The Anti-Trans Movement's Next Target
On the gender binary, social control, & bigoted gays.
**content notice: racism, misogyny, transphobia, acephobia**
I’m normally not one to claim that there’s an “original sin” to bigotry. At it exists right now, there are many -isms that are out there that are all connected; you cannot have patriarchy without white supremacy, you cannot isolate colonialism from capitalism inside a test tube and critique just one. Everything is entangled, and to say one is the “most important” is to leave out someone else’s story.
That said, it is without a doubt a central tenant of modern bigotry is the belief that human sexuality should only manifest in one specific way: heterosexually, and exclusively for the purpose of producing offspring. Modern patriarchy demands that all women should be barefoot, pregnant, and subservient to / dependent on men in every way, sectioned off as nuclear families in private homes rather than relying on communal care and knowledge.
Our social norms and laws are set up to incentivize these types of relationships and stigmatize others, and everything else that’s bad in our society either emerges from or intersects with this type of social control. An anti-racist analysis reveals that within this framework, women of color are meant to reproduce an exploitable labor class, while white women are meant to reproduce to further the “supreme” white race (and to serve as another excuse to marginalize Black men; “protect our daughters from wickedness!”). A class analysis reveals the power dynamics present in the home; feminists have long argued in favor of wages for housework, and even Engels himself said that the very first division of labor was between men and women. A trans-inclusive analysis reveals that humans were not meant to live in these oppressive, binary categories, and acknowledges the dehumanization present even for cisgender women who can’t give birth, never mind those of us who live as women but lack the ability to perform this particular social role of biological mother. A queer analysis more broadly reveals that the view of sex as something purely for procreation, not pleasure, is how homophobia emerges (“gay people can’t reproduce, therefore gay relationships aren’t natural!”)
So on and so forth.
The anti-trans movement in particular is highly focused on maintaining this level of control over people’s sexuality. Those assigned female at birth who then take testosterone and/or receive gender-affirming surgery are described as “damaged”, a label only appropriate if you believe that the “function” of women and girls is to reproduce. Those of us assigned male at birth who live their lives as women are constantly told that “we’ll never be real women” because we can’t get pregnant, don’t get periods, or whatever the new goal post is this month (currently, they define women as “the producers of the large gametes”. Very feminist!) “Protecting (cis) women” clearly isn’t a concern of the movement either, with the biggest anti-trans groups also advocating for criminalizing abortion and other draconian laws.
All of this is a means of social control, to force people into normative (hetero, vanilla, private, for baby-making) presentations of gender or sexuality, where everything non-normative is evil/sinful/not natural/goes against God/an effort to groom our kids.
With all this in mind, it only makes sense that the anti-trans movement, and right-wing bigots more broadly, would target another group whose sexuality manifests in non-normative ways: asexuals and aromantics.
In 1948, Alfred Kinsey introduced a 7-point scale to describe human sexuality, with a “0” representing those who were exclusively heterosexual and a “6” representing those who were exclusively homosexual. While not a perfect representation of human sexuality, this scale rocked the world when it came out and arguably had a hand in sparking the mid-century sexual revolution. That said, even LGBTQ+ history lessons often leave out a key detail in the study: a separate category on the scale, “X”, which denoted those who don’t pursue sexual relationships with anybody. In his original research studies, Kinsey found that around 1.5% of males described themselves as asexual, as did anywhere from 1-19% (!!) of females. That sure is a lot of asexual people!!
And yet, the cultural legacy of the Kinsey scale remains fixed on points zero through six. You would think that asexuals would be pretty uncontroversial, since their whole thing is not getting involved in other people’s sex lives. In fact, to many conservative Christains, a life of celibacy is the only ethical choice for those who can’t successfully “pray the gay away”. But remember, conservative panic is not about who’s actually causing harm—if it were, there would be far more attention paid to the groups who are actually committing child sex crimes, not innocent trans people—it’s about attacking non-normative presentations of gender and sexuality. If asexuals aren’t breeding or participating in the social ritual of hetero courtship, they’re a threat to the status quo, because they show people that life outside the rigid system of patriarchal control is possible—and maybe even quite fun!
Asexual people have recently started to get the attention they deserve; but also a lot of attention they don’t deserve. Such is the double-edged sword of visibility. Yasmin Benoit, a Black asexual woman, was one of the five Grand Marshals of New York City’s 2023 Pride festival, the first out asexual person to serve in the role. Yasmin has been perhaps the most high-profile asexual activist of the past few years, appearing in countless magazines and educating the world about asexuality, as well as white supremacy and related issues. This is an excellent development!
It’s only natural that a Black woman is leading this fight; historically, Black women have been the demographic that always fights the hardest to free themselves and everybody else. But Yasmin has been attacked on numerous fronts: by conservatives, by racists, and even by members of the broader LGBTQ+ community (who are often also racists). A cursory look at her Twitter replies reveals many conservative white dudes and older white women with transphobic and TERFy content in their bios.
Anti-trans bigots are now claiming that puberty blockers are “making their children asexual”. The maladaptive conspiracy theory that we are “transing the kids” has evolved to include the idea that we are intentionally sterilizing kids and/or robbing them of their sexuality as well. Ironically, these are the same people who claim that the trans movement is led by “perverted, predatorial straight men with fetishes” (referring to trans women), and are now upset that asexuality—debatably, the lack of any desire to be sexually predatory towards anyone—is becoming normalized. Consistency was never the point, of course; the point is stoking fear. As pointed out in an Instagram post by Yasmin about this very subject, “Anti-trans people demonise asexual people for the same reason—they’re prejudiced towards our difference because our very being challenges the patriarchal status quo.”
I should be transparent and share here that I’m a member of the broader asexual community. Hello! I identify as demisexual, typically defined as someone who requires a strong emotional connection to someone before I feel any sexual feelings for them at all. If you’re reading this and thinking “that sounds like me!” then it’s entirely plausible that you might feel comfortable identifying with this label as well. If so, welcome to the ace club! We have cookies. Or, you might be thinking, “Anna, that’s just what female sexuality is like.” I urge you not to fall into the trap of believing women aren’t sexual beings—after all, the notion that women ought to be demure and sexless is a part of the aforementioned systems of societal control. I also urge you to consider every time you’ve been attracted to a celebrity, or a stranger at a bar, or a sex worker on your screen. Believe it or not (and trust me, most do not), I experience none of those feelings of excitement; it’s radio silence for me until I figure out how much I vibe with them.
For most of my life, I genuinely thought I was broken, that there was something wrong with me because I had a non-normative sexuality. Even after starting my transition, I spent a year feeling lost around other queer people, never knowing quite how to articulate my lack of sexual desire. When I discovered the word “demisexual”, it was even more liberating than realizing my true gender. Nowadays, I wear a tungsten ring inscribed with the words “you are not broken” as a reminder to myself that I should never have to fit into an arbitrary standard.
If all of this is very new to you, you’re by no means alone. The most common asexual experience online is being told that either a) we don’t exist or b) we are not an oppressed group, that simply NOT enjoying sexual contact with others is not a valid axis of marginalization, especially compared to the ways in which gay people or people of color are socially ostracized and economically disenfranchised.
I will concede, obviously, that the consequences of being ace are usually less severe than being Black, for example. As a group, we’ve never been redlined, gerrymandered, gentrified, or those sorts of things. That said, there are plenty of laws currently in place that marginalize asexuals, and we face interpersonal discrimination pretty regularly. For example (and big content warning):
Asexuality is often left out of anti-discrimination laws, such as for workplace harassment and anti-bullying measures, which only name lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people as protected classes (if that!)
In some states and countries, marriages can be voided if the couple has never “consummated” the ceremony. Yikes! More broadly, the relationship structures of asexual people (who may still data monogamously or even enter polyamorous relationship structures) are not recognized as valid by the state. Which, much like how gay marriage was an important legal win, can have cascading effects for asexual people’s health care, citizenship status, family rights (e.g., visiting loved ones in a hospital), and more. In fact, the religious right is now deliberately attacking asexual marriages.
Many doctors (and patients) still see “having a low sex drive” as an illness/symptom that needs to be treated somehow. Many asexuals report changing up their medications or pursing forms of therapy before realizing they were simply asexual. Educating medical professionals about asexuality, and destigmatizing asexuality more broadly, will save people from wasting time, money, and their own health in attempts to “fix” themselves when they were never broken to begin with.
Conversion therapy exists for asexuals, much like it does for LGBTQ+ people in general. In some extreme and violent cases, this can take the form of “corrective rape”, where asexuals are forced into sexual scenarios. Bigger yikes!! A 2018 report from the UK showed that 10% of asexual respondents were offered or had undergone conversation therapy, the most offered of any category of LGBTQ+ people.
Asexuals are left out of data collection studies aimed to improve people’s lives. Without this data, it’s difficult to tell what specific needs and challenges that the community has.
Incidentally, I have a podcast episode where I interview asexual activist and science communicator Sarah Cosgriff to discuss what “asexual issues” are. Check it out on Spotify, YouTube, or Apple Podcasts to learn more about our little community! <3
Again, I don’t blame people at all for being ignorant to any of this. As a white person, I never knew about the things people of color go through until I was exposed to new experiences and did my own independent learning on the subject. As a person who’s an atheist but nonetheless culturally Catholic in a country where our culture revolves around the whims of powerful Christians, I had no idea what it’s like to live as a Muslim, Sikh, or Jewish person until I was exposed to new experiences and did my own independent learning on the subject. Being unaware doesn’t necessarily make you a bad person. What might make you a bad person is a lack of curiosity or empathy when you are exposed to other people’s experiences.
If you’ve never met an asexual person before, and one comes up to you and says “Hey, I face interpersonal discrimination and systemic bias on the basis of being asexual” and you respond with “No! I don’t believe you. That’s not real, you’re lying, you must just want attention.” That’s pretty weird, don’t you think? When confronted with new information that you can’t reconcile with your current worldview, it’s normal to be skeptical, to turn your critical thinking brain on. As a scientist, I would even say that’s a good instinct. But you should always leave some room for the possibility that, maybe, you’re wrong, that there are people who experience things that you have yet to imagine! I can teach you all about how asexuals are discriminated against, but I can’t teach you empathy or curiosity. At least not from this side of the screen. If your first instinct when you see an asexual is to think they’re clout-chasing or have some sort of victim complex, you might just be a fundamentally incurious person.
Obviously, Conservative culture stomps out curiosity. Right-wing leaders are actively trying to defund education, ban books, prevent women and people of color from going to college (but are super cool with them dying in war), and make sure that those that do get in are saddled with debt for the rest of their lives. Their culture war says it all: the word “woke” as it was created in the Black community literally just means “awareness” about social and economic injustice against Black people. Republicans want to stop…awareness of bad things. (And, y’know, it’s a proxy for the n-word.)
That’s all to be expected. What hurts a lot more is acephobia (bigotry against asexual people) from within the LGBTQ+ community itself. If you can understand why conversion therapy is wrong, then why protest to explicit asexual inclusion in anti-conversion therapy laws? If you can understand why gay marriage was an important legal win, not just for legitimizing queer relationships but for legally protecting queer couples’ financial interests and citizenship statuses, then how is protecting asexual relationships not a worthy cause for activism?
Rejecting asexuality as a legitimate identity can do incredible harm to potentially millions of people, something the anti-LGBTQ+ crowd is clearly okay with. Unfortunately, many gays are sided with them on this, not us. The ugly truth is that many LGBT people are have also been sold on the white supremacist gender binary. I personally distinguish the assimilationist “LGBT folk” from the radical “queers” for this very reason.
Nonetheless, I am hopeful for the future. Asexuality is becoming more recognized and normalized every day. Black activists like Yasmin Benoit are being centered in conversations around asexuality, and those conversations are starting to happen at a national level. As long as we keep our eyes on the prize and recognize our common enemy—patriarchy and its allies—marginalized people of all walks of life can join hands and win!
Currently Reading
A resource mentioned above, but worth sharing: Kristen Browde is a trans lawyer based in Florida, who has compiled a comprehensive list of convicted child sex criminals in the U.S. Spoiler alert: zero drag queens! The list is always being updated and can be found here: www.whoismakingnews.com
Unsurprisingly, the punitive logic that brought us “spying on kids to make sure they’re not cheating” is now proposing that we scan our students’ essays to ensure they’re not using AI writing tools. As it turns out, this practice discriminates against non-native English speakers. I have a lot to say about carceral teaching, which will have to be in another newsletter!
Related: “Shortcomings of ChatGPT” in the Journal of Chemical Education.
Watch History
The Ace Couple’s full podcast episode on marriage consummation, which is linked above but worth the listen!
Dev Lemons’ “The Future of Live Music is Bleak” provides another example of how capitalism ruins everything, including art.
kkclue’s fun look into useless video game-themed vinyl records from the 1980s.
Bops, Vibes, & Jams
I present to you all, the true Song Of The Summer: One Margarita (Margarita Song) by That Chick Angel, based on the viral TikTok clip responding to slut-shaming preacher Sister Cindy. Sometimes the only response to bigotry is to laugh at them.
New Alan Palomo, now featuring Flore Benguigui of the French funk band L'Impératrice. This record is giving big multilingual vibes and I can’t wait for the full thing!
My SoundCloud is now live! I have been practing my DJ skills and hope to start performing as “Dr. Curie”, an homage to another iconic Polish chemist. Check out my first two mixes, both of which I prepared while cooking food for myself and my loved ones. Expect full videos of these sets very soon! :)
And now, your weekly Koko.
That’s all for now! See you next week with more sweet, sweet content.
In solidarity,
-Anna
Anna Marie, I relate so much to this, as discovering the word Aroflux meant nearly as much to me as my original discovery of Nonbinary and Demigirl....💗💗💗
Amazing piece of writing.