This is some of the best advice ever to the ace community about connecting with the LGBTQ community:

1. Turn up at local LGBTQ groups (or online LGBTQ groups, I suppose, but personal connections are harder online). Introduce yourself to people. Make friends. Do it for you, primarily, and the asexual community second. Don’t be The Asexual, just be [your name], casually out. Homoromantic and trans asexuals, do this wherever the hell you want, and just make it abundantly clear that you think heteroromantics are LGBTQ as much as you are and won’t budge on the issue if it ever happens to come up in conversation. The point is not that you’re agressive and assertive, the point is that you’re normal. You’re clearly one of them. Heteroromantics, don’t loose faith. I’ve heard of heteroromantics ending up running LGBTQ groups, and the only group I have personal experience of has a heteroromantic* as one of the most regular members. A lot of people are seriously fine with all asexuals fitting under the LGBTQ banner, especially when their first interaction with an asexual is face to face.

   [ … ]

2. Get actively involved in LGBTQ groups.

   Take minutes, act as treasurer, bake a cake, co-blog, help mod a forum, come to campaigns. Organise campaigns (campaigns about LGBT stuff, not just ace stuff). Do a volunteer shift in LGBTQ charities. Be a really, really good ally to LGBT rights, even those that don’t intersect with your own. Obviously this only works if queer activism/community-building is something that appeals to you personally. But I know that one or the other is likely to appeal to a lot of the people who might read this. And the point here, by the way, is not to gain rhetorical points in arguments with trolls. We’ve given up on the trolls. The point is that every single person who sees you, knows you’re asexual and knows how hard you fight for the rights of other LGBTQ people is another person immunised from the rediculous idea that the asexual community is denying LGBT oppression. Also, that, if the topic comes up, people will be more likely to respect your right to be there as a heteroromantic, or your opinion that heteroromantic people have a right to be there.

I know this is long, but I think it’s worth the time to read it.  All of us in the gender and sexual minorities community, we all ought to be allies and support one another.  That means being patient, asking questions, and really listening to the answers before jumping to conclusions.

— Vlad Drăculea

violentopposites:

Long, emotional, possibly incoherent rant ahead, TW for lots of stuff:

Edited as of 1:00 AM August 25th, 2011.

I can only speak for myself when I say this, but after seeing lots and lots of hate between asexuals, heterosexuals, and queer-identified people I would like to say that I have NEVER intended to hurt anyone with my words on asexuality, the queer community, the word “queer”, gender and sexual minorities (GSM) in general, and acceptance. I’ve just been trying to state my opinion on a subject in a forum that maybe, just maybe, might allow me to raise awareness and acceptance for people who are hurting and don’t tend to get much attention elsewhere. If my words have been misconstrued to be hateful or hurtful, I’d like to set things straight. If I have hurt anyone, I am very sorry and will try to avoid this in the future.

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