Homophobia

Homophobia and Sexism

Homophobia is intimately related to sexism in that the denigration of the feminine is central to both. According to Suzanne Pharr in her work on homophobia as a weapon of sexism, homophobia works with heterosexism to enforce compulsory heterosexuality and the nuclear family. Political conservatives and religious fundamentalists criticize feminists and homosexuality for undermining the traditional family. Misogyny, the cultural hatred of women, is expressed through the disempowering and belittling of girls and women and the encouragement of dependence on men. Lesbians are perceived as man-haters and as females who can do without men; therefore, they are outside the natural order. Gay men are viewed as traitors to male privilege and as threats to male dominance and the natural order. Men who are even slightly effeminate and not necessarily gay are suspect.

Lesbian-Baiting

An outspoken woman or a woman who does not accept subordinate status may be “lesbian-baited”— called a lesbian whether she is one or not. The purpose of this is to silence her or encourage her to change her behavior. As a result of political backlash to gains won by the women's liberation movement, the label feminist in many circles is mistakenly [Page 431]equated with lesbian, and as a consequence, many women resist the feminist description. To avoid being called a lesbian, some women choose to be reformist rather than radical—in other words, to tone down their lives and views. The only reason lesbian-baiting has the power to control women's actions is because it carries a negative connotation.

Sexual Orientation Confused with Gender identity

Heterosexism uses homophobia to blame gay men and lesbians for many societal ills. This victim blaming is an essential component of every form of oppression. Power and control apply to the personal categories of sexual orientation where heterosexuality is privileged, but sexual orientation is often confused with gender identity. Sexual orientation refers to the object of a person's romantic or intimate desire. Gender identity is an individual's internal sense of whether the individual is male-identified, female-identified, neither, or both. A common mistake is to assume every trans-gender person is gay and to confuse a gender issue (related to sense of self) with a sexual orientation (related to desire).

Gender normativity assumes a gender binary of men and women. Like heterosexism, if a person does not fit into the norm, it is seen as unnatural and wrong. People who are androgynous, masculine women, effeminate men, transgender, or intersex are judged as abnormal. They are outside societal expectations and may be subject to harm. Many hate crimes that are seen as homophobic are really about gender transgression—people are attacked because they violated a gender norm, rather than a sexuality norm, that the attacker(s) found unacceptable. For example, an effeminate man might not be gay but his femininity may anger other men who harm him because they feel his femininity is not manly.

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