it's HARD to be proud to be a-spec. incredibly fucking hard. i remember dreading every pride month because the evergreen discourse of 'do aces belong in the queer umbrella' would come up and people would get mean. there would be endless belittling, endless snide comments, endless bullying. and it really turned being ace into something you had to hide or else you'd be made fun of, or even ostracized within the queer community for.
and even to this day, it's still acceptable to bash aces. like god poor yasmin benoit deals with CONSTANT harassment (from straight people and queer people alike), even outside of any sort of celebration, just for talking about her experience.
every time pride comes along, or some sort of a-spec celebration pops up i just get this knot in my stomach, knowing what i'm going to see, knowing whatever internalized bullshit i've got going on makes it so difficult to be proud of who i am, to not feel like i'm being cringey when i mention that i'm aromantic and asexual.
i think it's getting better, i don't know that the kids these days have experienced the horrible mistreatment that ran rampant through mid 2010's online queer circles. i have hope that online communities will realize that infighting sucks and is stupid and finally someday i won't feel so conflicted about celebrating who i am.