Should we "come out" more often, to promote visibility?

[Guest Chandrakirti]

6 hours ago, aro-fae said:

In general, I feel like visibility should be more of a goal for the greater community than individuals. Let larger LGBT organizations and activists do that kind of work, rather than relying on individuals. 

I frequently come out as aro, particularly because I'm heavily involved in an organization and for the sake of event planning I like to make sure we bring the aromantic flag along with all the others  Of course, that is a very easy environment to come out in. Am I running through the sheets shouting that I'm aro and handing out flyers? No. I'm just planting little reminders among people that already know. 

And I agree with Coyote, visibility is not the best goal. Education and acceptance should be the focus, visibility just happens to follow it. 

Can't highlight the passage, but if you're running through the sheets....I'd love to bring my camera!??

[DogObsessedLi]

7 hours ago, aro-fae said:

In general, I feel like visibility should be more of a goal for the greater community than individuals. Let larger LGBT organizations and activists do that kind of work, rather than relying on individuals. 

I frequently come out as aro, particularly because I'm heavily involved in an organization and for the sake of event planning I like to make sure we bring the aromantic flag along with all the others  Of course, that is a very easy environment to come out in. Am I running through the sheets shouting that I'm aro and handing out flyers? No. I'm just planting little reminders among people that already know. 

And I agree with Coyote, visibility is not the best goal. Education and acceptance should be the focus, visibility just happens to follow it. 

I must admit that I think there's different levels of awareness. Often even in queer/quasi support agencies they can be ignorant of aromantic and asexual orientations, it's one of the big problems generally with the LGBT+ term because you'll get everything from LGBT to LGBTQI, it's rare that As are even considered, and definitely the awareness of split attraction is definitely not made aware in these circles, be it aromantic allosexual, alloromantic asexual or another combination (my QP is homoromantic heterosexual for example). 

But my aromantic asexual orientation is neither a secret or do I tell everyone 

[Mark]

51 minutes ago, LizBri said:

Often even in queer/quasi support agencies they can be ignorant of aromantic and asexual orientations, it's one of the big problems generally with the LGBT+ term because you'll get everything from LGBT to LGBTQI, it's rare that As are even considered,

Even within queer organisations you can find the idea of A=Ally.
 

55 minutes ago, LizBri said:

and definitely the awareness of split attraction is definitely not made aware in these circles, be it aromantic allosexual, alloromantic asexual or another combination (my QP is homoromantic heterosexual for example). 

Even where there is some awareness there can be ideas like exclusively varioriented people don't exist.
There's also seeing heterosexual aromantics (and asexual heteroromantics) as "non queer enough".

[aro-fae]

7 hours ago, Chandrakirti said:

Can't highlight the passage, but if you're running through the sheets....I'd love to bring my camera!??

Ahhh that's a very aesthetic image lol

5 hours ago, Mark said:

 

6 hours ago, LizBri said:

and definitely the awareness of split attraction is definitely not made aware in these circles, be it aromantic allosexual, alloromantic asexual or another combination (my QP is homoromantic heterosexual for example). 

Even where there is some awareness there can be ideas like exclusively varioriented people don't exist.
There's also seeing heterosexual aromantics (and asexual heteroromantics) as "non queer enough".

I think this last bit is also what worries me about people coming out "for visibility" - people offering themselves as representation tokens is going to risk a lot of emotional turmoil in terms of others not understanding (or not wanting to understand) things like split attraction, het-aces, het-aros, etc. So while it's great for an individual to bring awareness, I'd hate to even suggest that burden to one person. 

[nonmerci]

The thing is : visibility is nothing without education. And when you come out as aro, you also have to explain what the word mean. I made that expérience twice recently. First with someone who thought it meant that you don't like romantic things (meaning flowers, wedding, etc; I don't know if it has the same méningite on English). I didn't explain to her because I didn't know her enough, and I was too bus agreeing with her while she was saying marriage should be seen as a contract instead of a romantic thing ?.

Second time it was with my mother, who didn't understand either. Here I explain, and she gave me the speech about "you're gonna be alone, who will take care of you" (not in a romantic sense,  more about if I get ill or whatever). And my mother is the understanding person in the family.

 

All this to say : coming out for visibility is good, but only if you are ready to face ignorance.

[DogObsessedLi]

I think it can depend on a case by case situation, and of course how confident you are in your orientation (as well as time, how much you need to explain how much energy you have). I always have certain go to explanations for example getting them to imagine how they'd be in a romantic relationship with the sex or gender they aren't attracted to (it's amazing how many times that doesn't work, esp with cishet men), or the positive approach of getting them to think back to their best friends or besties before romantic relationships were prioritised in their life. Again, you can deal with idiots, but my experience is that it can take more than one chat to explain to the average person. I have the attitude that it's no secret I'm aromantic asexual but I don't speak to strangers about it and only personally bring it up for a reason, and then I always like to make people feel they can ask sincere questions. It is a difficult issue though, and LGBT groups do need to be educated primarily in some ways. There is no overnight solution. 

[Coyote]

On 6/11/2019 at 6:33 PM, DavidMS703 said:

Those are all good points.

 

Thank you.

 

On 6/11/2019 at 6:33 PM, DavidMS703 said:

However, the topic here is about if we should be promoting visibility. I think pretty much everyone on this site, if they were to spread aromantic visibility, would do so in a positive way that sends the message it's okay to identify as aromantic.

 

Ostensibly. And yet it's far from impossible to find amatonormativity messages and harmful wording about aromanticism even within the aro community. Even with good intentions, I can't trust that having-the-right-identity will equal perfect execution.

[Mark]

7 hours ago, Coyote said:

Ostensibly. And yet it's far from impossible to find amatonormativity messages and harmful wording about aromanticism even within the aro community. Even with good intentions, I can't trust that having-the-right-identity will equal perfect execution.

It's difficult to know what the original intentions are behind words and their definitions.
There's also the possibility that respectability politics is playing a part here.

[aspecofstardust]

So far I haven't bothered coming out to anyone who I didn't know would already understand at least a little bit about what being aro means. That said, when I come out to people I come out as aro and ace, there's no one I'm out to as only one or the other.

 

Somewhat related, I'm trying to start an aces and aros group at my school, mostly to have more of a sense of community, but I will also probably have to get more comfortable talking about aromanticism (and asexuality) with allos, and coming out to people I don't really know. I'm not too worried about how this will be handled at my school because generally it is a very queer-friendly environment, but I do get worried about potential consequences if information spreads.