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ablednt · 2 years

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is “empath” a term with any real meaning outside of like, pseudopsychology? a friend’s therapist told them they might be an empath and idk whether to be concerned or not

Definitely be concerned.

Okay so empath as far as I know started in new age/witchcraft circles as a "spiritual belief" and normally I say let people believe what they want but this is specifically the part of that community that is primarily cis white women and they’d be like "🥺 I'm an empath my spiritual gift is empathy which means I'm just TOO NICE to everyone." They would use their sensitivity and "picking up on everyone's aura/emotions" basically to avoid everything they did not like and to guilt trip everyone who inconveniences them.

Like when I was younger and empath as a term was starting to become widespread in the circle of cis white Christian women in my life they'd say things like "the Black Lives Matter protests are just too hard for me :(( there's so much anger I have to ignore all of it for my health."

I don't know when the spread to pseudoscience happened exactly but at some point white women who weren't into witchcraft still wanted an excuse to be racist (this happened before I heard about it since we weren't witches yet) so they took the term and applied psychology to it. Empath is %100 not in the dsm and it's not a disorder, let's be abundantly clear, however it was very quickly mistaken for hyperempathy so a lot of people got told they were an empath. Said white women in my life told me I was an empath to ignore the clear autism and ADHD (+BPD) symptoms that were giving me all these intense emotions. I casually used those terms for a while as a teenager but never fully immersed myself in the bullshit also hilariously got gatekept by empaths before because they could sense my autism from a mile away and it was primarily an ableist community.

Anyway another shift happened and I don't exactly know what the cause of this was either but it pretty readily has to do with empath at its source being thinly veiled white fragility but at some point terfs got ahold of it and like a lot of them. Terfs were busy painting the picture that anyone outside of cis womanhood (but of course, especially trans women and anyone else perceived as a man short of cis men themselves were the main targets) were "raging narcissists" because they're ableist as all shit of course.

So once they saw empath they latched onto it with a death grip because if everyone they didn't like was an abusive narcissist(tm) then they were delicate little empaths being abused. Because terfs one skillset is weaponizing their trauma against minorities this also made it's way into the ND community itself when the "survivor of narcissistic abuse" community was born and gained traction for a while. Then people who weren't terfs but only ever found these terms to describe emotional abuse started IDing as narc abuse survivors too and shit got real ugly.

Most recently a lot of people have realized that the concept of being an empath is really ridiculous and started satire posting about empaths and this satire was in turn taken seriously so now currently dunking on them is trendy and their numbers are slowly dwindling. Genuinely encourage everyone who wants to mock them and spread misinfo about them because it's funny and taking out a literal hate group.

But anyway to bring things full circle the white witches and pagans in the more appropriative circles (not just cis white women anymore) are complaining about having had their term stolen by terfs and ableists whilst doing nothing to examine the initial racism and other bigotry that caused it to spread in the first place. Like no compassion isn't your spiritual gift janet you just will die if you don't use that as a crutch for your lack of personality.

The only time empaths got any official recognition where books published about narcissistic abuse so if a therapist is referencing it that means they're getting their sources from a eugenicist hate group that wants to mass murder cluster Bs so that's a huge ableism red flag and they're not a safe therapist to talk to even remotely.

#antiblack racism tw #ableism tw #ask to tag

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librafluid · 7 years

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Things in The Discourse™ that need to stop

There are a few shitty things that keep happening, which I hope we can at least agree should Stop? It doesn’t matter which side you’re on or whether you’re ace or allo, but it’d be nice if we could do these things less. In general you should keep in mind that people, especially children, may make mistakes out of ignorance. That isn’t to say that some disgusting things haven’t gone down throughout this mess, but petty things like “we’ll stop being nasty when you do” don’t solve anything.

It’s difficult for me to word this as not all inclusionists are aspec, nor are all exclusionists allo, so I have to generalise, sorry. I try to be as inclusive of aro people in this as I can, but a large number of arguments centralise asexuals. This post is primarily to point out issues and try to approach them reasonably. Also: I’m white, so please tell me if I’m out of my lane anywhere.

“Ace tumblr” doesn’t exist in the sense of a side in the discourse. We aren’t a hive mind. Neither are exclusionists, but there is a difference between generalising an exclusionary movement and generalising an entire orientation. Both are diverse in their members and viewpoints, but one of them isn’t something that can change.

Being an “ex-ace” doesn’t give you the right to demean them or MOGAI identities. While they might be used to avoid internalised prejudice by some, you actively hurt people who cannot comfortably fit into the LGBT quartet. Just because you realised you are not ace does not give you the right to speak over or deny their experiences.

Saying that aces are inherently “purer” because of their orientation occurs on both sides. Yes, aspec identities are orientations, not modifiers. This occurs in aces making serophobic jokes or comments, which is bad, but also in allos mocking aces and implying that we all actually think of ourselves as better. Aspec people can have sex regardless of whether they are attracted to someone, as can any allo person. Acting as if allosexuals are somehow inherently more sexual forgets hypersexual aces and sex averse allos. The sex shaming of people who are allosexual can stop, and so can mockeries of aces.

I haven’t seen any crytyping jokes in a while good job everyone. They didn’t add anything to this mess anyway.

Things like “aceys uwu” are… Not Good. I get it if someone’s being an asshole, though this comes off as mocking or patronising their orientation. Doing it specifically because of that is Rude.

As for cishet aspecs: they have privilege over trans/nb and non-het people. They are cis. They are straight. They are part of an oppressor group, but guess who else is? Cis gays. Het trans people. Intersectionality results in privileges overlapping, and while they are privileged and some may be terrible people, that is no different from any other group. Cishets are our oppressors, but that doesn’t make it impossible for them to be respectful or need resources in regards of their asexuality or aromanticism.

Het aspecs are not accepted on the same level as a cisgender heteroromantic heterosexual - they are straight, but can suffer for their orientation as other LGBT+ people do. They may not be oppressed on the same scale, but they face systemic stigma: aros are frequently demonised as abusive or unloving, especially if not aroace. Asexuality is not the same as chastity, and aces are viewed as broken/inhuman by alloromantic, allosexual het people. Erasing this is harmful and does little beyond alienating people who may genuinely need resources and help.

It’d be nice if we stop pushing the ahistorical narrative that aspecs are some kind of trespassers who are barging into a place they’ve never been involved in? Whether they were under the B due to a lack of terms or labelled as Group X, aspecs have been involved in the LGBT+ community for a while. For that matter, don’t pretend the community formed all of a sudden one day to fight homophobia and transphobia and functioned in perfect harmony. It was a struggle to even get the L and G together, and ushering this false history to the point of enforcing the restriction of SGA (ironic as some people despise the use of the Q word at all, despite its history) is harmful. Doing this also ignores the history, issues and spirit of the community.

Oppression Olympics don’t achieve much, and lumping bi/ply/pan and nonbinary people into homophobia and transphobia erase the specific experiences of those identities. They intersect, but they are individual and so is aphobia, even if a lot of issues overlap or aren’t as severe.

When people say that certain arguments and methods are reminiscent of bi discourse or TERF arguments, it isn’t with the intention of saying that you’re a complete biphobe or transphobe. They are likely talking from experience, when they say some arguments resemble the style of previous gatekeeping movements. It might be a good idea to consider why those methods are being used.

This fighting is no longer about cishets, when aspecs who you would consider part of the community anyway are getting hurt and attacked. When poc are having their identity erased, when survivors are being harrassed. The discourse is becoming an excuse for some nasty happenings from people of all opinions and stances, and collateral damage like this isn’t worth it.

TL;DR: all stances on the ace discourse and all orientations have unsavoury individuals, but not all people within those groups are the same as them. Please try to be decent people and be decent to people, and give them a chance to learn. Preferably while not having aspecs as a backdrop for your shit.

#ace discourse #this is less a fighting post and more an attempt to make sense of arguments that are getting out of hand #please do some self reflection and be civil #i made an entire sideblog just to ask people to be nice can we please tone the nastiness down in general #also if you're reading this you're wonderful no take backs #try not to hurt other people tho #i know i didn't mention a lot of things but i'm writing this off the top of my head #no links either but im pretty sure i could dig some out eventually #ugh

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