Workshop #3

Prompt: Write a paragraph or two about a social justice or human rights issue.

A community that is often forgotten when examining LGBTQ+ rights and activism is the aspec community, which is made up of a huge range of identities, most prominently asexuality and aromanticism. “Asexual” is a term for someone who experiences little to no sexual attraction, while “aromantic” is a term for something who experiences little to no romantic attraction. Despite being non-straight in nature, aspec people sometimes find themselves excluded from, or at least unacknowledged by, queer spaces and left out of the conversation of queer rights and activism.

A major contributor to the omission of ace and aro individuals within the label of “queer” is the oversexualization of the LGBTQ+ community and those who hold queer identities. This oversexualization stems from a long history of stigma, stereotype, and fetishization. This is harmful to the entire community.

To combat this isolation, we must first accept asexuality and aromanticism as valid identities, especially across boundaries of race and disability; acknowledge them as marginalized, queer identities with long, long histories within culture and activism; understand that labels and sexuality are fluid, non-rigid, human-made structures that shift with time; and recognize the queer experience to be about so much more than who one does or doesn’t sleep with.