[Coda]

Nah, Martian, you don't need to feel bad about it. Everything we're discussing here is entirely personal. One person's experience doesn't involve passing judgment on anyone else's.

Galla, I'm sorry if it seems like your experiences are being dismissed. That wasn't my intent at all, and I tried to point out that I know that it does happen, but that it's not broadly visible. Unfortunately, you've only really alluded to the fact that you've had experiences, and I really can't respond to that in any specific way. I have no intent to pry into your personal experience here, and you can share or withhold whatever you see fit.

I also didn't mean to imply that it's only identity politics at play. I was only trying to say that, in my lifetime, the rise of identity politics has appeared to have resulted in a shift towards the negative -- not that it started out as sunshine and rainbows, but that it seems worse now than it did then. I certainly understand that there are other issues out there and I tried to touch on the things I know of. I know there's bias and ignorance and neglect and misunderstanding; there always has been. What I haven't seen before the 2010s is malice, at least if you disregard the teenage tendency to deride anyone that deviates from the norm. (And I disregard that because it's equal-opportunity discrimination, not specifically targeted at any particular group. Most teens grow out of those kinds of juvenile attacks.)

I also didn't mean to imply that identity politics is directly the motivating factor in ace-related discrimination. What I feel identity politics has done is draw attention. And now that "ace" is a thing, people are at some level compelled to form an opinion about it. It's just part of human nature to decide what one thinks about something once a label has been applied.

So again, I extend my heartfelt apologies to anyone that feels like I've been dismissive of their experiences. I feel that I've done a poor job of explaining my thoughts on the matter, and that people have walked away thinking that I hold beliefs that I really don't.