My International Asexuality Day Address
Why I'm an Asexual Activist & Why Asexual Education Matters For People Like Me
This post was made on International Asexuality Day 2022
April 6 is International Asexuality Day. It is obviously a day of high importance, considering I’m asexual. I wouldn’t say it’s like my birthday, but April 6 signifies a kind of birth for me, figuratively.
Before I found out I was asexual, I was steadily trying to figure out what was up with me, feeling like I was somehow not like anyone around me. Everyone else was incredibly sexual, and all the while I simply wasn’t like them. Everyone else was crazy about sex, and I just didn’t feel the same way they did. When I found out how different I was from everyone else, I tried my best to act like them.
My efforts would prove unsuccessful, of course.
There was no one talking about asexuality when I was younger. There were no asexual groups or asexual organizations in my town. There were no pride marches with asexual people involved. We were not visible.
In the process, I felt invisible as well. I felt like I had an invisible identity.
While all of my friends were entering into sexual relationships and having partners, there was intense pressure on me to be like them. When I couldn’t and just never felt the way they could, I beat myself up internally.
If only I had known the word asexuality then!
I felt weird, broken, and offbeat because I didn’t even know who I was. I in one vein could proud that I didn’t have any issues like babies or STIs being a virgin, but at the same time, I felt like an outsider because everyone was talking this sexual language that I couldn’t understand.
It took me until 26 to realize that what I am is not off, but rather it is unique. I now realize that I am a unique dimension of human sexuality. I wish I had realized it earlier, though. The years of heartache and angst I felt throughout the years preceding 26 were intense.
The amount of times I wished to be like everyone else,
The amount of times I felt out of place in the world,
The amount of times I felt I didn’t fit in,
The amount of times I felt I was the only one,
The amount of times I felt no one understood me the amount of times I wished someone would come and tell me I am okay,
The amount of times I wished someone would tell me I’m ace
They were all too high for me to count. If only someone would have told me I was asexual when I was younger, I would have greatly benefited from it. I’m glad I know it now, but I sure wish I knew it back then. It would have saved me years of heartache.
This is why asexual awareness matters. With the whole “Don’t Say Gay” bill in Florida, it’s sometimes easy to forget that in the midst of the culture wars lay the lives of queer people like me. It’s my existence they wish to keep hidden from me. It’s my existence they wish to suppress and hide, to appease their right-wing ardent supporters. It’s my identity they wish to deem detestable to appease their Christian base.
All it does is ostracize and alienate kids who wish to find wholeness in themselves.
I know this because I was one of those kids once.
If there is anything I wish others could learn about us, it’s that by letting us discover ourselves, you let us live. If someone in sex-education had told me about this thing called asexuality, it would have freed me up to live in the happiness I have now. This asexual kid wished to live when he was younger. It took until 26 to find his new birth, however.
A long 26 years.
Every kid should have the right to discover their true identity and find self-actualization, including our LGBTQ+ kids. The right to find identity and self-concept should never be infringed upon. That goes for our LGBTQIA+ kids as well, because for LGBTQIA+ kids (especially asexual kids like me who are often made to feel invisible), it’s a matter of life and death.
Stay Fierce. Stay Fly.
—Songbird 💜♠️🏹🂡