Thank you for your response (and not, for some bizarre reason, implying that I was lying, like a previous anon). I have done some Googling and some reading now and I'm seeing it from your point of view. I honestly had no idea people thought of it as a LGBTQ identity on the same level as homosexuality. I had just read the description and some light discussion on it in the past, realized it sounded like me, and moved on. It's really unfortunate that people who use this descriptor and this one only are elbowing into spaces where they don't belong. I found this faq, which explains why asexuality is not a spectrum (something I also wasn't aware anyone claimed) and it certainly makes sense to me: http://noyourenotmogai.tumblr.com/faq

I still continue to identify with this label because of the history I mentioned, but I'm not going to present it to others as freely as I have in the past. I doubt that most people who are using that term to describe themselves had the kind of long-term experience with it that I had.