Is there a word that means “a hatred of gay people”, rather than “a fear of or aversion to gay people”? Surely there are people who simply hate homosexuality without necessarily fearing it, and vice versa. Someone who hates homosexuality should probably be condemned for their unreasonable and hateful prejudices, but should someone who actually fears homosexuality but without hating it be condemned in the same way? Why isn’t there a distinction?
And similarly, why do we have words like “arachnophobia” which means a fear of something (not necessarily a hatred of it; though you might hate what you fear, that isn’t necessarily always the case, nor is the opposite always true either (fearing what you hate)), but “homophobia” is used to mean “hatred of homosexuality” rather than a genuine fear of it without necessarily hating it?
It makes me feel a bit sorry (as much as one can) for people who might genuinely be afraid of the idea of homosexuality, maybe even struggling with their own sexuality or possibly in denial of being homosexual themself, but without hating it at all (even possibly being supportive of it), not having a word that conveys a fear of the concept/phenomenon without any kind of disdain for it, since “homophobia” would generally be interpreted to mean something far more negative. Usually when someone has a phobia for something, we support them to deal with it in a non-accusatory way, but in this case, well, I guess there isn’t even a word for that kind of phobia if it’s actually a phobia in the usual sense.
You’re trying to take a prescriptivist position on the meaning of the word “homophobia”, defining it as meaning “fear of homosexuality or homosexuals”.
But English doesn’t work that way. English words are defined descriptively not prescriptively. The definition of a word is changed to match how people use the word. When a word is commonly used with a new meaning the people who make dictionaries will change the definition to match how the word is used.
Homophobia can describe a fear or homosexuality, but it’s more commonly used to describe hostility or discrimination against homosexuals.
And as a result the Oxford English Dictionary now defines homophobia as “Hostility towards, prejudice against, or (less commonly) fear of homosexual people or homosexuality.”
Most words that end in -phobia do generally just describe a fear. But when we’re talking about a class of people, words ending in -phobia (e.g transphobia, Islamophobia, etc) we tend to use the hate, prejudice, and hostility meaning instead.
It doesn’t matter that “phobias” were at one time exclusively just irrational fears. If the majority of English speakers use the word to describe hate, that’s its meaning.
If anything, we now need a new word to describe “fear of homosexuality without prejudice towards homosexuals”. Because homophobia already means, to use your words, “a hatred of gay people”.
Fears also takes more forms than staying away from something. People with what you might define as more conventional phobias would avoid the thing they don’t like (maybe spiders), many would hate the thing and others may even seek to destroy it.
Xenophobia and racism are not related. Xenophobia is about foreigners regardless of race, and racism is about race regardless of nationality. The two get mixed in the head of people from the USA because a lot of guys claim they’re Irish or Italian without ever having set foot in any of those countries. If you dislike your [insert ethnicity] neighbour who was born and grew up in the same place as you did, you’re being racist. If you dislike your [insert nationality] neighbour who’s the same ethnicity as you, you’re being xenophobic.
-phobia means an irrational intolerance, for a lot of things we express intolerance by showing fear, but to others we show aggressiveness. It depends more on the person than the subject matter, some homophobics are actually afraid of gays, thinking they’ll corrupt the children or whatever stupid fearmongering propaganda they’re up to these days, meanwhile some arachnofobics will kill every spider they see. And their line of thought is often quite similar, e.g. I don’t hate [gays/spiders], I just don’t want to see them.
Every European: “but my hatred of the French is prefectly rational, does that mean it’s not xenophobia?”
Europe is not just UK. UK isn’t even EU anymore, and I have never seen negative sentiments towards french people in the rest of Europe.
As a German, I can assure you, there are plenty of people with negative sentiments
I lived in Rhineland-Palatinate when I was young and I remember asking my neighbors why every Saturday they all came out to trim their grass and sweep their sidewalks and gutters clean. They said it was to show that they are not French.
I hoped it’d be read as sarcasm
It’s not a serious hatred, but most major/Western European nations (at least Germany, UK, Spain, Italy and probably France themselves) have at least a friendly rivalry with the French despite being on friendly terms either since 1945 or even longer, with France having been fairly positive for Europe since at least the 80s, so it’s incredibly hard to justify that the “hatred” of them is rational
Although the Italians may have twisted it into a surprisingly valid case, just ask about how almost all famous French food is just Italian recipes with a French name and they will be incredibly convincing even if it may not be objective fact
and racism is about race regardless of nationality.
I don’t understand it, but I met an American who doesn’t like African Americans, but has no issues with actual Africans.
He’s racist, “African-American” means black, i.e. an ethnicity not a nationality, he doesn’t mind Africans because they’re not near him. A similar thing for a xenophobe would be I have no problem with Mexicans, it’s the Mexican immigrants I hate. Or from an aracnophobe: I understand spiders have their place in nature, I just don’t want them in my house.
Is there a word that means “a hatred of gay people”, rather than “a fear of or aversion to gay people”?
No, because that’s just semantic wiggle room to give bigots a way of excusing their bigotry.
For example. “I don’t hate gay people, and I’m not afraid of them, so I’m not homophobic. I just don’t want to see them, and they shouldn’t be able to get married”. It’s a statement that is clearly biased against queer folk, and that’s the issue that needs to be addressed. But discussions like the one you’re suggesting just lead to irrelevant arguments over exactly what type of bigotry is being displayed, rather than telling the bigot to get bent, which suits the needs of the bigots fine.
I appreciate what you’re saying, certainly someone could claim to be just afraid of homosexuality while using that as a cover for actually hating it or being prejudiced against it or homosexual people. But I think bigotry, meaning “obstinate or unreasonable attachment to a belief, opinion, or faction, in particular prejudice against a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular group”, doesn’t exactly fit the hypothetical I described of a person who’s just afraid of the concept without harboring any hateful feelings or displaying any discriminatory behaviors toward it. Shouldn’t we help that person come to terms with their fear and be understanding, while certainly helping them to tackle that fear (without accusing them of doing something wrong, presuming that they weren’t hypothetically)?
certainly someone could claim to be just afraid of homosexuality while using that as a cover for actually hating it or being prejudiced against it or homosexual people
It’s not that someone “could” do this. They already do. They will come up with a million excuses as to why they’re not bigoted/prejudiced.
You know the cliche “I’m not racist, but…” That’s the phenomena in action.
doesn’t exactly fit the hypothetical I described
And that’s the core of my issue with your whole question.
You’re trying to solve a hypothetical scenario that doesn’t occur in any meaningful way, with a solution that makes it easier for bigots to display their bigotry with less pushback. It doesn’t solve any real world issues that can’t already be addressed by conversation with a therapist, and it does it by creating further opportunities for bigots to pretend that they aren’t bigoted.
Boy am I glad I didn’t meet you when I was young and didn’t know much of anything about the gay Mafia.
See back then, I was ignorant and at times scared based on stupid bullshit I learned, but some very kind and patient people helped me to learn the truth about the community.
My fear now is that had I met you, I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to learn what a wonderful group of people the gay Mafia is because in my ignorance I would have been treated like a piece of shit instead of like the ignorant idiot I was. In place of love you would have met me with disbelief and dislike.
You’re welcome to downvote me, I don’t care but it needs to be said people can be scared without being hateful and you specifically should have nothing to do with outreach.
And there it is! It’s my fault you hated folk like me when you were younger, and also my fault for not educating you.
Folk hating on me and trying to take my rights away is something I live with every day. According to your framing here, the fact someone didn’t take the responsibility for educating you, whilst folk are trying to remove the rights of folk like me is somehow the real issue, and somehow it’s actually you that were wronged.
Do the work, and own your responsibility in the whole affair. It’s on you to undo the harm you do to others, not on the people you are harming. Don’t palm the responsibility on to the people you were throwing bullshit at.
Its your fault for acting like a dick to people who are ignorant. That was my entire point that you completely ignored. That are ignorant people out who’ve been fed some bullshit by society about what the gay community is and isn’t.
They aren’t hateful and would in fact be friends and allies but your approach of “there is no ignorance without hate therefore I’m justified in being a dick!” would result in you being an asshole and guess what, when someone is a dick to other dick people respond with hate even if they didn’t already dislike that person to begin with.
Here’s an analogy for you, if you go into a forest and find a stick and hit some animal with the stick the animal will respond defensively. It started off scared but not it considers you a threat. That’s what you’re doing and trying to justify it after the fact.
Edit: I’m adding on to this. Fucking look at MLK Jr. He encountered both hate and ignorance sometimes together and sometimes just ignorance. You never once saw him preach “go be an asshole”. I don’t agree with always meeting them with love but I do at least agree with him on meeting the ignorance with love and compassion.
Nah if you’re an adult and you’re “scared” of gay people, you’re a bigot. Ignorance is an excuse for fear to a point. If you’re a kid getting indoctrinated into hating others, that’s one thing, but if you’re over 18 and stay “scared” of a whole group of people instead of educating yourself or even (gasp!) interacting with members of the community, that’s bigotry.
Please note that most people in my life are fairly ignorant about queer issues. Their ignorance doesn’t translate into “fear”. It usually translates into curiosity, or simply indifference. It’s not the ignorance that makes one a bigot, it’s the “fear”.
Here’s an analogy for you, if you go into a forest and find a stick and hit some animal with the stick the animal will respond defensively.
Queer people expecting rights and respect from cishet people is analogous to animal abuse, that is a good take! Love it.
That are ignorant people out who’ve been fed some bullshit by society about what the gay community is and isn’t.
They aren’t hateful and would in fact be friends and allies but your approach of “there is no ignorance without hate therefore I’m justified in being a dick!”
So are they hateful of gay people because of ‘some bullshit by society’ or are they not hateful?
Its your fault for acting like a dick to people who are ignorant.
This is called Victim Blaming (the caps are for the concept, not the literal pairing of words) because it implies it’s the role of every minority to convince people not to oppress them, and not on the individual to not be a bigot. To see why this is the issue it is, replace ‘being gay’ with ‘being raped’ - is it, say, a woman’s ‘job’ to convince men not to rape them, or is it on men to know not to rape people?
They aren’t hateful
Yes, they are. They may have been taught to be that way, but however they got there, that’s how they ended up. People indoctrinated in to hate still spread hate. And it’s not the duty of the people targeted by that hate to educate the people oppressing them. They may choose to do so, but that’s their choice. There is no scenario in which the hateful is owed education by the people they’re hating on, even if the hateful person simply “doesn’t know any better”
Here’s an analogy for you, if you go into a forest and find a stick and hit some animal with the stick the animal will respond defensively. It started off scared but not it considers you a threat.
You’re the person with the stick in this analogy. You may have been told that carrying the stick is ok, and you may not have known better, but either way, you were the person walking in to the forest and hitting things, but the difference is, you expect the critters that you were hitting to tell you that it’s a bad thing, and you’re upset at the critters for not educating you, instead of being upset at the people who told you the stick was ok in the first place.
I’m adding on to this. Fucking look at MLK Jr. He encountered both hate and ignorance sometimes together and sometimes just ignorance. You never once saw him preach “go be an asshole”
Outreach isn’t a duty, it’s a choice, and unless you’re a dick, it’s not something you expect from every member of the vulnerable folk you’ve been hating on. And on top of that, if the actions of one or more people you personally don’t like impact your acceptance of an entire vulnerable minority group, then, well, you’ve still got work to do, because you’re still carrying that stick.
“I’d be a bigot at the first sign of someone being mean to me” is an interesting argument to make.
BTW, maybe avoiding the use of “gay mafia” to refer to the queer community would make it more believable that you aren’t ignorant.
Thats a term that my gay community friends have told me is fine to use.
It’s fine to use jokingly among friends, I do the same with my friend group. It’s hardly appropriate for a serious conversation about discrimination with strangers.
Except I didn’t ask them as a joke, I honestly asked “hey is it ok to use ‘gay mafia’ as a similar term for ‘lgbtq+’?” and was told " yeah that’s fine it sounds cool anyways"
doesn’t exactly fit the hypothetical I described of a person who’s just afraid of the concept without harboring any hateful feelings or displaying any discriminatory behaviors toward it.
I can’t think of a single example of this in reality. Phobia isn’t ‘just afraid’ in the context you’re using, it’s an irrational terror. People who are arachnophobic aren’t ‘just afraid’ they’re terrified of spiders. That is due to an inherent part of our past (as humans) that taught us spiders/snakes/etc were a danger and to avoid them, and for these people their brain changes ‘I should avoid that danger’ to ‘I should do literally anything to get away from that danger.’
There’s no precedent for ‘people of the same gender who love each other’ being a source of terror. Nothing in our collective past would cause that.
Who said fears need to be rational? I think people can be afraid/terrified of anything. Anatidaephobia (the fear of being watched by a duck or goose), for example.
Psst, anatidaephobia isn’t real. It’s a term coined by a comedian.
I see what you mean. I guess it’s hard though because currently they can already say that (they aren’t afraid of gay people and therefore aren’t “homophobic” if interpeting the word literally, but they just hate them), whereas if there was a word that meant hatred of gay people, they would have to admit they are that thing instead, which would then be viewed worse by society in a similar way to racism or misogyny etc. If a word existed for it, they would have no recourse but to admit that even if they aren’t technically homophobic (though they are by the common understanding and usage of the word), they are still word that means hateful/discriminatory toward gay people. And if there’s no distinction, I don’t know what we can say to people who aren’t hateful but just afraid of the idea of homosexuality. What do they tell their therapist? “I have a fear of homosexuality and/or gay people but I don’t hate it/them”? That’s a mouthful and a simple word could suffice couldn’t it?
I see what you mean. I guess it’s hard though because currently they can already say that
And you’re right, they do. But I’ve got little interest in providing them with more nuance to explain why they want me to have less rights than them.
whereas if there was a word that meant hatred of gay people, they would have to admit they are that thing instead
No, they wouldn’t. They would just say that they don’t hate queer folk, because they don’t want to hurt/exile/kill them etc. They do this already.
"I don’t hate gay folk, but… "
I don’t know what we can say to people who aren’t hateful but just afraid of the idea of homosexuality.
In all my years, I’ve never encountered such a person. If they do exist, then they can just explain it to their therapist in full sentences as needed, rather than normalising some forms of bigotry.
Even if someone is “afraid” of gay folk, that’s still their problem. It’s something they need to work on, rather than pushing the mental cost of working through their irrational fears on people that are already unfairly targeted by bigotry.
It’s worth mentioning that, while “phobia” can mean “an irrational fear of,” it also often means “an irrational intolerance of,” such as in the case of homophobia. It’s not a fear, it’s an intolerance.
I always assumed that the “phobia” suffix was deliberately misused to emasculate the subject
Maybe the intolerance comes from the fear, eh.
Exactly
Yeah. There is a word for it. It’s called homophobia.
I have no idea why so many people seem to believe that the word is defined as a fear of gay people. No one is running from us like a mouse, dude.
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It doesn’t actually mean fear in those contexts. Etymologically yes, it comes from the Ancient Greek for fear. For all other purposes, that doesn’t really matter. If you’re anti-gay then you are a homophobe - case closed, just another English term with slightly odd etymology that is irrelevant to how it’s actually used by literally everyone. There are thousands of those.
People starting in on “well, achkchually that means FEAR” just want to either nitpick irrelevant trivia, or hide behind a difference that doesn’t really exist. It’s like pretending the term “hydrophobic” is wrong “because water can’t feel emotions”: incorrect, irrelevant, just… a weird argument, and if someone brings it up all the time, you sort of have to wonder what their deal is.
The hypothetical “unwilling bigots”, the ones genuinely afraid through no fault of their own, causing no harm and carrying no ill will… I’ll empathize with them when I get a reason to believe they exist.
It’s more like, if you use the word phobia for hatred in this case, that’s fine, but then what is the word for having a genuine fear? What are those people called, who don’t hate homosexuality, only fear it? They certainly exist and I feel like it should be a recognised thing rather than them having to either be called a term that doesn’t apply to them in how it’s used or have their phobia completely unacknowledged.
I’ve told you “this is the word, this is what it means, I get the confusion but you are unfortunately wrong about it being wrong”.
Meanwhile I don’t see how any one of your three replies (why? You can fit five thousand characters in one, and edit it after the fact) to my comment actually engage with anything in it, and the topic is now three days old. Have a nice day.
Nobody “fears” homosexuality for reasons unrelated to homophobia, stop giving bigots excuses to hide behind.
Well, aquaphobia is the fear of water. That’s a good example because another word actually exists to describe people who are afraid of water rather than just disregarding their fear because the word that might be used for it (hydrophobia) already means something else.
Come to think of it, xenophobia doesn’t really work as a fear of other races since that’s associated with hatred as well. Is it like if it’s common to hate something, we just disregard the capability for some people to have a genuine fear of that thing without hatred? Seems almost like black-and-white thinking. Either you’re fully in support of something and not afraid of it, or else if you’re afraid of it you must hate it as well. No middle ground or nuance or understanding of people who have a fear they’re trying to come to terms with without any hatred.
It appears racial anxiety is a well recognised term that pretty much describes the meaning I’m referring to.
What an absurd (and arguably harmful) distinction to make. Nobody is “afraid of homosexuality” for reasons unrelated to homophobia.
I’ve seen the word homomisia and the general suffix -misia used to reflect that a lot of “phobias” really mean hatred and not fear.
The suffix -misia meana hatred. Both -misia and -phobia come from Greek.
isn’t misia used as a prefix? As in Misanthrop or Misogyn
Yes, miso- is also a prefix.
Fear leads to panic, panic leads to pain, pain leads to anger, anger leads to hate.
homosexism
gaycism
I don’t have an answer, I just wanted to say it blew my mind that I never thought about this
Heterosexist.
See also heteronormativity. The latter is a major cause of the former.
for people who might genuinely be afraid of the idea of homosexuality, maybe even struggling with their own sexuality
seems like autohomophobia would be the right word.
Could have been but unfortunately I don’t think it really fits based on that definition… I think it’s like being homosexual and yet hating (or fearing) homosexuals. The type of person I described may or may not be homosexual (or closeted) themself, but is simply afraid of the concept, without the negative connotation of an implication of hatred.
However that reminds me that I was also wondering about what to call racism toward one’s own race, since “internalized racism” seems to describe being racist to your own race as a result of discrimination that you’ve already experienced, almost like a Stockholm syndrome type thing where you begin to sympathise with your oppressor for a sense of safety or belonging (or something), but someone can certainly be racist toward their own race even if they’ve never experienced discrimination based on their race before and even if they’re not generally a discriminated race.
My aunt is afraid of spiders but my uncle he hates people
