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Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Definition of Homophobia
Definition of Homophobia
Merriam-Webster: An irrational fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against homosexuality or homosexuals.
Homosexuality in Psychology
Homosexuality in Psychology
Theories of Homosexuality:
Pathology: Views homosexuality as a "disease"—caused by an internal defect or harmful external force—in need of curing.
Immaturity: Views homosexuality as a normal "passing phase" in psychosexual development towards adult heterosexuality. Homosexual adults diagnosed as having "stunted growth," but overall homosexuality regarded as relatively harmless.
Normal Variation: Views homosexuality as a naturally occurring phenomenon in which a minority of people are born different. Homosexuality is normative and good.
Things to note:
-All three theories rely on cultural beliefs that gender is essential and binary.
-Throughout modern Western history, the authority on homosexuality has shifted from the religious to scientific to political realm.
-In the early to mid 20th century, medical practitioners largely based their research of homosexuality on a skewed sample of patients seeking treatment. This led to homosexuality being included in the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manuel of Mental Disorders (DSM) until finally getting removed in 1973, after protests by gay rights activists in the wake of the Stonewall Riots disrupted annual APA meetings for multiple years in a row.
Roots of Homophobia
Roots of Homophobia
Homophobia dates back as far as the times of ancient Greece, and has been a widely debated/discussed topic across the globe for centuries. Until the 1980’s, homosexuality in the United States was widely seen as a mental illness that could therefore be cured. This viewpoint is still true for many in the country. In 1972, the term “homophobia” was coined by psychologist George Weinberg. Weinberg viewed hostility towards homosexuals as comparable to irrational fears of snakes or heights: “I coined the word homophobia to mean it was a phobia about homosexuals….It was a fear of homosexuals which seemed to be associated with a fear of contagion, a fear of reducing the things one fought for—home and family. It was a religious fear and it had led to great brutality as fear always does.” Weinberg also states that societal implications of homophobia throughout history has resulted in men not being able to express non-romantic affection to each other—such as hugging and kissing— due to the fear of being seen as gay.
To understand homophobia in today’s societies, it is important to understand how our understanding of homophobia has changed throughout recent history.
William James (1890)- Believed that repulsion of homosexuality is instinctive and naturally more common in men. Homosexuality was seen as a “habit” that could eventually be overcome.
James and Edward Westermack (1908)- Theorized that hostility towards homosexuality exists because of historical associations with idolatry and heresy.
Sigmund Freud (1905)- Believed that heterosexuality results from societal prohibitions on homoeroticism and early experiences with parents
Sandor Fereczi (1914)- Believed that heterosexual men’s disgust toward male homosexuality are reaction-formations and symptomatic of defense against affection for the same sex.
Impacts of Homophobia
Impacts of Homophobia
Psychological Impact of LGBTQ Discrimination
Psychological Impact of LGBTQ Discrimination
Mistreatment can come in many forms, for example: benign jokes to verbal insults, unequal treatment to physical violence. Bias is everywhere and it lasts a lifetime: at home, school, in their community and work.
Rejection often starts at home: as many as 50% of LGBTQ teens experience a negative reaction from their parents when they come out and 30% experience physical abuse and 26% are kicked out of their homes. LGBT children comprise 40% of all homeless youth and family rejection is the primary cause. LGBT adults who report family rejection are 6x more likely to be depressed, 3x more likely to use illegal drugs and 8x more likely to have attempted suicide than non-rejected young adults.
Bullying of LGBT children: 85% are verbally bullied during the school year and it often turns violent. 40% report physical bullying and 19% report being physically assaulted at school because of their sexual orientation. 30% of LGBT children miss school because they feel unsafe and it results in increased depression.
What can be done? Support matters: Higher perceived family, workplace and friendship support reduces psychological distress in LGBT people. A supportive school environment with clear anti-LGBT bullying laws and supportive educators reduces bullying. In states where there are also clear LGBT anti-discrimination and anti-hate crime laws, LGBT people display lower levels of psychiatric disorders. Equal rights for LGBT provided in laws would improve their mental health.
7 Facts You Should Know About the Effects of Homophobia
7 Facts You Should Know About the Effects of Homophobia
Shorter life expectancy: On average, gay and bisexual people within communities where anti-sentiments are accepted have shorter life expectancy in comparison to their peers who live in more open-minded communities.
More likely to be victims of violence: With hate crimes against gays, the LGBTQ community is more likely to be victims of a violent crime. In some parts of the world, rampant hate crimes are legal.
Higher risks of cardiovascular diseases: Gays and lesbians have a 25% higher risk of cardiovascular disease if they live in a high-prejudice community than those who live in gay acceptance areas.
Higher suicide rates: The Suicide Prevention Resource Center estimates that 30-40% of LGBT youth have attempted suicide.
More likely to suffer from mental illness: The LGBT community, especially young adults, are more likely to suffer from a mental illness because of homophobia. Two big ones are depression and anxiety, according to Michael Benibgui at Concordia’s Department of Psychology and Centre for Research in Human Development.
More like to abuse substances: The Center of Disease Control found that people who constantly battle with ignorance and homophobia are 3.4 times more likely to use illegal drugs, as means to escape the daily pain.
Inability to establish long-term relationships: It's more common with gay men where homophobia affects the ability for them to form meaningful and longterm relationships.
Perspectives Toward Homosexuality Globally
Perspectives Toward Homosexuality Globally
Western homophobia peaked in the 1980s with the spread of AIDS. It brought greater public awareness that homosexuals existed in every social institution and it further stigmatized homosexual men. Particularly in Western cultures, the presumption of heterosexuality. “As Christian-based fundamentalism grew stronger in the United States during this period, men there were particularly resolute to align their behaviours and identity with heterosexuality; feminine expressions among men were thus edged toward extinction.” Simultaneously, there was a growth of political advocacy for the rights of homosexuals and an abatement of antigay laws. Beginning of the 21st century, AIDS was recognized as a problem for both, heterosexuals and homosexuals and antigay laws were stripped from most Western countries. “This, combined with the increased visibility of gays and lesbians, decreasing homophobia from some branches of Christianity, the ability of heterosexuals to socialize with gay men and lesbians on the Internet, an increasing percentage of homosexuals coming out, and the greater awareness that homosexuality is produced biologically, greatly reduced cultural homophobia.” In Europe and and in North America, sexual minorities were granted most of the rights of heterosexuals.
In the early 21st century, in western Europe and North America young people had begun to rapidly disassociate themselves from homophobia. Quickly decreasing cultural homophobia progressively meant that it was homophobia that was stigmatized opposed to homosexuality.
This diminishing in cultural and legal homophobia has been uneven. While homosexuality was decriminalized all through North America, South America, Europe, and Australia, the image in Africa and parts of Asia is more divided. For instance, though South Africa prohibited discrimination against homosexuals in its postapartheid constitution adopted in the mid-1990s and legalized same-sex marriage in the first decade of the 21st century, homosexuality remained illegal in the countries that outskirt it. In the vast majority of the Middle East, “the laws against gays and lesbians also remained severely restrictive; for example, in some countries where particularly conservative Islamic law was practiced, individuals who engaged in homosexual behaviour could be punished by death.”
The "Live and Let Live" Mentality
The "Live and Let Live" Mentality
The phrase "live and let live" is a Dutch proverb that was originally "leuen ende laeten leuen". The proverb was translated to English in 1622. The dictionary definition of "live and let live" is that you should tolerate the opinions and behaviors of others so that they will similarly tolerate your own.
The four words of this seemingly simple proverb are so easy to say yet so hard to do. In an article written by psychologist Leon F. Seltzer Ph. D titles ""Live and Let Live": So Easy to Say, So Hard to Do" Seltzer explains why is is so difficult to follow the concept of "live and let live". He writes about scientists that have studied the way humans behave believe that "live and let live" is so hard to actually do because it goes against primitive behavior that we naturally have. If there is something that goes against a persons beliefs of they feel challenged, then they will fight back. That is why "Live and Let Live" is not so easy to do than it is to say.
The phrase "live and let live" is such a simple and easy phrase to express how a person feels about the lifestyles and behaviors of others, but is it too simple? In an article from HuffPost titled "'Live and Let Live Live Isn't Enough Anymore". The author points out that more needs to be done to acknowledge the struggles of people who identify as homosexual. Being fine with someone else's sexuality doesn't mean that the group feels supported because they are still being discriminated against by others.
In the Laramie Project, many people living in the town of Laramie stated that they just had a "live and let live" mentality which seems like it would be a good thing but it is not. In a way it is another way of saying
The Dangers of the "Live and Let Live" Mentality
The Dangers of the "Live and Let Live" Mentality
The phrase is so easy to say yet so hard to do
The phrase brushes over the struggles that others may be going through (not acknowledging that someone is being discriminated against even if you are not the one discriminating)
Gay Panic Defense
Gay Panic Defense
Definition:
Definition:
According to the National LGBT Bar Association: “The LGBTQ+ panic defense strategy is a legal strategy that asks a jury to find that a victim’s sexual orientation or gender identity/expression is to blame for a defendant’s violent reaction, including murder.”
This defense relies on the jury's implicit homophobia and has three variations: defense of insanity or diminished capacity, defense of provocation, or defense of self-defense.
The gay panic defense played a key role in the murder trial of Matthew Shepard.
Origins:
Origins:
For most of the 20th century, homosexuality only appeared in newspaper articles about violent crimes — widespread stigma meant that homosexual activities were often covert sometimes involved risky situations and assaults were rarely reported because of victims' fears that they would be outed. In these crimes, defendants were often given lenient sentences due the widespread belief that it was "common sense" for "normal" men to react violently upon first becoming aware of a gay man's sexuality. In 1920, psychiatrist Edward Kempf coined the term "homosexual panic" in an essay titled "Psychopathology," in which he theorized that homosexual panic resulted from "the pressure of uncontrollable perverse sexual cravings." He claimed that symptoms included a “compulsion to seek or submit to assault” and hallucinations or delusions. His theory was based upon interactions with patients, many of them World War 1 veterans, who had serious psychological issues. Kempf would often arbitrarily attribute patients' symptoms to homosexual thoughts or behavior, even when no clear link could be made.
References
References
Homosexuality in Psychology
Drescher J. (2015). Out of DSM: Depathologizing Homosexuality. Behavioral
sciences (Basel, Switzerland), 5(4), 565–575. https://doi.org/10.3390/
bs5040565
Holt, R. [LGBTQ Shrink]. (2016, October 26). We are not born #homophobic. It is a learned behavior. @wipehomophobia [Tweet]. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/drronholt/status/920696774649552897?lang=en
[Shiistudios]. (2011, November 22). Gender Animatic [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xu5B58OWTaA
[American Psychiatric Association Logo] (2013). Retrieved from https://www.choosingwisely.org/societies/american-psychiatric-association/
The Roots of Homophobia:
Goleman, D. (1990, July 10). Homophobia: Scientists Find Clues To Its Roots.
Retrieved March 5, 2020, from The New York Time website:
https://www.nytimes.com/1990/07/10/science/
homophobia-scientists-find-clues-to-its-roots.html
Heck, G. M. (2004). Beyond "Homophobia": Thinking About Sexual Prejudice and
Stigma in the Twenty-First Century. In Sexuality and Social Research.
Retrieved from https://psychology.ucdavis.edu/rainbow/html/
Herek_2004_SRSP.pdf (Excerpted from NSRC, 1(2), 6-24, 2004)
Herek, G. M. (n.d.). Hating Gays: An Overview of Scientific Studies. Retrieved
March 5, 2020, from pbs.org website: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/
frontline/shows/assault/roots/overview.html
Massie, V. M. (2016, June 15). LGBTQ religion activist: it's time to talk about
America's faith-based homophobia problem. Retrieved March 5, 2020, from Vox
website: https://www.vox.com/2016/6/15/11932454/
orlando-shooting-LGBTQ-homophobia-religion
Impacts of Homophobia:
Chatel, A. (2014, March 3). Homophobia and its horrifying impact: 7 good reasons to end the hate. Retrieved from Huffpost website: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/homophobia-impact-_n_4889287
Friedman, M. (2014, February 11). The psychological impact of LGBT discrimination. Retrieved from Psychology Today website: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/brick-brick/201402/the-psychological-impact-lgbt-discrimination
Internalized homophobia [Image]. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.revelandriot.com/resources/internalized-homophobia/
Lyall, R. (n.d.). LGBT rights [Photograph]. Retrieved from https://rtrfm.com.au/story/lgbt-rights/
Perspectives Toward Homosexuality Around the World:
Homophobia. (2016, November 22). Retrieved from Encyclopædia Britannica website: https://www.britannica.com/topic/homophobia/Contemporary-attitudes-toward-homosexuality
The "Live and Let Live" Mentality:
Sushpadhye. (2016, August 28). Live and let live [Blog post]. Retrieved from Sushlit website: https://sushlit.com/live-and-let-live/
Gay Panic Defense:
Holden, A. (2019, July 10). The gay/trans panic defense: What it is, and how to
end it [Editorial]. Retrieved March 5, 2020, from American Bar Association
website: https://www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/publications/
member-features/gay-trans-panic-defense/
LGBTQ+ panic defense. (2019). Retrieved March 5, 2020, from The LGBT Bar
website: https://lgbtbar.org/programs/advocacy/gay-trans-panic-defense/
Crain, C. (2019, June 26). The theory that justified anti-gay crime. The New
Yorker. Retrieved from https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/
the-theory-that-justified-anti-gay-crime
Williams Institute [WilliamsPolicy]. (2019, July 1). NY has become the 7th state in the US to ban the gay and trans panic defense [Tweet]. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/williamspolicy/status/1145750492091318272
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