Sad / Disconnected from my queer community

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Hi been meaning to join your forum for along time. Well where do I start I am 35 year old pansexual cis male based here in Melbourne Australia. For along time tonight I was contemplating suicide because of disconnect from others. I really never had long term partner due to ASD and dealing with stuff all the time. Inside I want to be hugged and cry but on the outer I am reserved due to me in the past stuffing up body language and not knowing where I stand in social situation.

I have found sadly erasure with both my ASD and Bi/Pansexuality within the LGBTQI community here in Melbourne. ASD erasure has not come from malice but simply a lack of understanding. With the LGBTQI community as a whole being quite dependant on social currency I have none because it simply the way I don't work. Funny enough I still like everyone else have needs like intimacy/sexual/emotion etc which makes the ostracise all the more hard

I am angry when people see me as emotionally needy or a oxygen thief(or anyone else in the community that gets that responses). I get those responses all the time just cause I cant read social cues or peoples past reactions to me.

Just hurt and angry and sometimes I was a different person.

**Thanks for reading

~Chris

Mhm, I feel you. The problem in my case is that I have absolutely zero grasp on romance. I've learnt to fake it damned well but it tires me out. Sappy small talk gets old fast for me. Thankfully for me, queers seem to care less about romance than the straight folk, but it's still a struggle. And then there are the nerves. Another big one is that I am rubbish at judging whether or not someone's straight. I once made such a dreadful blunder - didn't scope out that the man I was hitting on had his wife and kids with him in a club.

Not to 1up you but as an asexual genderqueer, you wanna talk about "erasure" my own family would even refuse to acknowledge me. I've been aware of these things about myself for almost 5 years now and yet the only place that I even find people willing to speak up on that matter is online. At this point I just take what I can get and keep it moving. I guess my situation is not the same as yours though because I'm not connected nor do I even care to attempt to LGBT even despite being genderqueer.

On a random note regarding that my mom is always telling me when folks are gay or not. She said you can just "tell" by looking at them or something. I feel that she cares about those things too much. She even got mad because this "butchy looking girl" brushed me off after I made a comment about a game I was pre ordering ... Once again she cares about those things way more then I do.

Despite its constant bleating about "inclusion" and "diversity" the LGBT community is anything but. Don't believe me? When was the last time a guest using a wheelchair was spotted at an LGBT dance club or bar? If one in five Americans are disabled (according to the U.S. Census Bureau), we should be seeing the same disabilities at clubs and bars, too. Despite calls by autistic LGBT people for better accommodations of our public needs (sensory and social, among others), which LGBT Pride events are really, truly accommodating? Are autistic LGBT people included in marketing images and mission statements? I haven't seen any.

While I have been an LGBT activist for the last 35 years, I am far more welcomed and represented within the autistic community than the LGBT community. My political successes relied more on those non-LGBT people who worked with me than the LGBT people who benefited from my work.

In my opinion, LGBT people despise their disabled cohorts (except those with HIV who get trotted out as props). They just don't admit it.

Inclusion and diversity, my ass!

I'm aromantic, a term which I only recently found out existed. For me "faking it" would mean putting a huge effort into trying to get something I don't even want in the first place.


IME it's rather varied. Seems one of the effects of "marriage equality", has been to increase romantic and amantonormative expectations within the LGBT community.

Sometimes how inclusive and diverse an organisation is seems to have an inverse correlation with how much fuss they make about it.

Indeed. When I was trying to be a part of the LGBT community (now, I avoid it), I felt expected to dress a certain way, believe certain things, support myriad ideas that I considered odd or even in opposition to the LGBT community, and, worst of all, trust certain politicians uber alles without fail or doubt. Really?!? I am so glad that I now avoid the LGBT community. I am gay, but I am happy to define myself instead of taking instruction from others.

No offense but I find that LGBT isn't really for black people anyway. Like I said although I am an asexual genderqueer person I do not and will never identify with LGBT. But that doesn't mean that other black people and other folks of color didn't try to and still get rejected ...

OK, I'm a just stepping out of the closet 'noob'.
Or maybe this is because of my autistic social problems and my fear of 'coming out' as an mtf tran, I'm 46 now. And I actually more or less in gender limbo because of my disconnection with any kind of an LGBT 'community'.

really, that's my 2cents.... What is this "LGBT community" anyhow? Just some bars & dance clubs? I am prone to sensory overloads, I avoid places like that. Is there a chain of outreach centers? It's not like you can just go knocking on the door of any house flying a rainbow flag.

It really seems to be more of this amorphous label on a collection of quite varied groups.

The only coherence is a fun and colorful parade once a year.

But I dunno, I have been so 'in the closet' I have been living under a rock, I have no clue how to connect with any form of "community" LGBT or otherwise. I'm just not social. I mean, I like people, I enjoy having friends and connecting, but I am fork in the eyeball socially clumsy.

I was raised by cats, no wonder. Cats don't get along with anyone.
Really, I was raised by the cats, being autistic, the humans made no sense to me, I spent my first several years being taught by the cats in the house. They made sense to me.

I'm off topic now.

But yeah, I feel completely disconnected. I'm not even sure this "LGBT community" is a concrete thing of any form. It's just a wrapper around various activist groups, and an association of bars & night clubs. It's really more of an abstract idea. It's also this forum, completely disconnected from those bars and annual parades.

This is also an autistic forum. Feeling disconnected from the community, whatever community, is very common common here, LGBT or not. That is what I feel is one of the the pronounced "handicaps" of autistics, social problems. We even have trouble connecting with groups that are supposed to be "all accepting" and "all inclusive".

I've found more acceptance as a autistic pansexual trans woman in the BDSM community than I have in the LGBT community. LGBT doesn't like people who are "crazy or weird", since LGBT was viewed as a mental disorder for so long. Hence why they push autistics out. Though I've found a lot of the leader of the LGBT community are accepting, just not the LGBT community at large. The BDSM community accepts me because we are all "weird" according to the friends I've made in it.

Have you(walski) considered reaching out to the autistic community instead? You may make friends and a partner easier with people who think like yourself. Look for an autistic adult support group. I run a autistic support group and everyone that shows up are accepting of me, I've found autistic people to be some of the most accepting people.

You're totally not alone in this thought. I've never really figured out how "where" or "what" the queer community is supposed to be or how to get involved. I guess everything happens online nowadays? Basically all of the lesbian bars in my city are closing up. I don't know where people gather, interact, or form "community."

The "BDSM community" is no more uniform than the "LGBT community". Both terms encompass a huge spectrum of groups and organisations.

I disagree with this. There are at least two social gatherings every week for my local BDSM community. Sometimes up to five, depends on the week. It tends to be the same hundred or so people. I know most of them by name. I hug most of them when ever I see them, even in public. I've made the closest friends I've ever had in my life in the local community.

Please keep in mind community tends to be a local thing. Do I think the BDSM community elsewhere would be as accepting... probably not. I'm very grateful for my local BDSM community being so accepting and friendly towards me.

I would like to add that I'm accepted in the local trans community also. We have a support group every week so we at least have connection that way. It probably helps I'm good friends with one of the leaders.

The LGB community on the other hand pretty much only has bars in my area and nothing else. There used to be a LGBT center but it closed down shortly after marriage equality was legalized. Also the local LG community isn't very accepting of trans people.