radical, gamebreaking politics for a group that’s struggling with the basic right to fucking exist

Being aro/ace is queer.  End of story!  To say that anyone who’s not cishet normative doesn’t belong at the queer “table” (as if being queer were some kind of banquet, Hannibal?) doesn’t really understand what it is to be queer at all.  So let’s pick up the harp and let’s dance.

“radical”: late 14c., in a medieval philosophical sense, from Late Latin radicalis "of or having roots," from Latin radix (genitive radicis) "root" (see radish ). Meaning "going to the origin, essential" is from 1650s.

Here’s what being queer, in any sense, often entails:

corrective rape
pedagogical erasure
unacceptance of one’s non-normative relationships
othering in mainstream media
medical stigmatization, discrimination, even “conversion”
unsafe to “come out” to partners, families, community and colleagues and so forth, and yet “coming out” is essential to being authentic

In other words, nothing nice.

These are all things that ace people have experienced.  These are all things that gays and lesbians have experienced.  These are all things that bisexuals have experienced.  These are all things that trans people have experienced.  These are all things that intersexed people have experienced.  Why?  Because we’re all queer.  Because we all deviate from the expectations of straight people.

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I’m a big fan of etymology.  It’s a way of getting to the root of a word, of seeing where it came from.  Because of course words change over the eons.  “Nice” for example derives from Latin nescius "ignorant, unaware," literally "not-knowing," from ne- "not" + stem of scire "to know" (see science).  And then it changed to “timid,” then “fastidious,” then “precise” and “careful” and “delicate” before becoming “agreeable” and “kind” and “thoughtful.”  Over time, it’s been turned inside-out, polarity reversed and all that.  What a queer word!

“Queer” is the perfect word to describe the history of “nice.”  “Queer” derives from the c.1500, "strange, peculiar, eccentric" from Scottish, perhaps from Low German (Brunswick dialect) queer "oblique, off-center," related to German quer "oblique, perverse, odd," from Old High German twerh "oblique," from PIE root *terkw- "to turn, twist, wind."  Huh, looks like we got something in common with twerking, too. 

Oblique, off-center, turned… in other words, not straight.  This is the geometry of being queer, or perhaps the square root of it to be particularly nerdish, and with particular thanks to Harper's Etymological dictionary.

So what does building solidarity look like?  Damn, it looks like looking in the mirror, I think!  Conversely, what does excluding aro/ace from queerdom look like?  It looks like, I dunno, like saying that because someone under the queer umbrella has an easier time of passing for straight we might as well just pretend that they’re straight?  It’s like demanding someone stay in the closet. 

That’s what we all have in common.  The damn closet, from late 14c. French closet "small enclosure, private room," diminutive of clos "enclosure," from Latin clausum "closed space, enclosure, confinement," from neuter past participle of claudere "to shut". In Matt. vi:6 it renders Latin cubiculum "bedchamber, bedroom," Greek tamieion "chamber, inner chamber, secret room;" thus originally in English "a private room for study or prayer."

It’s a restriction of sexuality.  Including asexuality. 

With religious connotations.

It’s the apocryphon of queerness. 

So this is what it says to include aro/ace into queer space.  It says, “you matter.”  Your experience matters.  You are different, and we are different, and these differences matter, and yet this is what we all share in common.  Not being straight, and yet mattering.  Why?  Because diversity makes for a healthier ecosystem.  And even if it didn’t… we all matter because we all have inherent value, which is hard to believe after lifelong immersion in a culture that either denigrates us if it even knows of our existence. 

And if there’s anything that’s going to bring about the end of “the market” where everything is commodified including people, it’s going to be the practice of recognizing the principle of inherent value.  Because the underlying assumption of the marketplace is that value isn’t inherent (an assumption shared by so many religions, especially those which say that all people are sinners, but also by science, as "value" is a numinous quality and so essentially unobservable) and so therefore some people are “worth more” than others.  Indeed, under the assumptions of the marketplace, the world we live in doesn’t have inherent value, which is how we now face ecological disaster, and nazis walking down the street, and a living refutation of orange being the new black.

So of course everyone that's A belongs with us.

We now return to your regular programming.