Homophobia

Stigmas and Stereotyping

Perhaps the most influential work has been by social psychologist Gregory Herek, who has demonstrated that negative reactions to gays, lesbians, and bisexual people are less motivated by fear than disgust and anger, which manifests in ostracism, bullying, dehumanization, brutality, and even homicide. Moreover, he contends that by conceptualizing antigay and bisexual attitudes within the rubric of mental illness, locates them at the individual level as pathology and overlooks the larger cultural and systemic factors that promote discrimination against non-heterosexual groups.

Thus, rather than an irrational fear of homosexual and bisexual people, antigay hostility is believed to be a function of widespread cultural knowledge that homosexuality is a stigma and is expressed mainly in stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination. Homophobia is maintained by but distinct from heterosexism, which represents the system of beliefs that legitimizes inequality between heterosexual and homosexual people by positioning heterosexuality as the norm, rendering all nonheterosexual behavior as either invisible and/or abnormal.

Although a number of countries have included sexual orientation as part of human rights legislation, homosexual and heterosexual rights are by no means at par. For example, same-sex marriage is not recognized in most countries. Denmark was the first country to recognize same-sex partnerships in 1989 and since then, only approximately 10 countries have followed, among them the Netherlands, New Zealand, and Canada. Although some U.S. states recognize these unions, same-sex marriage is not federally recognized in the United States. Moreover, the United States Civil Rights Act of 1964 does not prohibit acts of discrimination based on sexual orientation, although a number of individual states have developed antidiscrimination laws (e.g., Wisconsin was the first U.S. state to pass a law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation). Thus, discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is apparent in educational settings, employment, housing, and in the military, as evidenced by the U.S. “Don't Ask, Don't Tell” policy.

Hostility and Harassment

Antigay hostility is entrenched in popular media and rampant at state and individual levels. Stereotypes portray lesbians as men-haters and gay men as pedophiles. Homosexual relationships are assumed to be less serious and infidel, and gay men and lesbians are often stereotyped as immoral, sexual predators. According to the International, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, and Intersex Association, approximately 80 countries deem consensual same-sex sexual acts criminal and in approximately five of these countries, the acts are punishable by death (e.g., Saudi Arabia, Iran, Mauritania, Sudan, and Yemen).

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