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So I’m wondering, am I aromantic? I’ve came out as gender-fluid to some people and it just feels so much better. Idk if it’s gender fluid or something else on that spectrum but I’ll figure it out.
Anyways, I’ve had problems with mistaking people I want to get to know more with people I want to date. I don’t really get the difference between it and friends. I definetly know I’m attracted to men and I am but I don’t really care about the romantic part really idk… I don’t know the difference.
 
So I’m wondering, am I aromantic? I’ve came out as gender-fluid to some people and it just feels so much better. Idk if it’s gender fluid or something else on that spectrum but I’ll figure it out.
Anyways, I’ve had problems with mistaking people I want to get to know more with people I want to date. I don’t really get the difference between it and friends. I definetly know I’m attracted to men and I am but I don’t really care about the romantic part really idk… I don’t know the difference.

Short answer: it's up to you to decide really

As a disclaimer, I'm coming at this from the perspective of someone with a weird and fucked up sexuality that could only be described by words created by the utterly deranged (something along the lines of greyromantic omnisexual). What I mean by this is that from my perspective, sexuality is a really weird and individualistic thing that doesn't really tend to fit well into categories. And even from a philosophical perspective, let's say you have two gay men and they're both very assured in that label. But how can gay man A be exactly sure that gay man B's experience with sexuality is exactly the same? The answer is that gay man A can't really. We can't actually truly ever understand another person's feelings to the extent that the other person feels them, we can only really attempt to do our best with descriptive words. The reason both men call themselves gay is because that's simply the best way they know how to explain their experiences, even if it is not a comprehensive document of their whole life's experience with attraction. To come back to my original point though, this is why I think getting hung up on labels when it comes to sexuality is kind of a not-very-useful endeavor. Especially when it comes to the more "outside of the box" sexualities. If you try to attach your feelings to a pre-made label made to be a "one size fits all", then you're actually denying the intricacies and nuances of what you feel. And the more you try to actually capture those nuances with hyper-specific categorizations (see: greyromantic omnisexual), the more it becomes a fruitless endeavor because most people won't know what the hell you're talking about, when the whole point of attaching labels is so that you can try and communicate your feelings in the first place.

To summarize the previous paragraph, placing more emphasis on the label rather than your own feelings is a bad thing to do to yourself, and trying to hyper-categorize your feelings kind of goes against the reason we place a label on things at all.

So what do I do? Since I'm using myself as an example after all. Well I just call myself a lesbian lmfaoo. "Now hold on a second" I may or may not hear you ask. "Doesn't that go against everything you just said?".
1747540339176.png

I call myself a lesbian cause it's easy to tell others that I'm a lesbian. After all, I'm a girl (ish) and tend to experience attraction to women. It's far easier than telling others that I:
> am definitely feminine rather than masculine, but am not extremely attached to the construct of being a "woman"
> experience strange bouts of romantic attraction to people regardless of gender, although I am not sure if it is really romantic attraction at all
> experience sexual attraction largely towards feminine people regardless of gender, although I on very rare occasion find myself thinking that a guy looks hot
But I digress. Coming back to my original point, I'm not actually myself hung up on the label I use to describe myself. I call myself a lesbian cause it's a convenient term I can use to quickly communicate an idea of myself to others, but I do not actually believe myself to be a lesbian necessarily. My feelings =/= the term I use to describe them, and that's ok. Because I don't need everyone I talk to to understand the weird and fucked up intricacies of my sexuality.

But to wrap it all up and bring things back to you, it really is just up to you to decide what label you want to use. If you think that "aromantic" is a good enough label to communicate your feelings, then by all means go ahead and use it. To restate my short answer, it's up to you to decide really. The reason I've written this whole long answer is so that I could hopefully explain to you that the label itself doesn't actually matter too much, and you shouldn't get too hung up on trying to attach your feelings to a word that will never be able to fully capture the entire scope of your experiences.

And btw, when you said
I’ve had problems with mistaking people I want to get to know more with people I want to date. I don’t really get the difference between it and friends
I really felt ya there buddy. I briefly mentioned it earlier but I feel kind of the same way. Which is why I use the term "greyromantic" as a cop-out. It's definition is something along the lines of "experiences uncertain romantic attraction towards others" :haha:. Part of why I like the term in fact, is because it's so vague and does not attempt to really restrict my feelings. Rather, it's just a very general statement that's instead freeing, in my opinion. If you like that word, feel free to take it :boi:
 
Short answer: it's up to you to decide really

As a disclaimer, I'm coming at this from the perspective of someone with a weird and fucked up sexuality that could only be described by words created by the utterly deranged (something along the lines of greyromantic omnisexual). What I mean by this is that from my perspective, sexuality is a really weird and individualistic thing that doesn't really tend to fit well into categories. And even from a philosophical perspective, let's say you have two gay men and they're both very assured in that label. But how can gay man A be exactly sure that gay man B's experience with sexuality is exactly the same? The answer is that gay man A can't really. We can't actually truly ever understand another person's feelings to the extent that the other person feels them, we can only really attempt to do our best with descriptive words. The reason both men call themselves gay is because that's simply the best way they know how to explain their experiences, even if it is not a comprehensive document of their whole life's experience with attraction. To come back to my original point though, this is why I think getting hung up on labels when it comes to sexuality is kind of a not-very-useful endeavor. Especially when it comes to the more "outside of the box" sexualities. If you try to attach your feelings to a pre-made label made to be a "one size fits all", then you're actually denying the intricacies and nuances of what you feel. And the more you try to actually capture those nuances with hyper-specific categorizations (see: greyromantic omnisexual), the more it becomes a fruitless endeavor because most people won't know what the hell you're talking about, when the whole point of attaching labels is so that you can try and communicate your feelings in the first place.

To summarize the previous paragraph, placing more emphasis on the label rather than your own feelings is a bad thing to do to yourself, and trying to hyper-categorize your feelings kind of goes against the reason we place a label on things at all.

So what do I do? Since I'm using myself as an example after all. Well I just call myself a lesbian lmfaoo. "Now hold on a second" I may or may not hear you ask. "Doesn't that go against everything you just said?".
View attachment 741330
I call myself a lesbian cause it's easy to tell others that I'm a lesbian. After all, I'm a girl (ish) and tend to experience attraction to women. It's far easier than telling others that I:
> am definitely feminine rather than masculine, but am not extremely attached to the construct of being a "woman"
> experience strange bouts of romantic attraction to people regardless of gender, although I am not sure if it is really romantic attraction at all
> experience sexual attraction largely towards feminine people regardless of gender, although I on very rare occasion find myself thinking that a guy looks hot
But I digress. Coming back to my original point, I'm not actually myself hung up on the label I use to describe myself. I call myself a lesbian cause it's a convenient term I can use to quickly communicate an idea of myself to others, but I do not actually believe myself to be a lesbian necessarily. My feelings =/= the term I use to describe them, and that's ok. Because I don't need everyone I talk to to understand the weird and fucked up intricacies of my sexuality.

But to wrap it all up and bring things back to you, it really is just up to you to decide what label you want to use. If you think that "aromantic" is a good enough label to communicate your feelings, then by all means go ahead and use it. To restate my short answer, it's up to you to decide really. The reason I've written this whole long answer is so that I could hopefully explain to you that the label itself doesn't actually matter too much, and you shouldn't get too hung up on trying to attach your feelings to a word that will never be able to fully capture the entire scope of your experiences.

And btw, when you said

I really felt ya there buddy. I briefly mentioned it earlier but I feel kind of the same way. Which is why I use the term "greyromantic" as a cop-out. It's definition is something along the lines of "experiences uncertain romantic attraction towards others" :haha:. Part of why I like the term in fact, is because it's so vague and does not attempt to really restrict my feelings. Rather, it's just a very general statement that's instead freeing, in my opinion. If you like that word, feel free to take it :boi:
Oh yeah this video is tangentially related to what I was talking and sort of explains things in a better way than I was able to. All that about the difference between the “thing itself” and the words we use to describe it.
 
Short answer: it's up to you to decide really

As a disclaimer, I'm coming at this from the perspective of someone with a weird and fucked up sexuality that could only be described by words created by the utterly deranged (something along the lines of greyromantic omnisexual). What I mean by this is that from my perspective, sexuality is a really weird and individualistic thing that doesn't really tend to fit well into categories. And even from a philosophical perspective, let's say you have two gay men and they're both very assured in that label. But how can gay man A be exactly sure that gay man B's experience with sexuality is exactly the same? The answer is that gay man A can't really. We can't actually truly ever understand another person's feelings to the extent that the other person feels them, we can only really attempt to do our best with descriptive words. The reason both men call themselves gay is because that's simply the best way they know how to explain their experiences, even if it is not a comprehensive document of their whole life's experience with attraction. To come back to my original point though, this is why I think getting hung up on labels when it comes to sexuality is kind of a not-very-useful endeavor. Especially when it comes to the more "outside of the box" sexualities. If you try to attach your feelings to a pre-made label made to be a "one size fits all", then you're actually denying the intricacies and nuances of what you feel. And the more you try to actually capture those nuances with hyper-specific categorizations (see: greyromantic omnisexual), the more it becomes a fruitless endeavor because most people won't know what the hell you're talking about, when the whole point of attaching labels is so that you can try and communicate your feelings in the first place.

To summarize the previous paragraph, placing more emphasis on the label rather than your own feelings is a bad thing to do to yourself, and trying to hyper-categorize your feelings kind of goes against the reason we place a label on things at all.

So what do I do? Since I'm using myself as an example after all. Well I just call myself a lesbian lmfaoo. "Now hold on a second" I may or may not hear you ask. "Doesn't that go against everything you just said?".
View attachment 741330
I call myself a lesbian cause it's easy to tell others that I'm a lesbian. After all, I'm a girl (ish) and tend to experience attraction to women. It's far easier than telling others that I:
> am definitely feminine rather than masculine, but am not extremely attached to the construct of being a "woman"
> experience strange bouts of romantic attraction to people regardless of gender, although I am not sure if it is really romantic attraction at all
> experience sexual attraction largely towards feminine people regardless of gender, although I on very rare occasion find myself thinking that a guy looks hot
But I digress. Coming back to my original point, I'm not actually myself hung up on the label I use to describe myself. I call myself a lesbian cause it's a convenient term I can use to quickly communicate an idea of myself to others, but I do not actually believe myself to be a lesbian necessarily. My feelings =/= the term I use to describe them, and that's ok. Because I don't need everyone I talk to to understand the weird and fucked up intricacies of my sexuality.

But to wrap it all up and bring things back to you, it really is just up to you to decide what label you want to use. If you think that "aromantic" is a good enough label to communicate your feelings, then by all means go ahead and use it. To restate my short answer, it's up to you to decide really. The reason I've written this whole long answer is so that I could hopefully explain to you that the label itself doesn't actually matter too much, and you shouldn't get too hung up on trying to attach your feelings to a word that will never be able to fully capture the entire scope of your experiences.

And btw, when you said

I really felt ya there buddy. I briefly mentioned it earlier but I feel kind of the same way. Which is why I use the term "greyromantic" as a cop-out. It's definition is something along the lines of "experiences uncertain romantic attraction towards others" :haha:. Part of why I like the term in fact, is because it's so vague and does not attempt to really restrict my feelings. Rather, it's just a very general statement that's instead freeing, in my opinion. If you like that word, feel free to take it :boi:
I love the way you explain this. The beetle analogy makes a lot of sense to me

I more or less applied this logic to gender here but I think you did a way better job of explaining it.
 
Just a reminder as we go into pride month that pride is both celebration and resistance, and participating in whatever capacity you can is also contributing!! Also wanted to request that you please keep other marginalized folks in our community in mind when arranging pride events and gatherings. The queer community in my city personally is super Eurocentric culturally which makes it difficult to actually discuss my upbringing as a queer person of color in a conservative and religious family/social circle in a way other people will understand. There's overlapping elements for sure, but it helps a ton to be able to talk to other people who've lived that experience. I've managed to find other people through events where it's marketed for underrepresented people in the queer community (they welcome everyone though, but it's a space for less known topics to be discussed) and I found some queer friends in a similar situation to me because for some reason, I attract the entire fruit aisle, but the more events the better always.

Also, please make sure whatever events you may have a part in organizing are accessible to disabled people, and don't forget to encourage masking! We're all stronger together and uplifting each other will get us everywhere. Don't punch down on other queer people either - lesbophobia, biphobia, transphobia and acephobia are things I've been seeing from people who label themselves as queer - and while I don't have authority to determine how anyone labels themselves, their sexuality or their gender identity, we really are stronger together (I already said that but it's SO important) and having community is so important for us to rely on.

This pride month is super complicated and difficult for a lot of people, but I'm choosing to celebrate loud and proud in spite of that and I hope you guys do too! I'm gonna go kiss a guy now adios (I'm tragically single I literally texted my ex as a crashout not too long ago BUT in my dreams I'm not single and that's what counts)
 
with pride month upcoming

I have the understanding that what trans people want is to be treated by society with the gender that they feel natural with. Is this the correct way to see it?

I am not trans so I don't really know what it would be like to have gender dysphoria or how it is to treated as something you don't feel comfortable with
Hi, trans person here.

Yes as a baseline trans people want respect for the gender they align with, as well as just basic human rights and protections given how persecuted we are in certain parts of the world. Also we'd like more support within healthcare but that comes after making sure that we don't get killed for being trans.

Beyond that, I think a sort of "end goal" that's pretty far off is societal recognition that gender as a concept is kind of stupid. But that's kind of a luxury I suppose you could say. It's something I'd be willing to talk about more at a later time if you are curious, but I'm busy rn so i won't type up a whole essay about gender theory and stuff.
 
cw i am gay and mentally ill and i don’t like this website

it’s june 7th, 2025. there is another dead girl. ever since mental illness was abolished in favor of the neurodiversity umbrella, the only time we really hear about true insanity is in delightfully saccharine quirky internet memes. the market value of life is negative. tumblr won. 4chan won. reddit won. twitter won. kf won. it’s hard at this point to tell what lost.

limitless morphology and support for people with discontinuities is the only real pro-trans politics. the only way to exist as a trans woman is to not have a public past. i log onto the smogon forum, one of the so-called “last bastions of the old internet”. as before, there are thousands of posts on my account typed by the hands of something dead. i cannot modify or delete them. i wonder if they will still exist for the rest of my life, hanging over my head in case i ever become notable enough to stalk and harass. forums are not a place for people like me. there are very few places for people like me.

it is pride month. i open discord and am greeted by a rainbow-decal design of the poison gas pokemon. a joke about the holocaust has been made into a colorful, inclusive mascot. this is apparently a lucid sentence. i feel nauseous.

i spend a few minutes considering my plan of becoming a moderator solely to run through those archives and delete all those old posts one by one. what level of clearance would i need to do that, i wonder? would the higher-ups even allow it? i realize my energy is too finite for this, end the fantasy, and slip a little further down.

it’s june 8th, 2025. there is another dead girl. i should not have come here.
 
ive had this account for long enough as to where if you dug deep enough you could probably find a post around here where i am at least a little homophobic. hopefully not though. anyway, i went to vgc worlds with my boyfriend last summer and am planning on going this year as well (as a spectator this time, sadge). so i guess i have the informed opinion that being gay is pretty poggers after all....

20240815_114057.jpg

edit: here are our spheals holding flippers in lieu of a sappy photo of us (maybe later)
 
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is there an unspoken dress rule for pride parades?
this might vary from place to place! i think the safest bet is to come as you are plus whatever pride flag capes? but maybe contact your local organizers to check to see if anything "flamboyant" is allowed? i doubt anyone would bat an eye at crossdressing either
 
this might vary from place to place! i think the safest bet is to come as you are plus whatever pride flag capes? but maybe contact your local organizers to check to see if anything "flamboyant" is allowed? i doubt anyone would bat an eye at crossdressing either
oh i mean like in terms of social rules, not questionable stuff! like if i went in a cute dress and brought a pride flag, that would be okay?
 
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Aside from all that I really don't think that would be an issue at all!! I mentioned that because that's really the only thing that might be an issue for individuals at pride events.
 
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