The Roots of Homophobia

Modern Homophobia

Homophobia is changing. Its newfound generational subtlety is a result of the improving attitude towards gays in America, but this subtlety may also make it harder to fight where it does still exist. The prevalence of sexual orientation-related hate crimes has decreased significantly since the 1980’s, from 3,612 in 1984 to 1,265 in 2007 (civilrights.org). The bullying many young gays experience is not nearly as outright and physical, but instead, targets their emotional and mental wellbeing, often done anonymously through the Internet and social media. It is no longer merely a question of how to protect gays from the physical abuse that arises from homophobia; the mental abuse is now the relevant issue. All across American teen culture, the term “that’s so gay” is still being used as a derogatory statement. From a young age, boys are discovering that one of the most offensive terms they can be called is a “faggot”. Only 12% of the United States population self-identify as homophobic as of 2008, as opposed to the 28% that identified as homophobic in 1992 (borngay.com). But this does not mean that homophobia has truly decreased, it just indicates societal norms now exist that push homophobic people towards denying their bias and hatred for gays. This reflects the much more subtle modern-day homophobia, a problem that is hard to address.

Personally, I have experienced very little homophobia in my day-to-day life. It is certainly easy to find people spewing hate on the Internet, or to read about homophobic acts that have taken place through the media, but it does not affect me on a daily basis. This is partly due to the fact that I am a bisexual woman living in Seattle. All three of those factors contribute to what I consider to be my “relative shielding” from homophobia. Bisexuals have historically received a lot less homophobia than “full gays”, likely because many people consider bisexuality to be a “phase” or to be for “promiscuous women”....