Anonymous asked: I was wondering if in discussion/mention of cishets (no autocorrect, I did not mean "dishes"), cis heteroromantic asexuals, cis aromantic heterosexuals, and other cis people with mixed orientations but one of them being het-something, are meant to be included in this. Or does it apply exclusively to cis heteroromantic heterosexuals? Or does it depend on context/whose using it? While I'm not het-anything, I do believe it is an important distinction, and was curious to know which is the case.

I always use “cishet” to mean a person who is heterosexual, hetero-romantic and cisgender, and I suspect that most people who are aware of the difference between sexual/romantic orientations mean it that way, too.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of folks who don’t know about that distinction, or who forget about it, so when they talk about “cisgender heterosexuals” or “straight cis people” they often end up hurting people with mixed orientations. It’s a particularly common problem for hetero-romantic asexuals and aromantic heterosexuals, because the queer community has a bad habit of seeing asexuality/aromanticism as neutral or unaligned, rather than as “real” queer identities.

Don’t call people with mixed orientations cishets, because if you did that you would be invalidating either their romantic or sexual orientation, and you’d be treating “straight” as the default or more valid identity, which is a form of heterosexism. If they call themselves cishet, that’s fine, but don’t make that judgment for them.