I count myself very lucky for the place where I exist on the aro/ace spectrums. I am still capable of having and enjoying romantic and sexual relationships, even if I experience them in a different way. This means I have the benefit of 'passing' as allo, which I do not claim, because I am too proud of my identity to try and hide it. Unlike other sectors of the LGBTQ community where I have felt more ostracised by the way I experience things (e.g. identifying as gay, but being a pre-transition AFAB), I have never felt 'left out' by aromantic or asexual people, because the most important part of that community is the unique individual experiences of everyone who identifies that way.

This year I have had the privilege of meeting and speaking with more aro/ace people. What separates me from them the most is:

 
1. Many of them were far older than me, and discovered their identity much later
 
2. They had made peace with their identity and had embraced a romance-less/sex-less life. Their identities were more binary in which they were completely averse to sex or romance as opposed to existing somewhere more fluidly on the spectrum.

I came out at 14, which was a very long time ago, and I've lived the majority of my pubescent and post-pubescent life with this identity. And yet, I feel much less settled with it than those who did not discover their identity until well into their adulthood.

It is not that I'm not certain on my identity; if I wasn't, I wouldn't have come out so early in life, when most people aren't even thinking about sex or romance so clearly yet. But it feels as if I came out very early, and the world around me is still catching up.

Yasmin Benoit, an asexual rights activist, made a video on Instagram about Niger being the first country to criminalise asexuality. I will not go into how fucking furious I am about that, but she brought up an incredible point:

We have seen LGBTQIA+ rights being rolled back across the world, but asexuality is often left out of that conversation, usually because we didn't really have the rights, protection or recognition to be rolled back in the first place.

Asexuality and aromanticism fall victim to the same problem that befalls all forms of bigotry; a lack of awareness. All anger comes from fear, and all fear comes from a lack of understanding; people are homophobic because they don't understand queer people and therefore fear them. But that fear has led to legislations that harm queer people, and those legislations are only now being reversed, or in Niger's case, strengthened.

Aro/ace people exist in a strange middle ground where we are not truly feared, but we are not understood either, and the laws that used to harm us are not being reversed, because no one is ready to understand the complexity of the aro/ace identity. Homosexuality and asexuality both find their beginnings in being classified as mental illnesses, but the research that reversed these outdated ideas was completed for homosexuality far earlier. There are still many people out there who believe that aro/ace people are mentally ill, the same way people used to think queer people were.

So for those brave enough to face the unknown, know this: I should be feared for my identity. I deserve to be understood, just as all aro/ace people should. It has taken society far too long to wrap their heads around LGBTQ culture and terminology, but we have laid the groundwork now. I should not have to feel like a burden for existing just as any other LGBTQ person does, for feeling too complex because my feelings cannot be explained easily.

Recently life has calmed down enough for me that pursuing relationships has become a realistic concept instead of a faraway fantasy. And yet, I have never felt more alone.

I have watched my allo friends fall in and out of love, they have enjoyed relationships, they have despised them. But they've had them. They've had crushes and kisses and they've labelled their feelings in a way that is embarrassing but allowed. And I have stood on the sidelines, watching them experience something I have longed for, but know I may never truly have, because no one will ever truly understand my identity.

Dear allo people, your feelings will always feel embarrassing. It is scary to care enough about someone to love them. But your feelings aren't considered a mental illness, like mine were in the DSM until 2013. Your feelings are a normal part of life, and it is beautiful that you can experience them. My feelings are also beautiful, but they aren't considered a normal part of life, they're considered a psychiatric research case. When I want to date someone, when I want to love someone, when I want to be loved, there is a question that must be asked that you have never had to hear, because being loveable is a given for you.

So when you hear me complaining or crying about how lonely I feel, I don't want to hear "you'll find someone eventually", because if that were true, I wouldn't have to wait as long as I have. I am twenty, I don't need, nor do I even want the perfect partner to come to me. I want to try and I want to fail. I want to love and I want to let go. I just don't want to feel like I'm an obstacle in a relationship that has to be leaped over. I can be loved, and I can love so, so deeply, if only someone will let me. But first the world needs to catch up, and I need to stop being seen as someone whose feelings are too complicated to understand. All you have to do is ask, and you will my feelings are nothing to be feared.

Always in your orbit,

andro venus ♡