Hi everybody,
I think we should have a category about asexualty. We already have LGBT, which is great, but I think a asexualty category is needed.
Relationship is the category and I’d like to have asexuality as first subcategory (like LGBT). I read different forums, some agreed that asexuality is part of LGBT, other’s not. If you think, asexuality is a part of LGBT, it could be a subcategroy if it. I’ve found the following articles which I’d sort into it:
Marina
2
I don’t think it should be a sub of LGBT. You can be lesbian and asexual- the two aren’t mutually exclusive and have distinct differences.
That’s what I thought about, too. Thanks a lot for your answer and sharing your opinion!
I’m asexual and have some contact with the community. If such a category were created (I’m not sure if we need one), then I would like it to be under LGBT. Here is why:
- Asexuality is a real sexual orientation. Specifically, the lack of sexual attraction. Being an ace lesbian (sometimes called lace; I just love that word) means that a person is homoromantic asexual. Saying “I’m bi” often really means “I’m a biromantic bisexual.” Asexuality is different from heterosexuality.
- Heteroromantic asexuals aren’t heterosexual. They’re still asexuals. They inherit the same problems that other asexuals face, to whatever degree, especially if they come out.
- Asexuality is in the full acronym. LGBTQIA+, sometimes LGBTQIAP+, includes A for asexual, aromantic, and agender.
- Asexuals sometimes get excluded by our queer community. An intra-community problem is that the letters early on in the acronym tend to hate on the letters that come later (or get left out entirely). People say that we don’t belong. Or that we don’t have problems. (We do face discrimination if we come out, serious and sometimes malicious misunderstanding, and even corrective rape. I nearly lost a very close friend after coming out once.)
It can be hard, sometimes, to be asexual and know that parts of the community don’t want you here. It’s really unfortunate, that when some people finally start being seen as Human instead of Other, they push back at people who are “more Other,” to say “we’re not like them and don’t want anything to do with them.” I see this in the “Aspie Supremacy” corners of the Autistic community too, with some low-support ones being cruel to the high-support ones, like Temple Grandin does.
I’m sure that none of you are part of the group that is planting keep out signs to anyone more Other than them, nor does anyone intend to make us feel excluded. But if asexuality is categorized as not part of LGBT, it’ll add validity to the arguments of those who intend to exclude us.
Please include us in the general LGBT+ community. If an asexuality category is to be made, then it should be under LGBT.
(Do we need one, though? We’ve never had categories for different orientations, such as a Gay or Bisexual category.)
@Marina
, I disagree; asexuality is still a part of the LGBT group (you know how sometimes it’s said as LGBTQIA, and people always say that the A is for Ally? the A is for asexual). Chances are, if a person identifies as a lesbian asexual, she’s saying that she’s most likely homoromantic asexual. She’s still asexual, but she’s interested in dating women.
That being said, it would be very nice to have an Asexuality category.I support this idea. Not sure when the category thing will be making a comeback, though.
Marina
6
Yikes! My b! Thanks for the correction, Galactic!(and yep- I know the a isn’t for ally, I remember when the extended acronym first gained popularity!)
But should the category be named “LGBTQIA” then? Just to get everything and everyone included and to avoid misunderstandings.
Marina
8
It used to be that you’d put a “+” at the end, but I don’t know if that would screw up with some coding if a symbol was added.
I’d say adding a “+” wouldn’t change a lot. I think LGBTQIA would show everything and the people who are categorizising can be sure everything is included.
^ The problem with that is that it still blocks out other identities (e.g. pansexual). The term LGBT in general isn’t very good about that, but I don’t know what else we would use*, and it’d probably throw a lot of readers off if the name of the entire category was changed. LGBT seems to be searched more often
than LGBTQIA right now, anyway.
*I’ve seen a couple of other terms surface in an attempt to make it more inclusive, such as MOGAI, but a quick search shows that this term is basically Tumblr-oriented and has virtually no searches
.
Maybe we should have a category which includes all sexual orientations and a subcategory with the different ones, where we can add all the categories currently missed.
Anna
12
Changing a category name is a fairly big task; it requires changing the category on the potentially hundreds of articles within the category. That’s not to say it can’t be done but we’d probably only want to pursue it if the change is necessary (like, the current terms are creating real world confusion for readers) and is expected to be permanent. In a case like this, though, the acronym has evolved quite a bit over the last few years, and I expect it may continue to evolve. We probably wouldn’t want to change a whole category unless we were fairly sure that the new term was the most used and accepted one around the web and was likely to stay that way (and that our older term was creating confusion). In this case, as Alex found, the term LGBT still seems to be used more by folks actually searching for help, so sticking with LGBT sounds like the best way to reach them. I noticed that LGBT is still the term that Wikipedia uses for their category and main article title, too.
On the theory of separating out subcategories for different orientations, I do fear that this would force articles (and thereby people!) into one box or another who might not feel those represent them? Personally, I agree with Luna when she says, “Do we need one, though? We’ve never had categories for different orientations, such as a Gay or Bisexual category.” I’m inclined to feel that having a lot of very narrow categories doesn’t necessarily help readers find what they’re looking for (and that’s to a certain extent why there’s no active category efforts at the moment - see the separate thread on that). That kind of approach puts some topics very deep in the category tree, meaning people have to really click and hunt and click if they want to find those titles while browsing. People *only* wanting articles on asexuality can (and do) obviously find them through search, but folks wanting a category view so they can browse a wide range of related/relevant content can probably appreciate looking through the LGBT category as a whole and finding the ones that speak to their concerns (both specific and broad). I might be wrong, but my hunch is that separating things out would make people miss topics they might find helpful.
what is LGBTQIA? I know about the first 4 letters, but when did the new 3 come around?
Hey, please avoid bumping threads @Alexandria2
=) The last time this thread was used was 5 months ago.
But as it’s been bumped the QIA stands for Queer, Intersexual and Asexual
