Coming Out
It's something that ase, gay and trans people do.
It's understood as important for bi, gay and trans people - after all, if you're going to be true to yourself, your friends and love ones are going to notice, and it would be sensible to get them used to the idea beforehand. It's also seen as a scary, scary thing to do. This is, again, very understandable, considering some people's reactions and feelings towards bi, gay and trans people.
But I've had many people ask what the big deal is for ase people to come out. I've been told that there is no point - it's a lack, not something you need to go on about. Who needs to tell anyone about their lack of sex life? (Thanks for reducing asexuality to not having sex, but yea.) If you're heteroromantic, surely it's only your partner who 'needs to know'. You can appear to be completely normal and heterosexual (again, thanks for claiming that anything non-hetero is 'abnormal').
Why is it scary for an ase person to come out? I was terrified when I mumbled to my mother when I was 15 that I might be asexual. There is little prejudice against asexuality. There are no people saying we shouldn't be allowed to adopt children, or have a position in the church, or marry (as long as it looks 'normal'). But what we have in common with other queer people is that it changes people's perceptions. I've seen people back away from friends who have come out gay - they're now seen differently. Ase people are not backed away from - we are not scary, we do not unsettle many people. But we are pitied. Some people find the concept of asexuality as something that can be 'fixed' something that can be overcome, something that can be changed so that we can be normal. We do not know how fun it is to be sexual, so we must be turned - and if we can't we are missing out on something, and we should duly be pitied. Or maybe we just aren't trying hard enough to experience and enjoy attraction, and should thus be patronised.
I suppose it boils down to being put into people's shoes - some people find the idea of suddenly becoming gay gross, terrifying, shameful (considering what society has told them over the years) but the find the idea of being ase depressing and lonely, so they pity us.
In terms of perception, ase people certainly don't get it as badly, but it's still scary to reveal something so personal and opinion changing about yourself. We're also objects of curiosity at the moment - almost alien, and thus we become the focus of a lot of questioning, a lot of disbelief, and I often find myself defending the very thoughts that go around in my head, because the person I'm talking to refuses to believe me when I say how they work. I find my own experiences discounted, as the other person feels they know better than I do about my very being, since I am 'broken' in some way, and they are not.
This opinion needs to change. There is not only one way to feel. People are mostly getting over the must-have-partner-of-the-opposite-sex thing now, although there is still plenty of latent and more blatant homophobia about the place. One person is not more 'correct' or 'normal' in their tastes, attractions and feelings just because they are in conflict with another person's, and that person should not have to edit their innate self to be more 'acceptable' to a majority view. We are all very different, and it's important that society understands this.
We are all presumed heterosexual in a world where plenty of people clearly aren't. Society pressurises us to be as 'normal' as possible, and to stray from this worldview is worrying, and may not be tolerated - and all too often, that's all it is, tolerated. I'm humoured in my feelings and beliefs, they are not embraced.
The more people stand up and deny the narrow world-view that everyone must be straight, cisgendered, monogamous, in a long-term relationship, not be too kinky, not be too vanilla, not sleeping around (only if you're female of course) and say that it's fine to be all or none of these things, the freer and happier all of those non-conforming people can be. And that's one reason why I'm out.