You want something done you have to do it yourself. I took the last topic we were discussing in "The Draft" (a thread in which many, many things other than the draft were discussed ) and I was surprised to see this dictionary definition:



Using the correct (I believe Latin) roots, it would mean to fear somethin the same as yourself. But that's the English language for you.



Hmmm. By heterosexual people. We need a word for people that are homosexual or bisexual and are prejudiced against homosexuals. Weird.

I'm sure we can find various things to discover here, although I know that most likely everyone is against said prejudices, myself included. Heck, I'm not even sure yet if I'm straight or bi.

But the homophobia word - now that it's brought up - that really, really bugs me. I call for a case of abuse of Latin roots...as Cthulhu said, it should mean fear of something like yourself.

The fact is it is obviously derived from a fear of homosexuals (not the fear of "same"). Many people believe that heterosexism and homophobia are, at their root, derived from a fear of gay people.

There are cases of internalized homophobia, as well, in which a person hates themselves due to internalized homophobic thoughts and attitudes that are absorbed from the surrounding culture.

However, that being said, homophobia has passed into common usage as simply meaning any discriminatory thought or feeling of hatred that a person has against homosexual people. Whether or not it's the correct Latin etymology is kind of a moot point in my mind. Words in the English language mutate and change and no longer necessarily mean what they did in their original language. It happens all the time.

Case in point? Hydrophobia, which can be used to describe rabies. A person with rabies is not scared of water (or hydrogen, for that matter), but because it becomes impossible for the person to drink because of throat spasms.

In a similar manner, the words hydrophobic and hydrophilic (water-fearing and water-loving) are used constantly in chemistry to describe molecules that are attracted to and repelled by water. However, this is really a misnomer -- it has to do with energy states and molecules wanting to increase their stability via hydrogen bonds, nothing to do with the fear or love of water.

Therefore, I feel that homophobic is a perfectly acceptable term to describe discriminatory feelings. Heterosexism, on the other hand, is the action of discrimination in favour of heterosexual people. The two words aren't equivalent, and therefore I don't see the problem with both words being part of common usage.



Not really. Dictionary definitions aren't exclusive or complete. We could easily use the same word to describe the phenomenon.

On a side note, some bisexuals have been trying to coin the term biphobia to describe prejudice against bisexuals that comes from both homosexuals and heterosexuals.

they have? didn't know that...hmm wonder if it'll catch on.
i don't care, i fully approve of whatever sexuality people want to be anyway. yay for freedom

(abuse of latin roots really confuses me. and it makes it hard to figure out a new word for the first time, like if someone says it and you're thinking "now, what could that mean...?" )

Oh yes, the term 'biphobia' has been around for quite a while now.

Here's a rather radical interpretation of the term:

http://allies.tamu.edu/Did%20You%20Know/biphobia.htm

Personally I would say that that definition is more based on the idea of fear than hatred. There are things in there that are more matters for equal rights activists to address, rather than being things that put bisexuals in danger on the street (as is the case with the colloquial use of 'homophobia').

This speech gives a better description of how biphobia affects the daily lives of bisexual individuals. I know it strikes a lot of home truths with me:

http://www.biresource.org/features/sasha_biphobia.html

From experience, I'd say that homophobia is more likely to manifest itself in ways that are dangerous to individuals. Biphobia can do too, but it is more an issue of understanding and attitudes.

To give an example, I had a friend at university who had been actively gay for his whole life. I think he was around 30. He had never known a person who identified themself as bisexual. He really couldn't get his head around it. Every day he would declare with absolute certainty that I was either gay or straight. He'd been pretty active in gay awareness around the college and was quite up on such issues, but one day he said to me:

"So... You're completely 50% straight and 50% gay?"

I answered "No, I'm 100% bisexual." It's a standard answer to a question I've been asked a distressing amount of times. It was his reaction that interested me the most. He acted like I was being touchy for saying this, as if I should be trying to place myself in a scale which I personally do not feel I fit comfortably. A straight person, by definition, only feels attracted to people of the opposite gender, so how can anyone be 50% straight? The question doesn't make sense so I gave an answer that did.

I think my point is this, it often feels that in straight and gay communities that there is a lot of fear, resentment, and misunderstanding of bisexuals. Bisexuality is a very catch-all phrase, and so there is very little of a united front to dispell the myths, but while they remain we are are treated by some in ways that are unfair, based purely on our sexuality. It's made worse when some of the people that show the least understanding are people from the gay community, who would be expected to at least appreciate some of the difficulties that are faced by those of a minority sexuality, rather than adding to the prejudice.

I concur Mata. I think the understanding of bisexuality is becoming more and more prevalent in our society, but there's still a lot of biphobia around. I've experienced some of the same things you mention myself -- people not understanding what bisexuality is, or, in my case, believing that I have to have been in a physical relationship with a guy at some point in tim in order to not be straight. That is, I've only ever been with women -- so how could I be bi? It's a concept people - even open-minded people - have trouble with.

Part of the problem with the term bisexuality, as you mention, is that it is so very much a "catch-all phrase." Some of the newer studies suggest that there is a large number of people (perhaps even a majority) who are attracted to people of the same gender at least to some extent. The thing is, you could be a 1, a 2, a 3, a 4, or a 5 (on the Kinsey scale) and be called a bisexual by some people, straight by others, homosexual by others. This of course is influenced by societal pressures (the "homosexuals are evil" ideology) as well as biological pressures (some scientists have suggested that the need to raise a family is an independant drive of our sexuality -- which would appear to be true with the increasing number of homosexual couples raising children.) As well, some people who biologically sit at the 2 on the Kinsey scale (predominately heterosexual, but more than incidentally homosexual) might consider themselves straight and honestly never even think of same-sex people in a sexual manner. The same might even be true of a 4, or a 5, althoguh chances are more likely that these people might consider themselves more homosexual than heterosexual.

So, in conclusion bisexuality can be darn confusing for people. Perhaps a more apt description would be "biconfusing-as-hell" ?

I've got a badge somewhere that says 'No, I'm bisexual, you're confused', and I sometimes refer to 'confused' as 'the c word'. I know exactly what you mean, but I've also found the term 'confused' to be quite offensive at times. It depends a lot on who's saying it, in what context, and with what intention.

Confused is one I hear frequently. Along with my mother's interpretation of my bisexuality, which is "It's a phase... you'll grow out of it." Or my stepfather's, whose idea was "Loving both genders of people, but not in an equal way... you'll understand later."

That kind of hurt.

I don't think it's the "homo" part of homophobia that's the problem, it's the phobia part. The fear part. We are giving people who just hate for no reason at all a medical term to describe their hatred. Why don't we call members of the KKK Afrophobic? Because it would not only be totally wrong it'd be offensive to blacks. It'd give a bunch of people who are hate mongers a sense of legitimacy.

Absolutely! What those "homophobes" do isn't based on fear at all, but on blind ignorance.

Example: I'm claustrophobic. I don't go up to enclosed spaces, shout "Oi you, you f**kin' small box!" and proceed to kick seven colours of crap out of it. No, instead I come over in a cold sweat and have this irrational desire to get out of whatever enclosed space it is (and on occasion I've had panic attacks as well).

I guess the only "fear" that could be attributed to homophobia is fear of the unknown. I expect this fear most likely is an internal fear of facing up to the fact that one may, in fact, have homosexual tendencies. They refuse to face up to these feelings because they think that their manhood will come into question, that they will be shunned by society as being a "filthy pervert", or worse. Maybe it's this societal peer pressure that makes these people react this way? Nah. I personally think that, in most cases, it's got a lot more to do with the fact that their peers are all neanderthal thugs...

It's a crap term. Round my way, we prefer to call these idiots "queer bashers", cos that's pretty much what they are. It's spoken with the same bilious taste of disgust as "wife beater" and "child molester". It's a reference to a boorish thug with nothing better to do than prove their superiority by picking on a group of people who are less able to defend themselves physically.

Hmmm...

Its strikes me that the term needs not to be so debated as what the cause. Homophobia (or whatever the hell you want to call it) is, as stated before, pure, unadulterated hatred and ignorance. It needs to be not only broken, but totally eliminated from our society, just like racism and the like. It's beyond disgusting... its barbaric. But alas, ours is the first generation to truly embrace sexuality in its fullest, and even now, there are those that are, for lack of a better word, douches. That won't change, but we as a society need more acceptance.

As for my own bisexuality, there are only a few people that know. Friends, of course. My parents are rather... anti homosexual, to say the least. That's not to say that all my friends are cool with it, though... some conservatives out there. Blast, I'm digressing. Back to homophobia...

Yeah.. you'd be surprised how many fights I've gotten into over sexuality. It's kind of disturbing, kind of disgusting, but more than anything, really saddening. There's a lot of hate in the world.

So, on one final tangent, let's not just destroy homophobia, but let's get rid of hatred.

Peace and love,
Mike.

One sec there. Being conservative doesn't mean you are homophobic or even that it's a common thing among conservatives. Dunno where that comes from but. Oh well.

I'd consider myself a gay man who leans to the conservative side of moderate. But I don't particularly like labels as I've said so... <shrug> whatever. But anyway, yeah, you're right, it's more important to get rid of the hatred. However, we can't do that, people aren't just going to all change because we want them to. So it really does boil down to having to fight for your rights and freedom. Either you fight for it now or it gets taken away or you don't ever get it to begin with. Not that I'm for the whole militant gay angle, I don't necessarally agree with a lot of the things that other gay men have to say. I believe in equality but, not special interests or affirmative action or privilages for people of certain groups. Just a flat level playing field.

I didn't mean to say that all conservatives are anti gay. Simply that anti gay people are usually of the conservative variety.

But you're right. We can't wish away hatred, and I'm no idealist to think that there will ever be complete and total harmony between straight, gay, and bisexual. However, there's a lot of unnecessary hatred out there and I just want to kill some of it. *shrug*

As for standing up for rights, hell yeah, I'm all for it. Go rights. My problem really is with any form of radical thought. That goes for radically straight people and radically gay; there needs to be a balance in the world.

So peace and love and all such sentiments. Now where did I put my tie dye?

Cheers,
Mike.

Oh, oh, let's start a thread about affirmative action!

It's surprising how uneasy people are about it. I have a friend who seems scared. She says it's just something she could never imagine herself doing.

It's surprising how my males at my age use "gay" as an insult. And they have nothing to back it up as to why it is an insult. Gay is usually acceptable slang, but it's not something to use in insult form. That really bugs me.

It's surprising how absent the message is of that it's okay to be homosexual or bisexual. I think it's because people try to fix it - I remember a thread about that. If you look at history it seems to be the same as other prejudices but this one seems a lot more...messy. =\

<Rant>

Ya know what really burns my britches, all the gamers out there who just throw the word "gay" around as a derogative statement as if it's now synonamous with "bad" or "dork" or "jerK" or any other negative thing. It shows me how unbelievably ignorant they are. It happens at least 10 to 20 times a day when I'm in a game, doesn't matter what game, UT2k4, UT2k3, City of Heroes, FarCray, Halo, you name it. Someone's gonna say "that was gay" or "this map is gay" or "that idea is gay". What do you say to a jerk like this? If you say anything it's immediatly going to mean to them that you're gay and that's just opening up a can of worms you don't wanna open. But to just sit there and ignore that kind of ignorance and hatred isn't good either. I usually try to get on an opposing team and hunt down that person consistantly until they get tired of it and leave. Or I just stand in front of them and block their way if we're on the same team, just to show them what it's like to be faced with the brick wall of ignorance.

</rant>

After explaining all about how homosexual people are equal and they should accept themselves and others should accept them, I always get:

"So, you're gay?"

What did they say to white people who helped black people protest in the 60s, "Are you black?"

It's not the accusation that bothers me, it's the fact that me being gay would be the only way I could think such a thing.

whats also funny s people trying to justify their hatred by saying that their friends are gay/black/female/from mars/insert minority here... I have a problem with that...I'm not racist or sexist or bothered by peoples sexual leanings at all... why should I?...

I can honestly say that I have no gay friends, I have no black friends, I have no female friends, I have no black friends. I have friends. Some are black.. some are gay... some are women... and others from mars (guess it depends on how much you smoked)

But what I'm really trying to say is I disagree with the segregation, be that on a form asking my race, sex, sexuality or any other nonsence (what the hell does it have to do with anything).

You said you have no black friends twice, is that a double negative?

http://www.intriguing.com/mp/_sounds/hg/gay.wav

nahh I just hate all blacks... *grin*
The second one was going to be Martians.. ahh well..

what is it with that? seriously?

that's exactly what happens to me. i've had a friend admit she felt she was bisexual, and another friend who started on about how she "must be gay, you can't just like both" causing a large argument between them.

the sheer ignorance got to me so much i had to say something, and in the resulting build-up of bad feelings, she turned around and accused me of being "a gay-lover"
gay-lover? what a term. and not in a good way.

there's something very wrong with people that choose to be ignorant because they refuse to open their minds to ideas and accept people for who they are.

and i don't care if this is an unstructured point. it makes me angry

I had a person email me about a year and a half ago:



Apparently 'gay' can mean 'good' as well as 'bad'. It did confuse me a bit.

Not quite... they were referred to as "nigger lovers".

Which leads me nicely onto my point. Yes, it should be possible to get people to think differently about homosexuality and become more tolerant and accepting of it. What is needed, though (and I've said this many times before) is that the community needs a gay version of Martin Luther King. Someone who can speak eloquently and evenly about the plight. One who can raise a call to arms and have people actually listen. The trouble is, at the moment, the only gay people I've seen try and do this are so militant that most people simply ignore them as being overly reactionary.

I think that, in many ways, we're already a long way down that road. True, there's many people who are still anti-gay, but then we still have racism. It'll never really go away, but if it can be driven underground, where "ordinary" people can then frown on them for their attitudes, so much the better.

Incidentally, Mata, I'm stunned you weren't aware of the positive use of the word "gay". It's original meaning (before being hijacked to describe homosexuals) was all positives, used to describe people or places that were happy or lively or joyous.

I knew the original sense of the word, but the tone of the message was quite colloquial and so I got the impression that the word was being used as slang for good, rather than in the joyous derivation.

Incidentally, apparently gay was originally chosen as a political word for homosexuality because it was an acronym for 'Good As You'.

I posted this a while back. I kind of thought it still applied. Most people don’t realize how stupid homophobes are until the look at like this...


The problem is not with gay leaders.. but gay people. Sadly trying to get gay men motivated in numbers is impossible unless you throw in a white party. Gay pride events have become a place to cruise for you dinner... the problem is we are too gay! I don’t believe it will be possible in America to get the homosexual movement rolling until our civil rights are taken away. You don’t miss what you don’t have. But once something is taken from you.. it is different. Now don’t get me wrong, I am not speaking of everyone. But I would say 65% of gay men and 50% of lesbians could careless about actually making sacrifices to make change. They are happy going to the one gay pride march each year.

I don't know. Out of all the civil rights/whatever movements out there, I think the homosexual rights movement has come a long way in the last 40, 50 years. Heck, even in the last ten! We've gone from an era in which homosexuality was the crime which dare not speak its name to an era in which homosexual marriage is seriously being entertained in many countries around the world. I'm not saying there aren't major changes that need to be made, but I think that the gay rights movement has come a long way from the Stonewall Riots to today.

My point? I think that, all in all, the gay rights movement has done fairly well without a Martin Luther King Jr. and I don't think the gay people in general are unmotivated to bring about social change.

I think it has come along way.. don’t get me wrong. From the time I was in high school till today.. I can see a 100% change. But I don’t think we have done enough.. and I think we need to be proactive instead of reactionary. But I am speaking of gay rights in my area.. different areas have different programs. Almost all other gay rights movements pale in comparison to San Frans gay rights movement. So I guess it depends on where you are in the world. Where I am from I don’t think we have done nearly enough.. Virginia (our sister state) just passed a law outlawing all gay marriage and civil unions. We should be up their ass right now... but instead they have called for a boycott of Virginia. Now that solves nothing.. we are giving them what they want by staying away.. I say.. we all go to Virginia and show them how wonderful we really are. My point is while I feel we have made some progress.. it is not nearly enough.

Something tells me it's not going to be Graham Norton

Point taken. You're right -- it really does depend on the place you're living in what the state of gay rights are. On the other hand, I think that's fairly true for most "isms"

My partner and I considered making a trip up to Mass. to get married, but we decided against it. We originally were thinking of going to Hawaii because at that time we owned a time share there. Again, we didn't. Why? Well, for the most part, being married in a state that doesn't recognize it would only cause problems and offer no real benifits. So definatly there are big differences depending on where you live. In some states it's still actually illegal and heck, it's even illegal in some states to get a tattoo, talk about screwed up!

I don't know, do we need a MLK Jr.? Not really. His biggest impact was as a martyr. A gay martyr, I think, would actually have the opposite effect of what we'd like. Most people who are gay bashers would just think it was a good thing and applaud it and move on with their lives. It probably wouldn't have the same impact as MLK Jr. had. Besides, have you ever tried to organize a group of gay men to do something other than get together for sex? YEESH! Like the person said (I forget who said it, a few posts back) Ravin, yeah, sorry about that, like Ravin said, most gay men are too gay. I'm talking about what I call the Swish to Reality factor. My biggest problem with being gay is being associated with those gay men who love to put on affectations and act like swishy little twits. Most of them do it consciously, it isn't something that comes along with being gay. It's almost like they're saying "I want to be so different that I piss people off", that doesn't help anyone.

Oh well. I have to go apply more product now.

Yeah... the oeverly gay people don't exactly do much for the cause. Trust me... I like gay guys (a lot ) even I get sick of the fabulous queens. I can name one guy in particular at my school that has done more to enforce gay stereotypes, (and subsequently more hate) by being overly gay as he walks around. I know him... he's not normally like that, but I'll be damned if he doesn't do it in public.

*sigh* It's too bad, really. Balance is the key, here people.

I think that in some ways Freddie Mercury did a lot of good for gay awareness. Many people hadn't even thought about his sexuality at all until the time of his death. The music of Queen was rock and embraced by many of the most butch men in our societies but then you couldn't help but know that not only was Mercury gay, but also that he was most likely HIV positive during a lot of his later recording career.

I think the revalation that a guy could be gay and HIV positive without this being an issue for him personally that he made obvious for everyone else was something that really made a difference to a lot of people. It was a subtle change, but I think that something did happen there.

I've thought about all this a lot. I do sometimes wonder if we're going about this the wrong way. Obviously movements such as Stonewall were essential to get the legal barriers out of the way, but maybe now those of us with non-heterosexual sensibilities need to integrate ourselves rather than continue with the poltics of difference. We need to concentrate on what we all have in common.

A lot of straight people I know ask what the point is of the TGB Pride march, and why shouldn't there be a Straight Pride march, in some ways they have a point. I think that sometimes such obvious segregation of a community has a negative result.

Until there truly are equal rights then such things do serve the purpose of reminding people in power that there are still issues that need to be addressed, but as has been pointed out in this thread already, Pride is often seen as a pick-up point, not political activism. Perhaps the way forward for culture just comes from being ourselves and trying to not be afraid of who knows about this. My parents don't know anyone (as far as they know) who isn't straight, and they had a rough time dealing with me being bi. I'm sure they must have known gay people at some point in their lives, and if they had realised this then maybe things would have been easier.

Of course, it's all well and good me saying this when people are still beaten to death for not being straight, but I also believe in a ripple effect. Sure, it might start with increased tolerence in New York, Sydney, London, San Francisco, Brighton, Milan... But these places have influence, and eventually the culture changes. Maybe one day of marching is moving away from being so important, and maybe that's a good sign.

I've reached the end of tying that and now I'm really not sure what point I was trying to make!

I hear you loud and clear. My boyfriend is a gamer, so we're constantly seeing idiot gamers out there tossing around the words "gay" and "fag" as if there are no other [negative] words in the language. I cannot begin to tell you how much that bugs the effin' crap out of me.

As for the "gay movement," I think the problem is that most "gay activists" seem to be turning inward more than outward, so everyone is concentrating too much effort on self-proclamation and self-acceptance (which, don't get me wrong, is completely important, but not at the complete expense of other issues) and not focusing enough on inclusion or educating the public on homosexuality/bisexuality. It seems that so many people go to pride parades and gay bars and gay restaurants and gay cruises and gay mortgage companies and nothing else, so in the end the whole "movement" and everything about homosexuality seem to be an exclusive, segregationist club where heterosexuals aren't allowed and that heterosexuals are too daft to understand. "You're never going to understand us, so we're not even going to bother including you in our communities, and we don't want to be a part of yours" -- seems to be the message that the majority are sending.

The "gay movement" seems to be way too centralized around increasing LGBTI visibility through pride parades, which only alienates everyone who can't identify as a feather-boa-wearing gay man or cross-dresser. The only people becoming more visible in pride parades are those who are way too far on the fringe for average suburban middle-class nuclear families to identify with or accept. It just seems like everyone's further alienating themselves from the "mainstream," rather than advancing the movement any further.

It's really odd -- I never really contemplated the idea of having an MLK Jr fronting our movement. It's sad to think that we don't really have our own spokesperson. And when we do get spokespersons, they only last as long as their coming-out debacle lasts, and then they lose interest in pursuing any further rights for the movement as a whole. I'm mostly talking about newly-out celebrities who suddenly make it their mission to further gay civil rights, only to lose interest in the whole issue once they've overcome the coming-out hurdle and have regained some sort of acceptance and credibility in their respective communities. I can't help thinking specifically of Rosie O'Donnell, who tried to divert attention away from her own newly-outed self by focusing attention on the Florida couple who weren't being allowed to adopt children. As soon as she completed that spectacle, she seemed to have dropped off the scene. A lot of people seem to do that very same thing.

What many GLBTs don't seem to understand is, the best way to gain understanding and tolerance from "the straight world" is to live IN the straight world. Ambassadors, if you will. Nearly all of the accepting straight individuals I've ever met said that their pro-tolerance mindsets were swayed by the positive influences of GLBTs in their lives. They don't give a damn about parades, they don't give a damn about the HRC and their missions, they don't even really give a damn about what religion or politics seems to think of GLBT issues. But they DO give a damn about the GLBTs in their lives.

Unfortunately, most of the efforts that we are currently making are simply preaching to the converted.

Perhaps, if we focused our efforts on being positive ambassadors to the straight communities of the world, they'd be more sympathetic to our cause. Just a thought.

In my opinion there is no other choice. Unless you move to a gay island.. and as far as I know there is no gay island...and if there was I am not sure I would want to live there... cause god knows we can be some trifling ass people!

I agree with what you say though. I have never hid my homosexuality (except in my home town cause my father would kill me.. really he would.. I am not joking at all).. I have always been out at every job I have ever had. By putting a face on homosexuality you humanize it. People are afraid of what they do not understand, if you help them understand homosexuality and the fact that it does not change the value of the person you eventually defeat homophobia. But I still believe there is a basic need for the HRC, pride marches, white parties, feather boas, hot oil, and free drinks before 10.. oh wait.. what was I talking about... oh yeah.. there is a need for these things. They are not an end all solution but they do serve a purpose in the gay community.

I think that a lot of the fuel behind the hate against gay people is that they're associated with completely seperate things that really are wrong (i.e. pedophilia), and then everyone thinks that all gay people are child molesters. I mean, I was molested by my bisexual cousin, I'm heterosexual, we're both guys, but I realize that not all bisexuals are like that (if I did, I wouldn't be on these forums, eh?), I merely have, hopefully permanently, severed all ties to my cousin, and explained why he won't be at my parties anymore to my closest friends. But I digress. Why must we hate someone merely because they are not like us? Gay people, in general, have done nothing to us as far as I can see. The point is we're all human beings, and therefore, should be treated equally. Even several people in one of my classes who could, personality-wise, be described as the standard teenager, stated, "They're not doing anything to us. Why don't we just mind our own business?" If only everyone was as wise as they. To quote Vash the Stampede, "This world is made of Love and Peace!"

P.S. Also, against the religious anti-gay argument, at least the one some of my fellow Christians use, whether or not God forbade homosexuality, I cannot be sure, however, I do know that God said the two most important rules were basically love God and love each other. Therefore, making hate against homosexuals sinful in the Christian religion whether or not homosexuality is disallowed (and I don't think it is).

Well, I'm not too sure whether or not the Bible actually forbids "being" homosexual, but I'm pretty sure I heard something about it forbidding homosexual acts. Something like "Thou shall not lie with a woman as you would a man, it is abomination." I dunno. Religion really isn't my thing. I 'do' know that you're absolutely right about the "love God and love each other" part.

All sins, from what I've heard, were created equal, and by hating and discriminating against someone because they're homosexual, you're also committing a sin, and pretty much aren't any "better" than they are after that. And they probably never sinned in the first place, so you've wasted your time bothering them.