During last National Coming Out Day, I also took part in the festivities, it had been a harrowing year and I figured I deserved to feel happy with who I was.
So I made a post with a pretty picture and attached the word Asexual to it since that was after all my orientation.
I was met with some support but also with invalidation. Friends accused me of “coming out as straight” yet others claimed I had no place in the LGTBQA community at all despite the A being part of the acronym.
The truth of the matter is Asexual and Aromantic ( those who do not feel Romantic attraction towards other people) often face a lot of hardships, such as being afraid to come out to a partner ( you don’t want to know some people’s reactions when I mention sex is completely off the table) or being pressured into doing things we don’t really want to do.
And added to this is, as explained at the beginning of the article the hostility we feel from those in the LGTBQA community.
We’re often told we’re not “really lgtbqa” even though, from personal experience we don’t really fit in with straight people either.
LGTBQA is a community for people’s whose orientations are different than the norm. Since we’re different in how we experience attraction, we are different than the norm.
We belong there. I belong there. But I didn’t feel like I was wanted there.
I was told that my struggles didn’t matter, I was told that the things I had gone through to find myself weren’t “enough” I was told my orientation wasn’t real, on a day when we were supposed to be celebrating our orientations.
It kept me away from the LGTBQA community for a while. It was a pity seeing as I had friends there but why would I want to be somewhere where I had to fight and argue just to be acknowledged as someone who mattered.
Eventually, I found my way back, and I’m a lot less susceptible to hostility towards my orientation.
I wasn’t going to take part in National Coming Out Day for that specific reason, but I figured I should, and that I should share my story.
On this National Coming out day and each one after, please remember Aromantic and Asexual people, and stand with them. Don’t let us face backlash for simply being proud of who we are.
It’s our holiday too, let us be a part of it.