Thorns

I'm not sure how I feel about the split attraction model - I think that attraction is a very complicated thing with a lot of variables, and I'm not comfortable saying it naturally falls into two distinct categories - but I definitely feel like there's enough common ground for people who don't like sex (and don't see that as a problem that needs to be fixed) to occupy a common category, even if different factors caused them to be the way they are. Same goes with people who don't like romance - and before I come off as if I'm dismissing sex or romance aversion as not a real thing, I'd guess that different people's gender preferences are influenced by different factors as well. To me, it's less that someone is a homoromantic asexual or an aromantic homosexual as it is that someone is gay and asexual or gay and aromantic. It's probably splitting hairs, but I prefer seeing direction of attraction and type of attraction as different qualities.

But sex or romance aversion is going to be an important part of how a lot of people experience the world. Being queer doesn't mean that my sex aversion doesn't matter, and my sex aversion absolutely impacts the expression of my queerness. Saying that one cancels out the other is like saying my disability doesn't matter because I'm queer... which is actually a fairly apt comparison to me, because while random people interacting with me might not know that I'm disabled, and probably don't NEED to know that I'm disabled, it's sure as hell going to affect things from my point of view.