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‘Maggie (she/her), who identified as an Afro-Indigenous biromantic asexual cisgender woman, that she has personally come across “people not believing” her and others when disclosing asexuality. She continued, “not believing [us] specifically because you’re a person of color” because “there’s not as many spaces for us to talk about it or be seen. So when you do speak up, people will be like, ‘Oh, really? …I find that hard to believe.’” Maggie feels that the overrepresentation of white asexuals aids in the propelling of asexuality as myth for aces of color because when white folks “come out, it’s like, well, that’s great for you…. But it’s kinda unexpected for us [people of color], but not unexpected for people like white people.” She clarified that she has experienced this discourse in queer and non-queer circles, across racial lines that “there’s still this shock factor even for us,” highlighting how allonormativity works to impossibilize asexuality among people of color. This subcategory explores the marginalization of asexuality, particularly among people of color, as a myth perpetuated by rhetorics of allonormativity that dismiss asexuality as an impossible and abnormal phenomenon, impacting individuals like Dee, Gina, Vena, and Maggie, who share experiences of disbelief and invalidation from both familial and societal perspectives.’

CHAPTER 2 A TYPOLOGY OF ALLONORMATIVE RHETORICS, Category 2: Inferiorisation, Subcategory A: Asexuality as myth from A Communication Approach to Asexual People of Color’s Experiences with Allonormativity by Benjamin Brandley