laid.

I know. I'd love to go and work at Stonewall for a few weeks, it would be facinating.

Every single employee that puts anything out in public seems to be utterly useless. They spent 2 years on this 'report'!

The ironic thing is that the negative reactions they're complaining about probably mostly consist of eye-rolling and dismissiveness. And I really, really doubt that this report is going to make anyone who feels the need to eyeroll at someone's announcement of "asexuality" less inclined to do so.

Or maybe that's not ironic, it's kind of Stonewall's entire racket these days. The DIE trainings will continue until tolerance improves.