by: Carrie Kaufman
“I hate the word homophobia. It’s not a real phobia. You are not scared. You are an asshole.”
That meme has been going around the internets for a couple of weeks now. And it pisses me off every time I read it.
Really? Homophobia doesn’t exist? Just assholes?
First, let’s tackle the idea that calling someone an asshole is going to change his behavior or help move things forward in any way. One of the things I rail against is this idea that both the right and left are the same. For every Bryan Fischer or Todd Akin there is not an extremist on the left who…actually I can’t even think of the opposite extreme of people who think children of same sex couples should be “rescued” from their parents and that women can’t get pregnant if rape is violent. Albert Einstein, I suppose? Someone completely steeped in the world of reality and rationality?
The point is both sides are not equal. The right is about intolerance. Denying gay people their rights is about hate. The left doesn’t run on hate. It takes way too much energy, and we just aren’t that focused.
The problem is that when we sit back and call them assholes, then we look just as bad as they do. We give credence to the idea that both sides are the same.
But let’s step back from the far right extremists for a moment. Homophobia is a self-directed impulse. We ARE afraid… of our feelings that we’ve been told are wrong; of being cast out of our families and social circles; of forging down a path that we couldn’t even imagine as children. Coming out is nothing more than overcoming your homophobia, taking a risk that your life as you know it will change in some way, and learning to love yourself.
And now we have to saddle people going through this with the idea that they’re assholes?
Alan Chambers, an ex-ex-gay leader, has this year publicly backtracked on his previous belief that gay people can be cured. He’s taken a lot of flack from Christian Nationalists. Must we make his struggle harder by calling him an asshole?
What about the 17-year-old kid who joins in on gay jokes? Or even one who bullies? Will calling him an asshole make him stop? Will it make him deal with his attraction to men any better?
I guess part of me is bewildered by this odd charge coming from liberals. I mean, the rap against us is that we’re too accepting, that we see too many extenuating circumstances. This asshole thing is too pat for us.
I live in a homey suburban town south of Chicago. It’s got trees (and houses) older than I am. It’s right off of a train line shuttling the academics and doctors who live here to the University of Chicago, or most of the rest to their downtown offices. It’s very racially integrated. And the people are nice. A friend of mine calls it Pleasantville – with only a hint of cynicism.
I have lots of friends here for whom me being gay isn’t any different that me having blue eyes. But there are other people here who try really hard, but aren’t sure how to handle me. I’m perfectly aware that this could have nothing to do with me being gay, but rather with me being forthright and outspoken…combined with being a woman. I’m also aware, though, of a certain look in people’s eyes, a certain arms length distance.
When we first moved here a decade ago one neighbor asked who lived in our house. I (standing there pregnant next to my then 8-year-old grandson) told her my partner and I had just moved in. She actually took a step back, her voice got higher and she sputtered, “Oh, it’s good to have some diversity in the neighborhood,” before she scuttled off as fast as she could.
Here’s the thing, though: she waves to me and says hi every time she sees me pass. She was clearly uncomfortable. She wasn’t sure what to do. Having a gay neighbor stirred up a little bit of fear. But she’s made a point of pushing past that and engaging. I think it’s pretty heroic (unlike her husband, who has never said a word to me and only scowls when we walk past).
It’s a process. And coming out or having gay friends isn’t the end of the process. Popular culture is full of messages about gay people being weird. And for those of us who are older than, say, 15, the homophobic messages were more hurtful and more numerous. Because of that, it’s something that we all struggle with. When I see people engaging in the struggle, I commend them. I don’t call them assholes.
Note: This was reposted with permission, you can find the original here, at the authors newest blog- Kaufman on America.
I’ve definitely found this mean to be very problematic as well. I more find it boxes in the boundaries of homophobia, which is pervasive enough a term to be applied to society at large. To me, it doesn’t mean fear–or only fear–but speaks to systemic oppression of homosexual people, whether exterior or interior (similar to the understanding of racism as power + prejudice). I think it’s important to note homophobia as a continuum that has people operating out of fear or malice, or sometimes both, and what needs to be combated are the power dynamics of that system.
You’ve missed the entire meaning and intent behind the meme. Utterly. And it makes it completely clear that you are unaware of the power of vocabulary. The meme attacks the basically flawed use of /phobia/ as a stem in the word homophobia. A phobia is something we have been trained to believe is something that the person suffering from it cannot help, it is beyond their control. Notice how this differs from the root in the word misogyny. The Greek root /miso/ means hate, not fear. No one says gynophobia (though the word exists with a very different meaning). The meme attacks a core issue of a linguistic epistemological shield that we lend “homophobia” by calling it a phobia. The meme indicates that if we are to combat the paradigm, then we need to see it, and CALL IT, what it is. This may seem like a triviality to most, a split hair amongst so many, but as a linguist and interpreter by trade, I can tell you that the word has power and saying “homophobia” is tantamount to lending the behavior a shield of protection that the LGBT community can ill-afford to do.
Well, I think they call it “homophobia” because this word permits a wider generalization than the term “misohomia”. Most of the people that doesn’t like homosexuals’ behaviour respect the homosexual persons indeed, and this isn’t a real hate form, but just a way of thinking.
If you call’em “homophobic”, is the same than calling a gay “pervert”: this word just doesn’t represent the reality and that’s quite a lie. There’s often a more complex background behind both way of thinking than just hate or fear.
I think that homophobist are the real phobic persons.
Respect
This quote isn’t about homophobia. It’s about gay hatred disguised as homophobia, separate from legitimate phobia. I can think of an independent word for every divisive prejudice humans face (i.e. racism, sexism, ageism), but for homosexuality you’re termed “afraid”. This quote attacks our lazy standardized term, not the simply phobic. A developmental struggle to find one’s roots in unique personal sexuality is not relevant to the context of this point at all, it’s about those that have taken the next step to be hateful that are, to the extent of our terminology, are only phobic.The process of racism shares these complexities, and if racist people were suddenly coined into “phobic”, we’d see an immediate outcry, because a distinction between assholes and the naturally phobic is necessary when clear, oppressive hatred is present.
Please just refer to reinaldofuentes’ point if the intent of this message is still unclear.