Apparently, J.K. Rowling got bored just attacking trans people. On April 6th, International Asexuality Day, she posted this lovely gem of a tweet.
She then followed this up with statements suggesting asexual people don’t belong to the LGBTQIA+ community, nor are they “oppressed.”
There’s a lot wrong with this.
Firstly, asexual people do face oppression – and they experience some forms of oppression that even other queer people don’t. Western culture sees sex as the highest form of intimacy, stereotyping asexuals as “incomplete,” “mentally impaired,” or even “inhuman.” Additionally, asexual people lack media representation. Personally, I’ve only seen two canonically asexual characters: Alastor, from the show “Hazbin Hotel,” and Andrew Perrault, from C.G. Drews’ novel, “Don’t Let the Forest In.”
Like other LGBTQIA+ people, asexuals also face discrimination when it comes to adoption rights, housing, and jobs. Asexuals may also face corrective rape by people hoping to “fix” them by making them into sexual beings against their will.
Even if you didn’t know of all this, anyone can see that asexual people face discrimination. After all, why else would someone want to invalidate their identity? The main reason for the rise of right-wing fascism worldwide is that the people who were once dominant over everything in society no longer have that same power because of things like affirmative action, civil rights, DEI, Pride, and feminism. So they’re promising to restore past privileges, which include controlling other people’s bodies and discriminating against asexuals.
Why Rowling felt the need to invalidate asexuals, I’ll never know.
I struggle to understand how such an eloquent, intelligent writer–and one who claims to care about sexual violence– couldn’t understand that asexual people are oppressed in this world.
Her tweets also prove another reason why we must have things like International Asexuality Day: to teach people about asexuality. Many people misunderstand it, as Rowling proved in this exchange.
If Rowling bothered to research, she would know that sexual attraction and romantic attraction are two separate things. Some asexual people don’t want to have sex but may want a romantic partner of the same gender (or one of a different gender, or be open to multiple genders). And, like other sexualities, asexuality is a spectrum. Some feel sexual attraction but do not want sex, some only feel attraction to people they have a close emotional bond with, and some just experience very infrequent or low-intensity sexual attraction. People may use different labels for these, such as demisexual or greysexual, which are all part of the “ace umbrella.”
Regardless, their sexuality is valid. The fact that J.K. Rowling feels entitled to speak on a group she is not a part of nor knows anything about, further proves that asexual people do face prejudice and oppression.
Finally, any attack against asexual people threatens everyone.
When we say that someone’s asexual orientation is invalid, or just the “not wanting sex,” but capable of being “fixed,” it erodes the legitimacy of anyone’s right to refuse sex for any reason. When we say that asexual people are “not queer,” we’re saying that some LGBTQ+ identities are invalid. And when that happens, it tears the community apart from the inside, not to mention, emboldens straight and cisgender people to decide whose identity is valid. I shouldn’t have to point this out– people should care about the struggles of others, even if they don’t think it will affect them– but Rowling proves why I have to.
When it comes to oppression, no group is on an island. So I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised that Rowling wanted to add acephobia to her arsenal in addition to transphobia.
Featured image via Katie Rainbow on Pexels
