I Think Whatever You Replied On That Post Got Immediately Hidden By The OP

Some of the main points I see used against aromantic and asexual people are narratives that go like:

You can't know you're aromantic or asexual if you've never tried dating or having sex. (Translation: you should date someone you aren't attracted to and have sex with someone you aren't attracted to just to be sure you aren't attracted to them).

You can't be asexual or aromantic if you've dated and had sex. (Translation: the actions of dating someone and sleeping with someone can only ever be motivated by attraction, directly opposing what was demanded in the first point.)

If you date or have sex with someone despite not being attracted to them then you are manipulative and deceiving your partner. (Translation: dating/sleeping with someone without attraction as a motivation is inherently Bad and Evil)

And like, I've come across people who believe all three points at once without seeing the hypocrisy of it all.

Anyways, you don't need to try out all possibilities in order to figure out your orientation. Most people don't go around demanding that straight people sleep with and date the same gender before being allowed to call themselves straight, and yet they'll demand that of aspec people without hesitation. At the same time, there's nothing wrong with trying stuff out. While certain actions can be motivated by attraction, they don't always have to be. People have sex without being attracted to each other all the time, for all sorts of reasons. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, and it doesn't necessarily determine your sexuality either.

And I think the last opinion comes from a) people's tendency to tie attraction to a bunch of other feelings that just sum up to caring about someone, and then translate the absence of attraction into the absence of even liking a person and b) the tendency to see romantic attraction as the highest emotion one can have for someone and seeing any other feelings as inherently lesser, therefore making such a relationship "unbalanced". And with the way most people view aromanticism it's very easy for them to jump to the conclusion that the aro person is obviously being dishonest and just using their allo partner for their own evil little plans. It's all bullshit and I wish people would realize how easily these arguments fall apart when looking at them critically.

it's kind of a you problem if you read "this is a problem that also affects me" and assume it to mean "i only care about this problem because it affects me. i would not care if it only affected you"

i've seen this a lot more often in reference to anti-trans legislature recently. people acting as though only trans women will be affected by it and then getting mad at trans men and nonbinary people for daring to mention we're also negatively impacted by it

can we just have a community please. i want a community. can we not fight over who has it worse all the time and just give eachother support

hey don’t cry. every single transandrophobic post you see is actually just one of fite-club’s ten thousand alt accounts. yeah it’s okay. no one except him actually thinks like that

"a tiny fraction of transmascs are able to exploit the patriarchal system and in certain situations by going stealth they may benefit from material privileges" has become "all transmascs have male privilege and they do not experience misogyny and also they all hate trans women and they want to abuse us"

i think some of yall need to learn the warning signs of becoming a reactionary because this is some alarming shit

above all else a trans woman is a person. above all else a trans women is a woman who goes to the same grocery store as you and buys fruits in the same grocery cart as you and goes home and eats her dinner the same as you. above all else a trans woman is a woman who dresses like you do and talks the same way you do. above all else a trans woman is a woman who wants to be cared about the same way you want to be cared about and a trans woman is a woman who makes friends the same way you make friends. above all else you should care about trans women because they are people. treat her as such.

I wonder if the transfems that hate on trans men and transmascs realize that demonizing masculinity actually harms their masculine transfem sisters, as well as closeted/pre-E transfems as well.

A lot of monogamous people are weirdly obsessed with treating polyamory as uniquely loveless and insincere, as if a huge chunk of monogamous people aren't utterly miserable having even one partner.

💯 but its 000 for when something's fuckall

if your primary source of information on transmascs is by anyone else but a transmasc, it's not a reliable resource. it's currently viewed as perfectly okay for everyone BUT transmascs to talk about our experience- and in fact, it's encouraged for people to listen to everyone but us, because according to other people we're unreliable narrators, we "skew the truth," we "lie", that transmascs "already have too much space and too many people talking about transmasc issues", and that testosterone turns us into "irrational monsters".

i get it: people's internalized misogyny makes them treat us like we're too stupid to relay our own lived experiences because we're just "dumb, confused women." we get it- your misogyny is palpable. it morphs into a new, heinous experience- transandrophobia- once people begin telling us testosterone makes us evil, antimasculism begins to bleed into the misogyny that built this experience and turns it into something even more insideous.

people will do everything in their power to listen to everyone else talk about our experience, but when it comes to us advocating for ourselves, that's not allowed. everyone wants to speak for us, to tell us what their perception on transmasculinity is based off of a few passing experiences with transmascs so they "know what it's all about".

please seek out transmasculine people to listen to about our lived experience. everyone who attempts to speak for us has an agenda. don't listen to anyone but the source. outside speculation has no place when it comes to discussing the transmasculine experience, especially when it comes to saving young transmascs from feeling lost and totally alone

no one can tell our stories but us. stop being okay with people who aren't transmasc spreading lies about what we live through. our experiences need to be heard. let us speak for ourselves. stop putting words in our mouths and telling US how we live our lives

Your issues with masculinity and malehood are not the curse that trans men must bear in order to earn your respect or protection ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯