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view · edit Frequently asked questions To view the response to a question, click the link to the right of the question. Homophobia FAQ Q1: Does this category apply for all LGBT people, such as trans people? A1: Yes, although strictly speaking, trans people are covered under transphobia. Q2: How do we define 'homophobia' as a category? A2:There are two main ways in which 'homophobia is used', as psychological motivation, and in practice homophobia. Q3: What are the guidelines for applying 'homophobia' as a category when dealing with the biography of a living person? A3: Biography of living persons and Reliable sources apply in the application of this category, and it should not be applied unless it can be verified that the individual is referred to as homophobic in a reliable source, or has themselves made statements that contain words that are clearly homophobic in the traditional sense of the word. Q4: What is the psychological meaning of homophobia? A4: This is a narrow definition of homophobia used by psychologists, as an irrational phobia or aversion to homosexual people. Q5: What is the 'broad' meaning of homophobia? A5: This is a definition of homophobia that relates to how the term used socially, which includes the denial of equal human rights to homosexual people. Q6: What are human rights of LGBT people? A6: These are the same rights that are associated with heterosexual people, as described in a document like the . Q7: Does inclusion in this category imply that the subject is homophobic? A7: No. This is a broad category that includes individuals and groups whose personal or professional lives are connected in some significant way to the topic of homophobia. For example, organizations working to combat homophobia are included in this category.

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Need for a more global view

There's a very American slant to all that's above. This is a global encyclopaedia. Here in Australia there is simply no question that in our version of English homophobia is NOT about a fear of homosexuals or homosexuality. It's all about negative attitudes to homosexuals or homosexuality. I ask people to read this article from one of our quality newspapers to see that it has nothing to do with a phobia. Maybe there's a linguistic difference between our countries. HiLo48 (talk) 02:01, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

I fully concur with the need for cross-cultural perspective - by all means, have at it! But, that said... "phobia" comes to us from a Greek root that translates into English as "fear", and I'm pretty sure that Greek translates exactly the same in Australia as it does here in the U.S. How the word is actually used in common parlance is another matter altogether, but that has no bearing on the actual meaning. Belchfire-TALK 02:08, 17 December 2012 (UTC)~

No, that's an incorrect view. Words do not mean what their Greek roots once meant. They mean what current usage says they mean. So, you can argue about what current usage is, but you cannot argue that their roots define their current meaning. HiLo48 (talk) 02:38, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Actually, there is a pretty good explanation in the article for Phobia. I've already agreed that we should cover popular usage (and we do), but we aren't going to pretend that the word means something else entirely than what it says in a dictionary. Belchfire-TALK 02:44, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

But just as with the Greek roots, the meanings of components of words don't define the larger word. The article Phobia is irrelevant to the meaning of the word Homophobia. HiLo48 (talk) 03:06, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

That is complete, unambiguous rubbish. How do you explain that nearly every good dictionary provides information on word origins? As I said... information on popular usage is relevant, but not comprehensive or dispositive. Belchfire-TALK 03:10, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Calling what I write, in good faith, "complete, unambiguous rubbish", is a personal attack. It's certainly not part of a mature, respectful discussion. Nor does it prove your point. In fact, it probably proves the opposite. Goodbye. HiLo48 (talk) 03:26, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Oh, please. No, it's not a personal attack; it's a candid observation about what you wrote. I suggest you learn the criteria (Misplaced Pages:Npa#What_is_considered_to_be_a_personal_attack.3F) before you make such an allegation. Sorry your feelings got hurt. Cheers. Belchfire-TALK 03:29, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

From that very link: "Insulting or disparaging an editor is a personal attack regardless of the manner in which it is done." To describe my post as "complete, unambiguous rubbish" is pretty insulting. Hence it's a personal attack. Grow up and discuss my words. Point out the failure in my logic, if there is any. When you resort to abuse, rather than facts and logic, I feel even more strongly that I'm right. HiLo48 (talk) 06:45, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

I did discuss your words: I said they were rubbish. If you want additions to the article, you need to come up with facts and logic. What you've offered so far is, well... rubbish. Belchfire-TALK 07:18, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

The meanings of components of words do not define the larger word. And it's even less common for the roots of parts of a word to provide the modern meaning of a word. For example, starting at the start of the dictionary I use. Aardvark comes from two words meaning earth and pig. It's not a pig. The aardwolf is not a wolf. Abandon comes from the French a bandon, meaning under one's jurisdiction. Not what we mean today. Most Aberdeen Angus are not, these days, from Aberdeen. Abject comes from the same word in Latin which meant thrown away. About comes from the Old English abutan, meaning on the outside. Need I go on? HiLo48 (talk) 08:11, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

If the English language is anything at all, it is rich in exceptions to its own rules. I can easily come up with 100, 500, or 1000 examples of English words with contemporary definitions that are derived precisely from their Latin, Greek, French or German roots. The fact that some words have evolved means absolutely nothing.

Got anything else? Belchfire-TALK 08:19, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Given that you accept that exceptions to the "rules" exist. all I need to do is point out that homophobia is one of those exceptions. It does not mean what the words inside it add up to. OK? HiLo48 (talk) 08:42, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Given that we already have a 4400 word article explaining that in glorious detail, what, precisely, do you propose to add to it? Belchfire-TALK 08:47, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for the chat. HiLo48 (talk) 09:04, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

• I don't think it's a linguistic difference as much as a societal one. Here in the UK, unlike the US, we don't have a large amount of very vocal organisations (religious or otherwise) who espouse an anti-gay position. Thus, there are far fewer people and/or groups to be "offended" at the use of the word. In fact, "homophobia" is pretty much the standard parlance for a negative view of homosexuality. It is used by the British Government's legal (here, criminal (here), and sporting (here) departments and even by the Conservative Prime Minister themselves (here). It is used by major news sources, from those on the left (here) all the way across to those on the right (here). Interestingly, searching Google News for "Anti-Gay" in UK news sources (thus) either tends to find references to people being "anti-gay marriage" or references to foreign news stories (i.e. Uganda). Black Kite (talk) 10:19, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

"Anti-gay". Who, exactly, is "anti-gay"? Per the left, anyone who espouses any view that does not accept the so-called homosexual political agenda, even including (and I've witnessed this) some homosexuals, such as those who accept that marriage is the union between a man and a woman and thus there is no such thing as the "right" to (or, indeed, any such thing as) "gay marriage". And here we see the problem with people like that defining what homophobia is and just who is homophobic. -- Glynth (talk) 02:31, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

• I don't think you do yourself any favours by using the rhetoric ("homosexual political agenda", putting gay marriage in scare quotes) of such groups, it merely makes your biases clear. And groups across the spectrum from Westboro Baptist Church to the American Family Association are clearly anti-gay; not only do they admit it themselves, but any fundamentalist or Bible truth organisation tends to be, for obvious reasons. Claiming it's an invention of "the left" is simply deluded. Black Kite (talk) 07:22, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

I can easily justify the language and quotation marks I used, but this isn't a forum. Suffice it to say, I'm not here to kowtow to history revisionists, Orwellian newspeak, or politically correct nonsense. -- Glynth (talk) 00:11, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

"Phobia"

From the Hoplophobia page:

Hoplophobia is not a true phobia ... For example, phobias require that the person be aware and acknowledge that their fear is irrational, and usually causes some kind of functional impairment. True medical phobias of firearms and other weapons can exist, but are unusual.

So... explain to me how so-called "homophobia" doesn't have such a disclaimer up front and center?

Homophobia is not a true phobia. Phobias require that the person be aware and acknowledge that their fear is irrational, and usually causes some kind of functional impairment. True medical phobias of homosexuals and homosexuality can exist, but are unusual.

-- Glynth (talk) 20:03, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

The explanation is quite simple: it's the politicization of science. Sociology is one of the most heavily politicized sciences in Western civilization (if you can even call it a science, which is questionable), even more so than "climate science". Belchfire-TALK 20:07, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

This is not a forum for general discussion about Homophobia, homosexuality, climate science or Western civilization. If you want to discuss these issues in friendly environment, you should go to Free Republic.--В и к и T 20:20, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

I'll assume good faith and pretend you'd actually care if WP talk went slightly and temporarily (for a single comment) into a larger scope in response to a perfectly valid criticism of the page at hand even if the topic were something more like, say, the problems with sites like the aforementioned Free Republic. Anyway, I'm not using it like a forum. I'm pointing out problems with the article. For instance:

I find it quite telling that a few paragraphs are spent explaining what "homophobia" is and how it's a "phobia" - talk about fear of being called homosexual when you're not, or fear of being infected by an STD due to homosexuals, etc. - and yet the entire remainder of the article goes on using "homophobia" in the largely unrelated, more "standard", perhaps more "modern" sense: A slur used to advance a certain agenda. Not in so many words of course - too many Wikipedians are pushing that agenda for spelling this out to be allowed. We're lucky we've even got a "criticism" section, let alone one that devotes an entire paragraph to the fact that this is nothing but ad hominem... but of course, half of said paragraph is a criticism of that cricism. And the entire section uses loaded terms like "____ rights opponents", natch.

Although the article never truly explains it to the reader, an intellectually honest reader ought to notice the disparity between the term's supposed meaning and its actual usage. -- Glynth (talk) 20:36, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

This has already been hashed out here ad nauseum. Please review the recent archives for an almost identical discussion. Then if you have specific, sourced edits to make, feel free to make them. - MrX 20:33, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Change this page or change hoplophobia. -- Glynth (talk) 20:37, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

What gives you the moral authority to tell me to shut up, "NE Ent"? And don't pretend hiding that text and telling everyone not to modify it isn't doing exactly that. Accusing everyone who points out obvious flaws of Misplaced Pages of just standing on a soapbox is why Misplaced Pages never gets better. It's a systemic problem, but you're quite content with the problem, aren't you? I've made a change proposal. I've justified that proposal. And in return, I've had people hide the proposal, hide my justifications of the proposal, and point to past supposed "consensus" (contrary to your assertion that this isn't a democracy) to stick with the intellectually dishonest way of things as if to say "when we tell you people to shut up, STAY shut up". (Oh, and Jenova20 -- I'd put this in reply to you directly but I'm "not allowed" to edit the "closed" conversation above, yet I will make this point known regardless as you've wrongly characterized what I've said -- I was quoting someone else when I mentioned "free speech". An editor who attacked people wanting consistent articles with no double standards, intellectually honest people like me, labeling them as "rednecks".)

If you "must" hide this comment too, then 1) it should go alongside the other section so people can see it together with what I'm replying to, and 2) most importantly, this article should actually be improved. Of course, I only say this since it's apparently too much to ask that Wikipedians stop pushing well-known double standards, so I can't expect you to comply with requests for these comments to be shown in the hopes that more of you will wake up to the systemic problems () and do something about it. (Heck, Jimmy Wales admitted that WP is biased to the left, but he doesn't think that's an issue. Doesn't think that's an issue! Gee, I wonder if he's left-wing, himself..) -- Glynth (talk) 01:04, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Definitions: Homophobia, Heterosexism, and Sexual Prejudice

First, empirical research does not indicate that heterosexuals' antigay attitudes can reasonably be considered a phobia in the clinical sense. Indeed, the limited data available suggest that many heterosexuals who express hostility toward gay men and lesbians do not manifest the physiological reactions to homosexuality that are associated with other phobias (see Shields & Harriman, 1984).

Second, using homophobia implies that antigay prejudice is an individual, clinical entity rather than a social phenomenon rooted in cultural ideologies and intergroup relations. Moreover, a phobia is usually experienced as dysfunctional and unpleasant. ...

-- Glynth (talk) 01:14, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

And that doesn't take into account the fact that even if some new term was invented that didn't call it a "phobia" or some other label that doesn't fit simple prejudice against homosexuals, the label is still used as a slur against people who are not actually prejudiced against homosexuals. Being against so-called "gay marriage", for instance, automatically gets you the homophobe label, even though there are homosexual people who are against it for various reasons, e.g. intellectual honesty about what "marriage" is. -- Glynth (talk) 01:21, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Please see etymological fallacy. Words acquire meanings beyond the simple agglomeration of their parts. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:13, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Be that as it may, a word doesn't necessarily shed it's former meaning simply because popular usage has given it a new one. For example, the word "gay" comes to mind. Belchfire-TALK 14:49, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Often, though, it does shed its former meaning. Then dictionaries mark that usage as dated. Of course, in the case of "homophobia", there's more than just popular usage at issue, since the word is used in a variety of formal contexts. In any event, I've pretty much lost track of what these threads are all about. Does anyone have a specific, policy-based proposal for improving the article? Rivertorch (talk) 15:12, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

The Shields & Harriman ref looks interesting, describing the origin of the term as to the current definition of the word.   little green rosetta(talk)
central scrutinizer  01:21, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Relevance? The fact that "hoplophobia" has "phobia" at the end was all that was deemed necessary to put a prominent notice in the article warning that it's not a "real phobia". How is this any different other than the fact that more agenda-pushers abuse the "homophobia"/"homophobic"/"homophobe" label on a day-to-day basis than there are people talking about hoplophobia? -- Glynth (talk) 01:32, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Homophobia isn't an actual phobia in the first place. Homophobia is purely about prejudice and discrimination. Fear may be a part of those and may even be the cause of it but that is not what makes homophobia homophobia. Almost non of the discriminatory phobias are actually phobias. However on the hoplophobia connection there is one important thing that is being forgotten. Guns are objects they don't have feelings they don't have souls or lives or family etc. Homosexuals are people. Homophobia IS NOT similar to hoplophobia. On the same topic you say homophobia is a slur, of course it is. So is every other discrimination word. Would they prefer to be called a sexualist, heterosexist or maybe just a bigot. The point is if you discriminate against gay and lesbian people I (and others) have the right to call you a homophobe. After all many homophobic people use slurs for homosexuals as well.-Rainbowofpeace (talk) 00:01, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Ramen sister ツ Jenova20 12:17, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Guns aren't people, people have feelings, therefore... therefore what, exactly? Sounds like an appeal to emotion to me. Forget "sounds like": It is. It's utterly irrelevant whether or not there are any hurt feelings when determining whether any discrimination (in the (unfortunately) typical sense of the term, with its negative connotations) has occurred. So no, you don't have more of a right to call someone a homophobe than I do to call someone a hoplophobe just because one involves guns and the other involves a sexual orientation. Not to mention the fact that you certainly have no right to call someone a homophobe who isn't a homophobe just because you don't like their views on, say, "gay marriage". (Plenty of intellectually honest homosexuals are against "gay marriage", FYI.) Nor is any of this even remotely relevant to any point I've been making. It's nothing but a logical fallacy that distracts from the facts I've brought up, which you don't even address except to admit that homophobia is not an actual phobia (but of course this somehow doesn't push you into accepting that we state as much prominently in the article so the double standard is ended). -- Glynth (talk) 00:25, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

First of all I don't like your insinuating tone. I would not call someone who is against what you call gay marriage to be homophobic. If it was up to me marriage itself wouldn't exist since it was FOUNDED as a racist, sexist and homophobic institution used to make two (or more people) of opposite sexes bonded for life that originally had to be of the same race and in which the women were basically signing into a slavery contract. So no I wouldn't call someone against gay marriage homophobic because I believe the institution of marriage was created as homophobic. However my political views are irrelevent. But let me just say this right now. We are talking in the discrimination portal and category about sociological privilege and disadvantages. Homophobia is a form of that directed towards homosexuals. Hoplophobia however is a one hundred percent political ideology which has to do with what someone does and not who they are inheritantly. Guns are not people and have not always existed. Another great thing to bring up is that homosexuals have been persecuted their entire existence for nothing other than who they love meanwhile gun owners have been persecuted for half a century because that a minority of them have killed people. Now I really don't care to share with you my opinion on gun control because it is not a subject I particularly care about one way or another. However guns are not human, they do not have human rights. If you believe in guns fine but do not compare it to a civil rights violation.-Rainbowofpeace (talk) 08:48, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Also what I said above does not mean that I believe in the discrimination that gays and lesbians face because their relationships are not recognized the same as heterosexual marriage. I do believe that everyone should be able to see their loved one if they are sick and in the hospital and die and it is clearly discrimination to give financial benifits to one form of relationship (heterosexual marriage recieves many federal tax cuts) and not another form of relationship that is equally valid (Homosexual couples that have been together sometimes even decades).-Rainbowofpeace (talk) 08:55, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Precursor paragraph

Apart from being completely unsourced, this entire paragraph is clumsily worded and doesn't really add anything useful; if any of it can be sourced, I'd suggest it belongs in the section below, not its own section - even the title was misleading. Black Kite (talk) 21:51, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

• Good remove. It did seem to be mostly WP:OR HiLo48 (talk) 22:04, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
• It wasn't completely unsourced. Although it didn't contain inline citations, it cited "some gender theorists", and specifically named one: "According to such theorists as D. A. Miller"... Anyone wanting to restire this text, with sources, could probably find who those gender theorists are with reference to a search engine, or by asking the person who added the information. Shrigley (talk) 22:05, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
  • That'd be fine. As I said, though, it probably didn't deserve its own section and could be fitted into the succeeding paragraph if notable. Black Kite (talk) 22:13, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
  • It's not possible to determine the person who added the prose. The "Some gender theorists" prose is in the first recorded revision of the article, that is attributed to an account that only existed at all because of a bug in MediaWiki, fixed in 2005, relating to old UseModWiki edits. The citations of Thomas (quoting Miller) and Butler were added in 2004. Uncle G (talk) 13:26, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

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