Should Asexual activists support Gay, Inc?

Details: Category: Cake Recipes; Published on Sunday, 07 August 2011 21:08; Written by Lara Tacita; Hits: 485

The relationship between the Human Rights Coalition and transgender leaders has been a shaky one. The recent debate over ENDA has shown that LGBT groups are more than willing to forget the transgender part of their acronym when it comes to the goal. The roots of this conflict, according to Transgriot, stretch back into the 1970s. The attitudes against transgender people exist to this day. The Human Rights Coalition may not have been founded until the 1980s, but many transphobic attitudes exist in the coalition.

The LGBT umbrella represents a diverse range of interest who do not always agree. Each group may have organizations that look out for its own interests, but the large groups may fight for Gays and Lesbians and forget the other people under the umbrella if it comes for smaller gains.

At this point, the reader may wonder what any of this has to do with Asexuals. Asexuals are not currently fighting a political fight and many people who identify as Ace fall somewhere in the spectrum, even if they are not always comfortable with the overt sexual displays. Asexual activists should remember that if we ever do have political goals, that the LGBT community, particularly the part of the movement known as Gay, Inc has been willing to abandon transgender people in order to achieve its larger political goals.

Asexuals should continue their efforts to ally with the LGBT community, but they should not let the agenda of the groups be pushed to the side or even let their allies in the LGBT community abandon one group to fit the larger needs.

If the opponents of equal rights can sense a weakness between groups that are reasonably allied, they will exploit it to their advantage. A split such as the one that occurred with the LGB and T communities over the passage of ENDA will probably not affect Aces for a long time, if such a split affects Aces at all. It is likely that the issues Asexuals face will stay out of the political arena for the foreseeable future.