From: keithd@stallion.oz.au (Keith Duddy)
Subject: Need for a new word (Was: Hetero/bi/homophobia)
Organization: Stallion Technologies
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 05:33:01 GMT

I seem to be reading quite a lot about these "phobia" words, and this
discussion is typical: I'd like to provide a new perspective below...

In <ALAN.92Aug14121543@pluto.osf.org> alan@osf.org (Alan Hamilton) writes:

>> So, how about the term "heterophobia"? This would seem to suggest an
>> _irrational_ dislike/fear of heterosexual people. And that's where my
>> problem with this term lies. Often a GLB person's dislike/fear of
>> heterosexual people has a firm basis rather than being irrational. As
>> such, I think it does not make sense to refer to it as a phobia.

>On the contrary, heterophobia has the complementary meaning of
>homophobia and is very sensible.  It means expecting that heterosexual
>people fit one's heterosexual stereotype, and acting toward all new
>heterosexual people as if they were homophobic and untrustworthy.  It
>may be true that the percentage of heterosexuals who are homophobic is
>greater than the percentage of homosexuals who are heterophobic,
>though I suspect they are about the same.  However, treating one
>individual on the basis of your experience of other individuals just
>because they happen to belong to a group which is not defined by the
>characteristic in question (homophobia) is irrational behavior.  Not
>difficult to understand or sympathize with, but irrational.

The thing that I always found appealing about the use of the word
homophobia was that it put bigotry in terms of psychological disorder.
It's nice to believe that the people who hate and fear you are mentally
ill, and all they need is the right counselling to overcome their fear
and be normal again. In several senses this term is quite accurate, in
that hatred and prejudice against people of unlike sexual orienatation
is often based on ignorance, and the words and actions that manifest 
the prejudice are often irrational and fearful. BUT (there had to be a
but didn't there) homo[bi/hetero more recently]phobia has become the 
de-facto term for describing prejudice/bigotry/hate against
homo[bi/hetero]sexuality, and it is not always appropriate. When we talk
about prejudice/bigorty/hatred directed on racial grounds we can call it
racism - a term that has no implication of fear and or irrationality
(although these are often causes of racism.) When we wish to talk
specifically about an individual or cultural fear of people on the
grounds of race we need to generalise to fear of difference and use
xenophobia [but's that a side issue.]

When we are stuck with a word which has specific roots in pyschological
terminology as the only means of describing all hatred/fear/prejudice/
political action against us then we are bound to find situations when
the words/actions of the "homophobic" are not simply motivated by
irrational fear, and arguments like the one above arise.

In the search for a better catch-all word I started by thinking of an
analogue to "racism", but of course "sexism" is already used in the
domain on gender relations, and "orientationism" just doesn't cut it.
Anyone got any ideas??

Keith
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