i've seen people claim that ace exclusionism is inherently terf rhetoric. I was wondering your thoughts on this seeing as you are an ace trans woman? I personally think it makes sense but I'm not sure I'm qualified to think that (cause I don't fit either demographic)
Im a trans man, so I'm not the authority on this you think I am, but I do have thoughts from being active in the ace discourse community for a few years.
Personally I dont think ace exclusionism is inherently terf rhetoric, but I do think that being a hardcore exclusionist can lead to being a TERF, especially for cis ppl.
The entire concept of ace exclusionism is deciding that a group that is widely accepted in the larger LGBT+/queer community is actually just straight people wanting to be special. The community aspect relies heavily on invalidating people's personal experiences, making fun of people for identifying as this "fake LGBT" label, and acting as an authority on the group even without being part of that groups (or worse identifying as "technically I could use that label if I wanted but the community is too terrible for me to be that!") Theres a reason pretty much all TERFs are also exclusionists, and I've personally seen multiple people who changed their exclusionist blog to a radfem/gender critical blog.
This isnt to say every exclusionist is a TERF, or even on their way to becoming one. Theres plenty of transfem exclusionists as well who are trans positive. This is more to say that ace exclusion, like any exclusionary ideology, hinges on deciding the validity of that group as a member of the community that they share. When the community is also toxic and popularity is built on being a dick, it's not hard to see why a cis person who is less concerned about trans issues going down a rabbit hole or being convinced to care less about trans issues after following a more transphobic aphobe.
TLDR; ace exclusionism isnt inherently terf rhetoric, but both ace exclusion and trans exclusion communities do have some overlap, and it is something that should be thought about more critically