FACES of HOMOPHOBIA

FACES of HOMOPHOBIA
A lot of good things are happening in Canada, and many people have become more open-minded and accepting of other people. Homophobia, though, is not yet dead.

What is HOMOPHOBIA?
An unrealistic or irrational fear of homosexuality. Homophobia is perpetuated by the negative stereotypes and misconceptions that surround the subject of homosexuality. Homophobia can lead to hatred, discrimination, and violence against homosexuals.

What is HETEROSEXISM?
The assumption that everyone is heterosexual, and that heterosexuality is somehow superior to homosexuality.

Gay youth suffer from homophobia and heterosexism every day, at home, with friends, at work and at school. Here several gay youth describe things that have happened to them.

“My parents think being gay is an illness, a sickness, a pathology.”

“I was bashed at summer school, and my mum told me not to hold hands or anything like that. Basically she was telling me ‘It’s your fault’”.

“People tell me it’s okay to be gay, but that they just don’t want me to ACT gay. They don’t want me to be myself.”

“When I was sick my grandmother implied I must have AIDS since I’m gay.”

“One day I was on the bus and this girl who really didn’t like me and the fact that I’d come out as gay was on the bus too. She started calling me a faggot and a cocksucker really loud on the bus. She went up to this one guy and said ‘This guy sucks cock’, and then this guy started saying to me ‘That’s bad, you shouldn’t do that.’”

“Once in grade 9 I was cleaning the costume storage room with two guys. One of these guys used to be my friend. But he encouraged the other guy to whip a spoon of wet slushee at me. I was wearing a white t-shirt and it got all over me.”

“My friend says she doesn’t like gay people, but that I’m different from other gay people.”

I was at the park one day and I was making out with someone. Then a guy walked by and said “Are you 2 girls? That’s bad, bad, bad.”

Internalized Homophobia or Can a gay person be homophobic?

Yes, a gay person can indeed be homophobic! Just like a person of colour can be racist, and a girl can be sexist against girls. In this case it's called "internalized homophobia".

What it means is that you've absorbed and that you even to some extent believe the negative messages about yourself that society has given you.

When everyone around you is saying something bad about the group you belong to, it's hard not to absorb some of their attitudes. A part of you may know that they are wrong, but at the same time, a part of you may be terrified that they are right.

Here the Out and Proud group describes the internalized homophobia they've felt and seen.

I was getting angry with myself all the time. I’d already come out but I still didn’t like the fact that I was gay. One day in the winter I sat outside for 3 hours without a coat. When my friends came my lips were blue and they had to help me. I was trying to force myself to stop thinking, and I was also trying to change myself, to make myself straight.

We were making a mosaic of queer people in the gay village. This guy came by and said to us, “It’s bad enough to be gay; you don’t have to advertise it.” And he was going into the bathouse!

I was having a war with myself, because I knew I was gay and I knew my family wouldn’t accept me. I was afraid they would reject me.

A lot of gay people I know say that we shouldn’t “advertise it”. But I think the only way to fight homophobia is to bring it in their face.

I know gay people who make homophobic judgements and comments.

I was always battling being gay, and I thought all my problems were because I was gay.

I think a lot of internalized homophobia comes from religion. Like the story of Sodom and Gomorrah.