Belonging [Rule]
(midwest.social)
Gormadt
196I'm straight, but I love people being happy and accepting one another. More people need to not be jerks.
Lemmy isn't as accepting as this suggests. I get downvoted (rejected) by the queer community here every time I talk about my asexuality. Apparently I don't qualify because I wasn't born asexual and became ace through childhood trauma. So I'm back to having no sexuality at all. I'm just an empty vessel. A void. It was nice to experience the perception of acceptance for a little while, at least.
The fediverse is not a monolith. I would be pretty surprised to see people on this instance (blahaj) downvote you for talking about being asexual.
You can block the shitty communities that do.
Very true, maybe I just mentioned in the wrong place. The way it's handled it especially hurtful. I'm also autistic, and people will ghost me instead of explaining the issue with our relationship. They never bother explaining the issue, they just vanish.
No one bothered to explain the reason they were downvoting me. Not a single comment, just downvotes. Eventually, in the midst of a panic attack (losing your identity shortly after receiving it will do that), I asked why I was being rejected. I only know about the "not born asexual" thing because someone finally included an explanation with their downvote.
I took the liberty to look through your comments (because I am surprised this could happen here). Are you referring to this comment (thread) here: https://lemmy.world/comment/22163882
If so and if you're in a good mood/healthy headspace, take a moment to re-read it again.
Now, I can't see what the person responded to exactly but to me they seemed genuinely respectful and polite. I'd perhaps strike out the word "effectively" but else wouldn't really change a thing in that comment. I don't think they intended to reject you, or worse, take away your identity, at all.
Also, if I had to guess: Most downvotes of the original comment probably came not from people who denied your identity but people who thought your comment seemed rude/too negative.
As a last thing: I suggest turning off (the visibility of) downvotes in your Lemmy client. I think most of them have such a setting somewhere. It's not really worth having them activated if they can cause such strong distress (nor do I believe anyone would want you to feel this way if they downvote you).
By the way, this comment is not meant to reject/invalidate you either. It's only my personal view and it might be partially or fully wrong - which is why I used phrasing like "probably", "seem", "I think", and "I believe" to convey subjectivity.
The "born this way" trope seems to be something that the media pushes a lot, and it's wrong. Being able frame queerness as being not-by-choice helps some people give themselves permission to be queer. Anyone who is gatekeeping your identity is not an ally. Your identity is yours to do with as you please. If you've always been ace and only now are realizing it, great, that's yours to determine. If you're deciding that your identity now is ace and previously was something else, it's your prerogative. The ability to grow and change is powerful.
Lemmy is much less focused on points, and doesn't really have karma like reddit. I would try to just ignore the upvotes/downvotes, they're meaningless.
3 years into transition and still in the closet to most. Thanks to my spouse for having my back, but these are still lonely times
Hello world! :3
You forgot the print statement.
std::cout<<"Hello, World! :3\n";
It feels so much to be open with yourself to the world!
Yay :3
Paru >:3
Parus major 😏
Paru Itagaki!
❤️
