Homophobia Research Paper

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.

Andrew Sullivan, author of, What is a Homosexual, portrays his experience growing up; trapped in his own identity. He paints a detailed portrait of the hardships caused by being homosexual. He explains the struggle of self-concealment, and how doing so is vital for social acceptation. The ability to hide one’s true feelings make it easier to be “invisible” as Sullivan puts it. “The experience of growing up profoundly different in emotional and psychological makeup inevitably alters a person’s self-perception.”(Sullivan)This statement marks one of the many reasons for this concealment. The main idea of this passage is to reflect on those hardships, and too understand true self-conscious difference. Being different can cause identity

There are a lot of things that are wrong in our world today. From crime running wild on the streets to there being homelessness wherever we turn. There are things that we can fix, but there are others that just cannot be. We are humans after all; we all have our flaws, we all have our secrets, we have our weaknesses. There are just some things that can never be fixed. Hatred and unrationalizable actions being a few of these things. Every once in a while there is a major crime that sweeps the nation. The reasons for this can vary from mass shootings, police shootouts, the pure shock or the crime or many other reasons. One of these crimes that swept the nation was the horrible act committed against Matthew Shepard.

In society, there is often an invisible privilege associated with heterosexuality (Adams, 2010). For an example, heterosexual couples can walk down the street with their partner without fear of being verbally or physically attacked. This is a right that most heterosexual people don’t consider because they have never been forced to question their attraction, or love for the opposite gender, since this behavior is viewed by society as “natural” or a “normal” part being part of being a women or a man. However, the opposite is true for LGB individuals, these feelings of love or attraction for members of the same sex are often questioned by family, friends, religious and government organizations and societal norms. Like all other forms of oppression, heterosexism operates on multiple levels.

The research yielded interesting observations in participants understanding of homophobic hate crime. The findings of the research revealed that all participants were aware of the term homophobic hate crime. Participants associated homophobic hate crime with violence. However, one participant revealed a greater understanding in associating homophobic hate crime with verbal and physical abuse. The research produced varied opinions from participants in relation to the awareness of homophobic hate crime across LGBT communities. Participants indicated that not all LGBTs are aware that incidents of homophobic abuse are crimes. Furthermore, the findings of the research revealed that young people especially, remain unaware that incidents of homophobic

I'm sure that all of you know what I'm talking about when I refer to the new law that has been made within this past two weeks. And I have been holding off on writing lately, because I wanted to be sure that I said all the right things, as this is a very sensitive subject. But I want to start out by saying that I do not hate homosexuals. I do not agree with their life choices, but I most certainly do not hate anyone. Homosexuality is a sin just like any other (1 Corinthians 6:9-10). Having said that, I don't think that that means that we should accept homosexuality, but hate those other sins just as much. If we viewed all these other sins the way that we view homosexuality, and we couldn't even fathom the thought of committing them, then how much easier would our Christian walk be?

Homophobia is another form of prejudice and discrimination of an individual based on their sexual orientation, and “homophobia is a widespread prejudice in U.S. society that is tolerated by many people”. (PSY.101). However, in an experiment conducted by Adam Wright, college student were given a scale that assessed how homophobia they were and those with extreme score where selected for the experiment. In addition, the experiment would measure the Individual sexual arouse from viewing clips of sexual acts, the study show heterosexual clips, Lesbian clips and homosexual clips and the participant that these” findings may indicate that homophobia is related to homosexual arousal that the homophobic individuals either deny or are unaware”.(PSY.101).

Internalized homophobia is important to note as these feelings about gender and sexuality can reactivate when LGBT individuals begin navigating creating their own families and procreating. glazer’s research notes lesbian mothers feeling anxious about their perceived inability to provide male role models for their sons. Additionally, parenting for LGBT individuals can activate feelings of gender anxiety and internalized homophobia because of the societal implications associated with functions of mother and father roles and activities (Glazer, 2013).

Transphobia is fear, discrimination or hatred against transgender people specifically or people of non-binary gender more generally. Transphobia is often closely connected with homophobia and is justified for the same reasons that homophobes use to justify their hatred of gays. (religion, prescriptive gender norms, etc.). Indeed, many clueless homophobes conflate homosexual people with transgender people and cross-dressers. Transphobia also manifests itself in some schools of radical feminist thought, as some feminists resent the idea that people who aren't "really" women might make claims as women. On a societal scale, it can manifest itself in any number of ways, from systemic discrimination against transgender people in housing, healthcare,

The second topic I will be analyzing from C.J. Pascoe’s book is gender and more specifically the subcategory of masculinity. It is defined as “gender is a term that refers to social or cultural distinctions associated with being male or female. Gender identity is the extent to which one identifies as being either masculine or feminine.” (Little et al, 12.1). But gender identity is something different. Someone’s gender identity is an extremely important and personal thing, especially to young males who have, are constantly worried about wondering if their male peers think they are gay, and then, therefore, they might question their gender. With this comes bullying, and usually permanent and deeply emotional hurtful nicknames. When a male peer

Homosexuality arouse fear or discomfort because it is different. A possible reason for peer groups to participate in anti-gay bashing would be because homosexuality is not only about challenging sex norms, it also involves challenging other touchy subjects like racism, gender inequality, government and more. Because “endorsing sexual pluralism” also means “endorsing social and political pluralism.” Those changes in society make groups feel threatened and feel like they would loose control over what they’ve always known and what their parents told them to be “normal.” Homophobic feel like since they can’t relate to homosexuals, homosexuals must be the outsiders in society. The most common personal level of homophobia is to suppress their own homosexuality that they learned to fear through their friends anti-gay bashing with the hope to fit in their peer group. Any deviant behaviour in our society will be considered abnormal because it is not what our peers have taught us to be common and accepted. Another quite simple reason behind gay-bashing related to peer groups would be the thrill of “doing it together.” A study made on young people who engage in those kinds of violent behaviour against homosexuals in San Francisco showed that most of them did it because they loved that thrill. And the worst thing about gay-bashing in peer groups is that they felt like they “could get away with it,” since harassing ‘fags’ wouldn’t end up in social disapproval. Imagine: youth are taught it is more normal to beat up homosexuals than it is to be homosexual. People might not say those homophobic comments or see homosexuals from this negative perspective if peer groups didn’t work that

In simple terms, homophobia is the fear or hatred of gay people. It is not unheard of that gay people are discriminated against simply due to who they are attracted to. People will often use excuses to justify their beliefs. These excuses include "being gay is a choice!", "it's a lifestyle!", "you chose to be this way!", when, in fact, none of these are true. Studies have shown that sexual orientation is a

Homophobia is the trait of not only rejecting, but also despising homosexuality. It is a characteristic of bigotry, harassment, close mindedness, and hatred. I find the idea to actively mistreat another human being for his or her sexual

Homophobia, is irrational fear of, or hatred against people emotionally and sexually attracted to persons of the same sex. If directed against transgender persons it is called transphobia. Some people have a hatred about them when it comes to same sex partners. This is where homophobia come to play, when people do not believe in something or believe that something is not right the first thing people want to do is go to the

Homophobia, humiliation, words which in this sentence is used to describe the native and unfair discriminatory belief, which is betrayed towards the LGBTQ community. The mental well-being of our teens that are living within our society here in the United States has especially been affected. Negative beliefs alone can certainly affect ones self-esteem, physical and mental health. The main purpose is to remove the fears not only from the LGBTQ community, but the fear of family members, friends and those who just simply feel what they betray as the norm is just the same thoughts of norms served by the LGBTQ population.