#phobia language advisory

[aroworlds]

Hey legit question, what are the ableist connotations of aphobia? Is it the a part, or the phobia part, or what? I read your post on it but i don't really understand.

Phobia is a type of mental illness, a disability. It limits, impacts or halts one’s ability to go about various ordinary human activities, and a person with phobias may go to extreme, isolating or limiting measures to avoid the things that cause our terror and panic responses.

Aromisia is the hate, aggression, violence, erasure, dismissal and mockery targeted at a marginalised identity on the basis of our lacking alloromantic attraction and that quality being perceived as inhuman and undesirable by Western society.

Transmisia/cissexism is the hate, aggression, violence, erasure, dismissal and mockery targeted at a marginalised identity on the basis of our not being cisgender and that quality being perceived as inhuman and undesirable by Western society.

Do you see how one of these things isn’t like the other two?

The ableism lies in using the name of a mental illness--which is itself another experience of marginalisation often resulting in hate, aggression, violence, erasure, dismissal and mockery because we are perceived as inhuman and undesirable by Western society--to describe something that has absolutely no resemblance to a mental illness whatsoever.

Furthermore, people with mental illnesses are regularly accused of being violent and dangerous. How many people are armchair diagnosing Donald Trump, trying to find medical reasons for the horrors he’s wrought when the only relevant reason is that he’s a privileged, wealthy, white cishet dude? How many people are blaming possible mental illnesses for his hatred, violence and extreme disregard for anyone not a privileged, wealthy, white cishet dude, while people with mental illnesses are often victims of violence, not the perpetrators? How does this misuse of the word not tie in to a culture where people with mental illnesses are painted as dangerous, people to be feared–just like cissexist and aromisic people?

That’s the message I hear with -phobia language used to describe all the flavours of LGBTQIA+ hatred: my mental illnesses, my phobias, make me like the people who hurt, belittle and dismiss me for being aro/abro/agender/trans/queer.

To use the name for one of my mental illnesses as a synonym for hate, aggression and violence targeted at a marginalised community is an act of ableism. It creates a false correlation between a mental illness experience and the violence wrought on a marginalised population.

The aro-spec community, in responding to my post and adopting other language terms, is proving just how unnecessary this conflation is.

#anon #ask #ableism mention #aromanticism and ableism #phobia language advisory #ableist language advisory #text #not media #not aromantic #long post #very long post #mod chatter #aromisia #cissexism

[freigaeist]

hi hey i was tagged by maya @cypherknj & vanessa @jeonggsk to do the Get to know me tag THANK YOU LOVES B^)tagging @yoongs-bitch @joohyuuk @j-cypher @lgbtae @02seok @gukhwabrdg @eatkooks @jeondiary @stigmafilm for both tags if you wanna don’t feel pressured tho<3

1. Countries i’ve lived in: germany so far

2.  Fave fandom: bts & got7/monsta x (the haikyuu fandom is super welcoming tho!!!!)

3. Languages you speak: english & german 

4. favorite flim of 2016: Don’t Breathe we watched that in cinema twice!!

5. Last Article I read: i rly don’t know? probably some article abt bts rocking 2k16 and continue doing so in 2k17

6. Shuffle your music library and put the first three songs here:  something good - alt-j / follow the flow - epik high ft. d-tox & MYK / the dream - the birthday massacre 

7. Last Thing you bought online: spotify premium i guess

8. any phobias or fears: heights, i don’t.. understand.. why clowns had to be smth creepy at some point i hate creepy clowns/dolls 

9. how would your friends describe you? see that kinda tall predendingly funny girl over there making odd faces laughing like a tea pot and yelling smth abt namjoon? yea that’s bea

10. how would your enemies describe you? see that kinda tall predendingly funny girl over there making odd faces laughing like a tea pot and yelling smth abt namjoon? yea that’s bea *kazoo kid voice* wAIT A MINUTE

11. who would you take a bullet for? my younger siblings &my parents i guess

12. if you had money to spare what would you buy first? a proper phone case and i once again crave new headphones though my current ones are fine but.. the heart.. wants.. what it wants :^//

_

nickname: bea (some still know me by cat but bea is short for tabea so)

starsign: capricorn (with taurus moon and aquaris rising)

height: 179cm-ish

time right now: 9:45pm

last thing i googled: particularly (i’m so anxious when typing on desktop lmao)

song stuck in my head: i’m still listening to music rn so alt-js the ripe&ruin

last movie watched: the bodyguard :’^)

last tv show watched: we started rewatching sailor moon but didn’t get to s1ep2....

what are you wearing right now: my pyjamas

when did you create your blog: this is my new acc so july 2013

what kind of stuff do you post: kpop aesthetics astrology music other fandoms like harry potter &anime/manga movies... everything??

do you have any other blogs: sideblogs for each member of bts /dropkicks self/ @hugs4joon @rosajin @pfeffer-min-ze @aquaseok @parkyourjimin @bfmataerial @jeonkeks then fashion @kimdailsan and a personal blog that is rather depressive @cataestrophe ^^ there’s still that odd anime/humour/weird stuff blog @d-i-sappear and a horror blog i started and never continued called @jinnibal .....i’m a sideblog hoe i’m so i’m.. sorry@myself 

do you get asks regularly: from myself@myself and maybe dad. ty dad.

why did you choose your url: joon is The Bfmaterial and i find it cute how jimin calls him ‘moni hyung(ie)’ *clenches fist* so...cute............

gender: fem

hogwarts house: hufflepuff

pokemon team: nop

favorite colors: black &organic colours like moss green whine red etc

average hours of sleep: 5-8

lucky number: 4 (its my favourite nr but just know that i do not have luck when it comes to games and numbers lmao)

favorite character(s): l lawliet, mello/mihael keehl, kieren walker, tsukishima kei, tetsuro kuroo, sam winchester, castiel, ron weasley, katara, marceline the vampire queen, percy the engine dUDE theres way too many?? but i sense a pattern its either the problematic or the underappreciated one damn it 

how many blankets do you sleep with: currently 2

dream job: mhh i thought maybe sticking in the social field but i’d like to work on my own/with individuals better than with a big group? it’s not that i’m not capable of keeping a big group together and focus on the big picture but i’d like it better to work 1on1 or maybe company/marriage advisory.. yea i’d like that ^^

following: i’m following 712 lovely people :’^)

#damn it i've to csatch up on so many tags soijasdikrrrrrrfkkk #you don't have to do it! whatever floats your boat B^) #taggedy tag tagged

[aroworlds]

"own subjects where my activism is far more emotional. (Like the word “a-spec”, for example) "? You caught my curiosity

Lines like that, anon, are dangerous in giving me free rein to ramble on at you all!

I’m not sure if you’re asking me why I feel the subject be emotional or my feelings about the word, so I’ll assume the first but provide a quick explanation of the second: I was making an oblique reference to the idea that “a-spec” is an autistic-only term that shouldn’t be used by ace-specs and aro-specs, something I cannot abide as an autistic a-spec and discussed (angrily) last week. I have no problem with the word “a-spec” as I use it on all my blogs (you can take it out of my cold, dead hands!), just the idea that it is a thing in need of debating.

(I’ve a less-angry discussion about the angry post here, too, that adds a little more detail.)

In summary, I think the idea that “a-spec” is an autistic term, promoted by allistics, is the act of using autistics as pawns in exclusionist hands to silence a-specs from a unifying term we need and autistics don’t. In claiming the word is an autistic one and shouldn’t be used, allistic exclusionists are ignoring the autistic language and culture that does exist (based around reclaiming identity-first terms) while simultaneously denying a-specs a-spec language and culture.

In using one of my identities against the other, they’re erasing both.

It angers me so much because it’s still treated as a debate, as though the pain it causes me as an autistic aro is abstract–and this is tied so much to my experiences with other intersections of ableism and amatonormativity. Both these things provoke emotional responses in me, and when they overlap, I am very much not calm about it. It’s not something I can reframe as absurdity; I am my emotions and they’re that muddled space of anger and hurt.

I don’t feel more supported as a trans/NB/pansexual person–it does a disservice to the harm wrought by cissexist, exorsexist and monosexist people and “discourse” in LGBTQIA+ spaces, and I won’t minimalise that. I do feel, though, that amongst many reasonable and progressive people (on Tumblr at least), those attitudes are regarded as hateful, and while plenty of exorsexism still reaches me, it’s more often answered. The hate I get on these points is more often directly, horrifically, dangerously vile, but I feel more of an acknowledgement from my broader communities that such attitudes are vile, and often that’s just enough to keep going.

Ableism, though, even in spaces otherwise progressive, feels to me like amatonormativity and a-spec antagonism (especially aro antagonism) in something that is so unquestioned and overlooked. When it’s mentioned, people seem to regard responding to it as an inconvenience, irrelevant. Ableism is so often reduced to readily-understood concepts like maybe not using the R-slur and sometimes things like image descriptions, but the many, subtle ways one can be ableist for so many shapes of disability, never mind struggles like competing/conflicting access needs, are so often dismissed. No hatred is meant so it doesn’t matter.

I don’t think I need to lecture you all on the subtlety of amatonormativity and aro erasure; we’ve all endured it, this feeling that the things that hurt and diminish us aren’t worth bothering about–just as so many shapes of ableism aren’t deemed worth bothering about. Just as folks are so unwilling to provide fully accessible content or reframe their language, folks are unwilling to support aro-specs in any access needs we have with regards romance and erasure.

Ableism and amatonormativity make me feel the most dehumanised and erased, because here I feel that people who should be my own still don’t want to see or support me. Ableism and amatonormativity feel to me like things even otherwise-progressive people don’t want to acknowledge or explore. My disabilities aren’t always invisible, but they’re not always visible either, and so much of ableism and amatonormativity both is not as simply-understood or obvious as not using certain slurs. For me, trying to explain why “-phobia” causes harm when nobody uses the word to intentionally hurt me feels like trying to explain why the truth of most works ending in a romantically happy-ever-after causes harm.

(I’ve seen posts about aromantics and polyamorous folks supporting each other based on our being targets of amatonormativity, but I think aromantics and neurodiverse folks, especially on subjects like dehumanisation and the way love and empathy are treated as normal, have a natural kinship in how what we don’t feel is used to diminish us, and I’d love to see more discussion about this. I do wonder if this is why the best conversations I’ve had about not using -phobia have been in the aro-spec community. Certainly I’ve found more willingness to consider and understand than I have elsewhere, and I think that speaks to that kinship.)

I think part of this anger happens because people tend to explain at me in response–explain why “-phobia” isn’t a problem, explain why “a-spec” is an autistic word, even though I have discussed both from the position of an autistic with phobias. Because these fine points of language are less understood as being based in explicit, intentional ableism or antagonism (hatred), I believe others read them as acceptable, good-faith debate points in a way “trans people are their AGAB” is only “debated” by someone a world away from good faith. I’ve seen people respond to soulmates being amatonormative in the same way–it’s as though they’re archived in some abstract section of people’s understanding, that these aren’t our lives and experiences and pain being dissected.

Our pain is ignored as relevant because it isn’t seen as real.

The people we’re so often fighting are good, progressive people, with no intent to cause harm or deliberate hatred, operating from legitimate good faith. And they’re breaking us. Ableism and amatonormativity are so unacknowledged that there’s no widespread understanding that our pain isn’t an interesting debate point, that a lot of what we’re fighting isn’t direct, intentional or obvious antagonism–and it is ableism and amatonormativity that tells people, ourselves included, that these things are not worth acknowledging.

I have to fight my own internalisation of ableism and amatonormativity to fight someone else’s ableism and amatonormativity of considering ableism and amatonormativity a simple debate topic.

The last ask I got that told me -phobia constructions was fine to use made me cry. I was wrecked by it, because I’d explained my reasoning several times that week, and while there was nothing rude in the ask itself, debating the merits of something I said hurt me was horrible–especially when I had to keep on saying the words, also rendered difficult by my chronic pain. And while I’ve had too few spoons to comment as I should and wish to, @herefortheacenaro has been fighting wonderfully against more ableism on the subject of not using -phobia this past fortnight, and I can only imagine the exhaustion felt now, knowing how much it broke me.

So, anon, while I can handle direct antagonism with much more confidence, because I have enough certitude to dismiss it as hatred, the calm, quiet, polite-seeming ways of turning the unseen pains of my life into a debate topic, particularly if it comes with able-splaining or allo-splaining (and they often do) are the acts of ableism and amatonormativity that break me.

And when they come together, I’m scrambling to know how handle it.

#anon #ask #not media #discussion post #ableism mention #amatonormativity #amatonormativity and ableism #ableist language advisory #phobia language advisory #ableism #aromanticism and ableism #autism targeted ableism #aro antagonism #antagonism #aspec antagonism #aro erasure #long post #very long post #mod chatter #mod k.a. #extremely long post #broader aspec discussions #actuallyautistic

[aroworlds]

You’re right. I guess I kind of was overreacting I don’t know why I got so mad when I saw them say that. Even if he was ace, it wouldn’t mean anything. Why give exclusionist nonsense the time of day? Thanks for making me realize that. (Btw sorry for saying aphobe I forgot that we’re not using that term anymore)

No, anon, you’re not overreacting! You’re allowed to feel whatever you feel–emotions are just emotions, and it’s absolutely not incorrect to be angry or upset when people try to harm you. You’re allowed to feel what you feel and you’re allowed to rant about it and discuss it. It’s in no way overreacting to feel emotions, however big and difficult, in response to what is often a deliberate and reprehensible act of harm.

(Feelings are just feelings. We don’t have control over them. Responses to feelings are behaviours, and there we have more control. Feelings are a value-neutral thing, despite what society likes to believe, and it is okay to feel whatever you feel–you can’t not. How you process the feeling, and what you do in response to it, is where you have some power. I’m stating this because when people talk about control of feelings they really mean control of response to feelings, and telling people they shouldn’t feel what they feel is such a dangerous thing. You can’t control that! You can only examine it, seek to understand it and look at how you respond to it, but the feeling itself just is.)

I think you only can take a “that’s nonsensical and why do you antagonists even think that will work” approach when you feel supported and understood by others, when you have no doubt or question in yourself, and often that comes from talking to someone else, from community and validation. It’s also so much easier for me, in this conversation with you and the original asker, to take my approach and attempt to reassure this way, but I’ve got my own subjects where my activism is far more emotional.

(Like the word “a-spec”, for example…)

I do find, though, that there’s worth in keeping this, the analysis and reframing of some acts of hatred as absurdity, as a possibility in your toolbox of responses (not feelings, responses) because it can be draining and damaging to us to pour out anger as a response to every act of hate. Hate is a weapon antagonists can keep throwing at us; there is no end to it and it costs them little to wield it. Responding to it with just outpourings of rage, on the other hand, costs us and hurts us each time. The ability to regard some small sections of it as absurdity or nonsense, to strip it of its fangs by declaring it irrelevant, allows us to survive, to keep energy for other times and responses. Not for them do I suggest this, but for us. It’s a hard tool to use the closer the act of hate comes to your personal experiences, and it may not suit all people or all activists. I do find it useful, though, because for me, at least, being constantly angry and upset causes me a lot of harm. If I can look at something, see the lack of logic and throw it aside as absurd, that’s one less cruelty to weigh me down.

You may not be able to bring this to this subject, though, and that’s okay.

And no worries, honestly. We’re all going to slip up. I know I have–quite often I tend to parrot other people’s words in response to something they’ve said and I find myself using their phrasing, only catching it afterwards. (Oh, does this make me feel hypocritical!) Can I say, though, that I’ve seen so many aro-spec blogs change their phrasing and making a sincere effort to avoid -phobia constructions? So many. It absolutely amazes me, to the extent that I’m starting to feel quite startled in pan/trans/NB spaces to see “-phobia” tossed around as normal. I already feel that it is abnormal to see this construction, because we are on the road to making it so here!

The important part is the attempt and the conversation about it, not the immediate breaking of a usage that has habit behind it. We’ll all get there in the end … and I’ve never felt so close, in any of my communities, to feeling like we will get there. Which, if you’ll allow me to repeat myself, is amazing.

Thank you, so very much, for every single aro-spec who has done their best to keep it in mind. You’re fabulous.

#anon #ask #phobia language advisory #ableism mention #ableism #activism discussion #discussion post #ace antagonism #antagonism #mod chatter #text #not media #long post #very long post #gratitude #aro people are the best people

[aroworlds]

cipheral replied to your post “herefortheacenaro: aromantic-official: Recently, @aroworlds...”

I don't want to start anything, but I'm curious: what about arophobia and aphobia are ableist by chance? As aroworlds said this seems to be an overnight thing, and as someone who is aro (and autistic, which may be why i dont get it) I don't want to use that when it has bad connotations

By “overnight” I mean that “the posts @aromantic-official and @herefortheacenaro made went up while I was asleep because I’m Australian and live in a different timezone”, not that this movement is a sudden one. I’ve been talking about this for years and years; this is just the first time that someone has been willing to listen to me when I talk about it. This is just the first time any of my discussions have gotten rebloged or linked to. There is a good number of frustrated people in the LGBTQIA+ community with phobias who have been talking about this to no avail and have been feeling dismissed and ignored; it says something significant about the aro-spec community that people here are beginning to make change.

You too may only be taking about time zones, but I feel like I can read your words as implying this conversation is a brand new one, and it isn’t--many of us have been talking about this for years. The only difference here is a considerate audience allowing our words to gain any kind of traction outside our own blogs.

(By the way, @aromantic-official placed a link to my original post, one that I’d made nearly a week ago, at the bottom of the one on which you’re commenting, for folks who want more information about why they’re making this change. Please, make sure to read through the post to check that links haven’t been provided before asking questions like this, because they did take care to provide and reference my post as the source.)

To summarise, I said that using phobia, a word that describes one of my mental illnesses, as a synonym for the hate, violence, aggression and toxicity levelled at marginalised people is ableist. I said this usage of -phobia for “hate” conflates my experiences of mental illness with thoughts and behaviours that often intentionally harm marginalised people as though they’re the same thing. We have two different experiences using the same word even though they have nothing, at all, in common. Phobia is disabling fear, an illness. It’s a condition that impacts my ease of living in the world. Aromisia is hate and aggression based on prejudice, impacting other people’s ease of living in the world.

What I didn’t say, and other people did, is that mentally ill people are also routinely accused of being violent while regularly being the victims and targets of violence instead of its perpetrators, and here we have the use of a word that describes our mental illness experience conflated, routinely, with hate and violence. It also denies people with phobias, especially in LGBTQIA+ and other spaces making use of -phobia constricts, clear language to talk about our phobias without it being confused or misread.

Phobia is a mental illness. It isn’t the hate, aggression and violence levelled at a marginalised population. We really shouldn’t be using language that suggests these things are the one and the same when the implication and conflation causes harm in multiple ways to people, like me, with phobias.

#cipheral #mental illness #phobia language advisory #ableist language advisory #ableism mention #language #reply #text #not media #not aromantic #arospec community #long post #very long post #mod chatter

[aroworlds]

I’m seeing an uptick in this of late, so may I please mention that words like “aphobia” and “arophobia” have an unpleasantly ableist connotation?

Folks are using a word that names a mental illness experience--I am a person with phobias talking here, one of them significantly disabling--to also describe hate and antagonism, just with slight modification to describe the target of said hate. (Just as many mental illness phobias also have this construction: arachnophobia, for example.) The dictionary definition of “phobia”, which I’ve seen used to justify the community use, is actually irrelevant here. A word that has a strong if not dominant association with a form of mental illness is used time and time again by all my LGBTQIA+/queer communities to describe hate and antagonism.

My mental illness is associated with the names of violent, damaging and erasing behaviours that hurt me on a variety of axes of gender identity and orientation while bearing no resemblance to my mental illness experience.

Can I ask you to stop and think about what that feels like? To have a word that describes my mental illness used as a synonym for hate, over and over again?

Because it is common-use language, I am constantly under pressure to just accept that this ableism is okay, to be quiet and watch all my communities wield this word. People who don’t have phobias tell me other terminology alternatives aren’t good enough or stress that phobia-terminology is so commonly used that we can’t and shouldn’t consider changing it. When I write posts about this, as I have many times on my personal blog, nobody listens. I am told, explicitly and implicitly, to just bear my discomfort and alienation so everyone else can keep on talking. Using these specific words is deemed more important than my safe participation in my own communities, even though I also have things to say about the hate and antagonism wielded at us.

You’ve probably noticed that I’ve tagged for this usage as #ableist language advisory. I also use words like “aromisia” and “aro antagonism” in my own writing. I don’t want to bog the blog down in conversations about this, so I won’t comment on asks or reblogged posts that include this word--I do feel that will make people anxious about communicating, and that isn’t my intent here. However, my alienation from this word is such that, after a couple of days of seeing it all over my dash, I can’t not say anything, either.

I know it won’t be easy to change conversations away from phobia-terminology. I’m not asking for perfection, because I know how ingrained the habit is. I’ve had to break it myself! I’m just asking for the attempt, so that more reblogged posts and community discussion pieces don’t associate my mental illness with experiences of hate that do me damage as an aro and a-spec.

Thank you so much for reading, and thank you for your understanding.

(Side note: no, the aro-spec community is absolutely not alone in this. Every other LGBTQIA+ and queer space I know of is just as bad, and it is truth that the a-spec community is mirroring language already in use by others--and mirroring it only because there aren’t enough conversations in other spaces about this unthinking ableism that has so taken root. I’m talking to the aro-spec community today because I think this is the only space where I have half a chance of being heard and respected by others--of people here listening and doing their best to support me as a mentally-ill aro.)

#ableist language advisory #ableism mention #aromanticism and ableism #discussion post #not media #not aromantic #arospec community #aro community frustrations #aspec community #mod chatter #mod k.a. #long post #very long post #queer #mental illness