Homophobia Is Singling Or Being Prejudice Against Homosexual People

In the article, How Homophobia Hurts Everyone by Warren J. Blumenfeld, Blumenfeld describes his experience growing up as a homosexual, and how homophobia affected him, as well as his family and peers. To begin, homophobia can be separated into two different catergories, personal homophobia and interpersonal homophobia. Personal homophobia can be described as a personal belief system, or prejudice that homosexuals, bisexual and transgender people are entitled to, should be disliked or remain powerless, due to their desires. They are also sometimes seen as psychologically disturbed, genetically modified or defective and overall, unfortunate human beings. While on the other hand, interpersonal homophobia refers to the personal prejudice or bias that affects relationships within individuals. An example of interpersonal homophobia could be making a joke, name calling, or insulting certain individuals or groups. This can be either verbal, physical or intimidation related.

In the United States Suicide is the third leading cause of death among young people, resulting in about 4,400 deaths per year, according to the CDC. For every suicide among young people, there are at least 100 suicide attempts. Over 14 percent of high school students have considered suicide, and almost 7 percent have attempted it. Bullying is a Very serious social matter that needs to stop,

I think we need to look farther than people's individual reasons for being homophobic and look at what bigger underlying influences might be at play.

Before we can address the issue of homophobia. We must distinguish what exactly homophobia is, Homophobia is a term to describe hate towards homosexually oriented people. Homophobia is a form of stigma based on sexual ideas. This is also explained in the book “The Challenges of being a gay rural gay man, coping with stigma”. It states “sexual stigma is defined as social disapproval of any-non-heterosexual behavior”. Stigma that is based on hate towards people that are different, or people we don’t understand.

The problem of Suicide by LGBT Youth is that majority of them get bullied by their heterosexual peers. (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2014) Sometimes their parents will kick them out of the house because of their sexual orientation. (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2014) Myself being a part of the LGBTQ community, I never came out to my peers at school. I kept to myself so I never experienced the bullying due to my sexual orientation but I do hear the comments all the time by my father. My father always believed in a marriage should be a male and a female.

Gay teenagers are a large portion of teens taking their lives by suicide this source states that 30 to 40% of gay boy and 20% of gay girls have attempted suicide. This group of teens feel isolated, lonely and reminded that

Homophobia includes discrimination or abuse, which is based on someone’s homosexuality or sexual orientation. This can negatively impact the emotional and physical wellbeing of people who are victimised. There are three main types of homophobia that are known as the three I’s, which are internalised, interpersonal and institutional. Internalised homophobia is the fear or hatred of homosexuality that exists in ones own mind, such as making a determined effort to dress or

Homophobia is defined as negative attitudes and feelings that people feel towards individuals who are gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered. These negative thoughts and feelings often lead to acts of bullying, harassment, victimization and even violence.

LGBT youth are most commonly targeted by bullying because society does not fully understand what these kids are going through in life. One of the main reasons for this is due to something that may set themselves apart from the norm and that includes sexual orientation. Gay and lesbian teens are two to three times as more likely to commit suicide than any other youths. Those who are rejected by their family are up to nine times more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual peers. About 30 percent of all completed suicide have all been related to bullying.

“Homophobia is an extreme or irrational aversion to homosexuals.” (Little 2017) Homophobia can be best described ad fear and hatred of homosexuality and homosexuals. This is a belief in traditional gender roles. This also includes attitudes and behavioral patterns that people have against the homosexuals.

According to Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary, homophobia is the irrational fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against homosexuality or homosexuals. Much like a witch hunt, homophobia targets and seeks out individuals, gay or straight, and persecutes them based on ignorance, and further more if one cannot provide solid proof of his or her innocence. (Hughes) It is the fuel behind many hate crimes and discrimination. Some claim that homosexuality is a disease. If this statement is true, couldn’t we all simply begin to call in “queer” to work and school when we won’t be present? (Avert)

Nearly 32% of teenagers and children will make an attempt at suicide at some point in their life. Nearly 46% will have severe depression. The cause of this is bullying.

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender youth suicide continues to be a problem in many different countries but very limited data has been gathered about this social issue internationally. While it is well-known that it is still ongoing problem in many countries such as: Israel where a study of 1,134 teenagers were surveyed and results show that 20% of these teenagers have attempted suicide, which is 112 times the rate of the general population. The study also showed that the rate is even higher for LGBT teenagers who have religious backgrounds (Roberts, 2012). In Australia, LGBT youth have the highest rates of suicidality. 20% of transgendered and 15.7% of lesbian, gay and bisexual Australians have reported current suicidal ideation. Same-sex attracted Australians have up to fourteen times higher rates of suicide attempts compared to heterosexual peers. The rate is six times higher for homosexual adolescents (Rosenstreich, 2013). Lastly, In New Zealand; of the young people who completed the 2012 survey “Young People Attracted to the Same Sex or Both Sexes Report”, 59.4% had said they have deliberately self-harmed in the previous twelve months and 47.7% have reported suicidal ideation (Ministry of Youth Development, 2015). The data gathered is enough to prove that LGBT youth suicide is a social issue of international significance.

Suicide is a health problem in the U.S. today. The LGBTQ teens are said to be twice as likely to commit suicide then heterosexual teens. It is stated that not all suicide attempts are a facet of the person being Gay, BI, or transgender. However, many factors can contribute to suicide, such as: hopelessness, major depression, impulsivity, past suicide attempts, conduct disorder, victimization, or rejection. Hence, the risk is higher for rejected youths well into their adulthood. I think the factors that make the LGBTQ teens more risk for suicide is bullying, cyberbullying, self-identification or loss of friendships due their sexual identifications, or orientation, and rejection from their peers, or rejection from their parents/families. Support

This is just homophobia in the disguise that LGBT+ people are the ones in the wrong and really just shows that they basically think that gay people are gross and unnatural. This type of thinking is what is holding back society from advancing as it should be. Yes, representation has gotten significantly better, but that doesn’t mean that discrimination is over and should be ignored. Many people seem to think as though the fight is over and LGBT+ people have all the rights and respect that they need, but if you pay any attention to society and media, you can see that this is far from true. This way of thinking causes backtracking instead of advancement. Many people take a lot of influence from the media, most recognize the risks of this, but in the same sense, many do not. The stereotypes in media also go along with this. For example, many magazines and commercials on TV only advocate for the beauty of conventionally attractive people, which is pretty much the same concept as the media’s sole advocation for straight and cis people as the best thing you can be. Society is pretty much split right now between people who are in the community or advocates for LGBT+ rights and people who could care less or even hate and go to extremes to keep the community in the closet or even hurt them based solely on