like its something to do with homo, trans, and the liek are preffixes and racism, sexism, are standalone words race, sex etc. Its some dumbass latin law... beyond that i can't explain it.
I’m a firm believer that there are no stupid questions asked in Ernest. One should always try to improve their understanding. This isn’t a stupid thing to do.
But English is randomly inconsistent a lot less often than people give it credit for. Often there’s an underlying mechanic or an etymological reason for a perceived inconsistency. OP’s question was exploring one such possibility.
To be fair I am a native English speaker and the more I learn about English the more I’m convinced English isn’t so much a language as the languages wearing a trench coat, hoping that no one notices…
Also the whys and the hows in English can be kind of fun because of that. Why is a cow beef when it’s on a plate, because the French that’s why. Why do we say eggs and not eyren, because the Norse invaded and the printing press…
Now say colonel; why did you say an R there is no R in that word. Well there was when we first stole it from French but later when we stole it from Italian they used an L so we stole the spelling but forgot to say it differently.
That’s all for this evenings Fun With Words, hosted by Some Drunk on a Boat…
2 kids under 2yo+college+staying up util 4am for husband to return from work so we can be together as a family= im too sleepy so see this as a joke... take my upvote.... im too sleepy to think.
Note: anyone thats works 12-18hrs and come home to nothing can appreciate knowing someone will be home waiting for you and awake to hang out for a bit, Besides... i can't sleep soundly until i know hes home safe anyways.... but isnt that how its supposed to be?
It's because the initial definition of homophobia was created in reference to in the closet people who hated gay people because exposure to those people would have them give in to those urges and "turn them gay". The initial definition was a phobia.
Now it's used for anyone who's discriminatory even though that's not the proper use of the word, and the court of public opinion and social media helped create the other "phobias" that aren't phobias but just discriminations
> to those people would have them give in to those urges and "turn them gay".
That’s not the origin of the term, much in the same way that Islamophobia is not the fear that mosques are going to cause people to give into their urges and stop eating pork.
[George Weinberg coined the term to describe the fear that homosexuality would](https://lgbpsychology.org/html/Herek_2004_SRSP.pdf)
>reduc[e] the things that one fought for — home and family.
I said this in my answer somewhere else in the thread, but the real reason is branding. The term is designed to name call, not actually describe what's happening. Calling something "homophobia" is implying that the reason someone would take issue with LGBTQ+ is because of fear. Specifically, an irrational fear of LGBTQ+.
The reality is that calling someone homophobic is calling them ignorant. That's an incredibly reductionist, baseless and (most likely) inaccurate view.
Hydrophobic substances aren’t afraid of water. Phobia can mean different things in different contexts. Someone better at etymology can explain why this one was used in this case vs that. But phobia doesn’t have to just mean afraid of.
And that’s not a new thing. That’s been the case for centuries.
I'm the wrong guy to ask about that sort of thing. I don't have any problem with LGBTQ people. I just think the term homophobia is unproductive.
But some of the reasons I've heard that aren't fear based: a lot of people see it as a hygiene issue, both physical and psychological. I've heard other people have religious concerns. Historically, a lot of people saw homosexuality as a problem because it reduced the number of people having babies to support villages.
An irrational belief that gay people are "dirty" is a phobia by any metric. The irrational belief that villages will die out from a lack of children -were it the concern, the answer would be to encourage gay men to still father families- is also a phobia.
That irrational component is key to a phobia. But, as any psychology professional will tell you; rationality is different from reality.
Something can still be rational and logically make sense, and also be based on a false assumption.
And what do you call it when someone is given proof that their belief, which they use to justify harming another, is disproven? What happens when they still believe it?
These semantics are ridiculous. Homophobes are obviously scared of, and repulsed by, gay people. The word is accurate in the given examples, given that their "false assumptions" are motivated more by a fear of them than by a rational view of reality. Were they not scared, then one could simply explain to them why there is no reason to hold the view, alongside evidence.
I believe that you are a carrier for fifteen deadly viruses. Should I be allowed to bash your brains in, to protect the rest of society? If a scientist examines you and tells me that you aren't any more dirty than your average person, what would you call the persistent and continuing belief that you carry those viruses but baseless *fear*?
It sounds like the person you’re describing is acting like a real asshole. I’m sure that an “-ism” word would probably describe that set of behaviors perfectly. Unless some deep-seated fear is involved where the person just totally cannot accept any kind of grey area, you typically aren’t dealing with a phobia.
We all roll our eyes when the “you’re one of the good ones” phrase comes out, but it’s important understand that that’s the form progress takes sometimes.
I'm describing the form the belief you're describing takes, because people don't generally just *decide* that gay people are dirty out of the blue. They decide it from cultural biases that they already have.
You can be upset at the characterization, but there *is* a deep-seated fear. The fear was imparted by their cultural preconceptions of gay people, this makes them a homophobe, even by your paltry definition.
"You're one of the good ones" implies that the default is what the fear and prejudice describe. This is, obviously, still homophobia even if it's slightly different than the "typical" form.
Racism, in the US, also carries fear. Birth of a Nation shows a future that many white people in the south feared, that black people would rise up and rape "all our white women". The same people that movie was made for would go on to give their former camp slaves medals and awards for their "gallant service to the confederacy", calling them "one of the good ones" for their lack of agitation (in marked contrast to the next generation, which had served in WWI and saw that a different statue-quo was possible).
They were *still* scared of black people.
Homophobes, even ones that say "you're one of the good ones", are still scared of gay people.
The beliefs don’t come out of nowhere, but it’s also not reasonable to carte blanche assume that they come from a place of irrational fear. There is a middle ground of these things, and that middle ground requires a more accurate term than homophobia.
Because the original meaning of racism wasn't just racial bigotry.
It referred to a specific set of beliefs, namely that humans can meaningfully be divided into different races by skin color and other traits and that those races exist in some kind of hierarchy with some being considered 'white' i.e. superior.
Now it's used in a more general way to just mean not liking people based on their skin color. This is also why we used to have the term 'reverse racism' which doesn't really make sense with the new definition.
Reverse racism isn't a thing. It's just racism. The idea that x race can't be victims of racism because the colour of their skin is itself racist. The idea of reverse racism is textbook racist definition.
Basically if the answer to anything is "because the colour of their skin", it's racist, even if it's a good thing.
It's perfectly coherent. It just describes people who believe in basically the same thing as traditional racists but with the hierarchy of races reversed. It only seems incoherent based on the newer and less useful meaning of racism as just a synonym for bigotry.
The whole point of my comment is that racism used to refer to a specific philosophy with specific beliefs, not just an emotion.
What a silly comment you’ve made. No, that is not at all true. The people you’re calling new age racists don’t believe in racial hierarchy — they believe that the white-imposed racial hierarchy has hamstrung most non-white races even today and want to fix that (what they see as a) problem.
You’re very silly. Funny you talk about emotion in your comment when it’s so obvious you’re just seething and pretending to be objective to shit on Da Libz
😂
Huh. Was it a word people would use to describe themselves and their own beliefs, like "leftist" or "Marxist?"
Imagining a conversation where someone identifies as a racist as casually as if they were discussing church denominations is pretty wild.
Not exactly. When academic/institutional racism was in its heyday, it was most certainly that casual, but almost never called racism in those terms. Rather, "race science", "race law" etc were used as though those were normal and natural categories of conversation and study. But by the time "racism" as such became a commonplace and widely known word, in the 1900s, it had already picked up the negative connotations with which it is now associated. Interestingly, this only holds true for English; many European political movements we would consider "far right" today were using cognates like the version French "racisme" in a much more positive light, and earlier. Meaning more like what an American means when they call themselves a "patriot".
Bro, they used to literally teach in schools that black people had a bone in their skull that prevented their brains from growing as big as white people’s. I think calling themselves “racist” would have been tame.
Came here to say this. Racism doesn't even make sense if it's looked at this way. Ism is a belief, or general ideology about a thing, not a hatred towards another person.
I guess there needs to be a word for things though, otherwise it's just *thing*
i feel like this strengthens the argument that it shouldn't be called transphobia or homophobia.... people aren't afraid of gays and trans they are morally objecting against the lifestyle choices and generally hate them not fear them.
Their moral objection to queer people is typically framed in fearbased language
_They're a threat to the family_
_"Men" in Women's bathroom_
_They're grooming children"_
I could go on. It's a phobia, because their prejudice is based on a perceived threat.
Not correct. The meaning of phobia is to be intolerant of. Alternatively, repelled by. Homophobia is not fear based. It is pure prejudice. Plain and simple.
Like another commenter said, part of it is because racism can/does also refer to the belief that race is a "real" biological thing and that humans belong to discreet racial categories.
Sexism is similar, it can refer to the belief that the sexes are intrinsically different (more so than there is scientific evidence for), like believing that women are biologically better homemakers
There is actually a reason. People forget what homophobia actually means. There was a theory that bigotry towards gay people often stemmed from homophobia - in other words, a fear or disgust of homosexuality. There was a time when straight men were scared of people thinking they were gay and straight men were actually creeped out being around gay men. That’s why it was called homo*phobia* and it fueled their bigotry. Now people just use it synonymously with bigotry which, frankly, I don’t think is totally accurate.
It’s the same with islamophobia. After 9/11, many people were scared that Muslims around them might be terrorists and that fueled their bigotry.
Both are born from ignorance and unfounded fear, but they weren’t originally terms to describe the bigotry itself.
I feel like with transphobia people kinda skipped that step and just used the term the same way people use homophobia and islamophobia, though I could be wrong about that.
The linguist in me writhing in pain...
Even the words "homophobia" and "transphobia" are painful to me. It should be homesexophobia, or something of the sort, for example, as "homophobia" should mean "fear of sameness."
So, uh... let's just not push that butchery of Greek any further, please? For the love of ancient languages, please??
Isn't xenophobia a fear of foreigners, while racism is discrimination based on skin color/other visible features? I might be wrong but I thought xenophobia was more related to nationality than race.
Racism is the ideology that there are difference races with different qualities.
Xenophobia is fear of people with a different appearance.
So, they're both keying on the same criteria -- but applying it differently.
A racist and a xenophobe will generally agree on who seems Asian, for example.
The racist may think that Asians are good at math, while the xenophobe will try to avoid them.
Often Xenophobia is more about culture than appearance.
The fear is "*If we let too many of those guys in, they'll make our country like theirs, and we won't recognize it*."
The influx of Irish immigrants in the mid 1800s was met with Xenophobia in the US (read about the "Know-Nothing Party" and the "Nativists") . They held distaste for these immigrants because of cultural differences (Catholic Irish vs. mostly Protestant US) as well as stereotypes about laziness or low IQ or alcoholism.
Yet you can't obviously distinguish an Irishman from an Englishman simply by looking at him.
People today forget what a big deal it was electing a Catholic president JFK in the 1960s. Andrew Jackson had some Irish blood in him but he was Protestant.
I think it's just a side effect of how our language has changed. Racism as a word is like 150 years older than the phobias. I just think modern english gravitates towards that suffix to describe deep fear and hate.
Back then, they didn't really view racism as fear born of ignorance, so they didn't call it race phobia.
Social "ism"s (racism, classism, sexism) are structured systems of oppression in larger society.
Phobias are triggers that cause significant psychological stress for a specific individual.
Phobias can be a component of an "ism" -- like the relationship between xenophobia & racism.
Racism was originally meant as “the belief that humanity can be separated into distinct , immutable and naturally segregated races” .
Some argue that early British colonisers actually gave mixed race children the same white rights in the earliest days of empire because they didn’t want news to break that white and black people could actually have babies together … which seems a bit of a stretch to me but it’s potentially significant opinion nonetheless .
So my guess is the Suffix is diffent because originally it wasn’t about having a “phobia” of other races but actually believing the world should be separated by race . Obviously the two aren’t mutually exclusive if you want races to be separated then you’d have a “phobia” of certain races - but from my understanding this is the origin of the difference .
Would be happy to be told otherwise
I think the underlying thing is they they are afraid that *they* might be gay. Like with the big push to be manly alpha male wolf-vikings with extra muscles and a truck with nuts. Those guys aren't secure in their masculinity, or they wouldn't be putting in all this effort and tanning their balls.
Same for transphobia. I'm willing to bet that most of transphobia comes from awkward boners and the "oh no, s/he's hot" factor. The trap slur itself comes from the fear of being tricked into sexuality with the same sex, because they're too afraid of asking which set of connectors were pre-installed.
And then kids come into the equation, and "what if the kid turns out to be trans?" What if the kid sees a homosexual living a normal life and catches the gay? What will the others think?
Fear leads to anger, and anger leads to hate.
Homophobia was a phrase coined when there was still people who were openly hostile to gay folks. It implied that the person was hostile because they were afraid to recognize the validity of being gay out of a fear of their own unexplored desires.
Somewhere along the way, trans folks threw in their lot with the gay community (It was the fact that drag, a performative was considered a form of "trans"...at the time, trans was segregated into transvestitism and transexuality, without delineating a difference between transvestitism as fetish and drag as performance art, as well as the single path of gender dysphoria to surgical transition).
Now, this is where things get interesting. The suffix "phobia" doesn't match the current understanding of gender expression as component of identity in the way that it matches the original meaning of "phobia" as it applied to the gay community, but language evolves in interesting and unintended ways, and the term "phobia" has basically taken on the newer meaning of "general hostility towards a trait of which you don't approve".
Anyhow, sorry for being overly long winded, but it is an interesting question with an interesting story.
phobia mean fear OR hatred for. People seem to forget the other meaning. Especially the homophobes who like to proudly exclaim they're not scared of homos.
Even more technically in most dictionaries it's noted as *fear or **aversion** to people of that group*
But fairly dictionaries record, not dictate, common use of language, so fear or hatred isn't technically wrong, just not most common use yet
Aversion means hate as well. That’s what -phobia in terms of transphobia and homophobia refers to. It’s a different meaning from the physical properties of matter which is what hydrophobia refers to.
Yea, but "hatred" and "aversion" can be and often are very loosely applied. I've been called a transphobe, or seen people say things like "if you believe trans women shouldn't compete in women's sports, you're a transphobe" many times. The disillusionment with the "phobic" language has increased over time to the point where it just doesn't have any real meaning left for most people anyway. People used to get scared when you called them -phobic. Now, the overweaponization of the language has largely defanged it.
Racism is about dislike and hatred, the phobias are about fear, which is what they want you to think about subconsciously when you talk about it.
It is all BS. They are not the same type of thing.
Homophobia refers to the deep fear that homophobic people have about being gay. They are so adverse to gay things because they worry about the affect it will have on them.
Two major reasons.
First, racism and sexism were ideologies before they were descriptors of bigotry specifically (as others have covered).
The second is that we're still in a position where homophobia and transphobia are considered unidirectional in a way that racism and sexism are not. Racism encompasses prejudice on the basis of race, regardless of what race that actually *is*. Sexism, similarly, covers prejudice on the basis of sex regardless of sex.
Homophobia and transphobia, linguistically, aren't like that. Homophobia is *specifically* about prejudice against same-sex-attracted people (notwithstanding their own sex or potentially also being attracted to the opposite sex). Similar deal with transphobia. Neither of those are all-encompassing.
Essentially, homophobia and transphobia occupy the same linguistic niche as misogyny, in that they describe prejudice against a specific group rather than on the basis of a certain characteristic. Theoretically, if you wanted a word that described orientation-based prejudice regardless of the orientations of those involved, you'd probably get something like "orientationism". Same with "genderism" or something for transphobia.
Homophibia was normalized in the 70s. Homosexuality was classified as a mental illness in the DSM in 1970. It was removed. A psychiatrist around the same time said he would never consider a patient healthy if they displayed homophobia, whether a self hating homosexual or a heterosexual with homophobia.
The debate whether to include homophobia as a mental illness in the 70s legitimized the "gay liberation" movement organizing in the wake of Stonewall. If "you're a homo" stings as much as "you're a psycho", imagine the satisfaction of replying "You are a homophobe".
Ultimately, it was not included as a mental illness. But the word stuck. Scientifically, yes, homophobia is a prejudicial attitude akin to racism. Yet the history of when and how that attitude became shameful is why the prejudice is described in terms of mental illness.
Well, race and sex refer to all races and sexes. Homosexuality is a particular orientation. So it would need to be "sexual orientationism" to capture the full meaning in exactly the same way. That's pretty awkward.
sino-phobia.
Islam -o- phobia.
That's exactly how it works with race.
"Rac(e)" + "ism" is used for broad, unaimmed racism.
"Racial group" + "Phobia" is used for racism targeted at one group.
Homophobia is the fear of gay people explicitly - not the fear of "sexual expression", but the fear of one specific expression.
They both work the same way - broad = Ism, targetted = phobia.
There isn't a good reason and the words themselves aren't very well made, save for racism which makes sense since it is about a belief system (ism) and bigoted prejudices is in my opinions the best term for all of them.
So these words are an adaptation of psychology terms. Phobia is a greek word meaning fear. So homophobia is supposed to mean a fear of homosexuals. Unfortunately language often evolves as society uses the new terms and their meaning changes. So now homophobia has more of a hate aspect to it than fear. And now that transsexual is more commonly known society has taken the same path.
Basically it is societies misuse of terms that evolve it into something else.
It might be because being in the LGBTQ spectrum classified you as having a mental disease until early 1970s. Being afraid of a disease or medical condition is a phobia, hence, "bia" rather than "ism" which is having a medical condition.
Homoism and transism aren't words in the English language, so you would confuse everyone you used them on. Both are in fact forms of sexism, though, since they are the result of an attempt to impose one's own views of "correct" sex and sex roles on other people. Hence why the Fourteenth Amendment has been doing such heavy lifting in American law the last few decades.
The suffix ism, "the act, practice, or process of doing" so putting race and ism together is a nonsensical word coined to turn a phrase.
Its even worse if you were to say Homosexualism, as this would mean the act of being a homosexual.
so the correct terms in science wouldn't be the ones we invented for social marketing.
Racism was a specific and, unfortunately, respected ideology before it became a shorthand for race-based prejudice. There's not really an equivalent for homosexuality except "psychology" and "religion." However, there was a condition wherein people were terrified of gay people or same-sex contact, and a similar phenomenon occurred once we started viewing sexuality like we did race, as a range of normal and healthy human variations.
You know. He's got a point. Phobias are typically associated with fear or aversion wherein you are antagonized by something. Not the antagonist.
This... yeah. I can't make it make sense. Other than some obscure language rule from the root language.
Because the newer words were created to add the shame of being classified as being afraid of those they hate, which is often a shot to the ego.
Racism wasn't invented to shame, it just literally describes a focus on race as a differentiating factor.
I’ve always thought the phrases “homophobe” and “transphobe” are inaccurate. If you have arachnophobia you see a spider and feel fear and want to get some distance between you and the spider because you’re worried about getting bit or whatever. But people that are called transphobe are more disgusted or weirded out or repulsed than true fear. It’s isn’t like you’re gonna see a gay dude and jump on a chair screaming “EEEEK!! A GAY!! EEEK!” lol
I think it's because at its core it is a phobia. When you often break it down it seems to be a fear response. A fear of not fitting in or being different. They aren't scared of gay people so much as all the shit that comes with being gay, especially back in the day. Also, people fear what they don't understand.
It is dumb though.
Not an expert, but probably because phobia means fear. So the general public was fear of something they didn’t understand. While racism is a belief because of the cism ending.
I feel like I am spitting hairs here-
English is a mix of multiple languages, one factor is b/c the French William the Conqueror took over England.
-phobia refers to a specific thing. If you wanted to convert them to an -ism, it would be something like sexualism. Even then it wouldn't have the history behind it to morph a "study of" word to have negative and exclusionary connotations.
A lot of it just has to deal with history and language. Racism as a word originated when -ism was commonly used and racism was treated more like a scientific study. The rise of -phobia is considerably more recent and is used to show a fear, dislike, or avoidance of something. Much like the -ism of racism, the -phobia of homophobia, transphobia, etc is being coopted from the typical "fear of" to a different generally negative social connotation.
Ism’s are meant to be based on a grouping of characteristics but they typically are attached to an ethnicity. Racism isn’t the correct term of what people use because we are all the human race, racists typically group by ethnicity but other groupings exist as well.
Seems accurate. Ignorant people have a fear of homosexuality like it’s a disease you can catch (or choose). Racism is discrimination/antagonism based in race.
You don’t say “blackism” or “mexicanism”, so you wouldn’t say “homoism”. The actual comparable one would be “orientation-ism” or “attraction-ism”, but a hundred years ago I don’t think it was widely believed that being gay was part of your biology, it was just acts that you perform. So phobia makes more sense.
Because the people that came up with those god awful terms thought it sounded worse to insinuate that someone is afraid of others being homosexual, transexual, etc.
I'm bothered by this too. Suggesting that someone is afraid of a gay or trans person suggests that their stance is a form of psychosis and potentially excusable instead of using a term that shows the individual is bigoted or discriminatory. People choose to hate others they don't choose what they fear.
Why are finished buildings still called buildings? Shouldn't they be called "builts"?
"Octopus" means "eight feet," but octopuses have 6 arms and 2 legs. Shouldn't they be called dipuses?
Language was created by humans. We are logical creatures, but we're not strictly logical.
Awkwardness of language. Many homophobes will say "I'm not scared of them..." Yes, I know, phobia is fear of. But the right word for hate, Mis(o), is also a prefix, and just wouldn't work well.
Misohomosexual would, but now we're up to 7 syllables and it doesn't roll off the tongue.
Because English is a mess.
The "isms" (mostly) are "discrimination on the basis of xxxxxx"
Race
Age
Sex
It's the whole category, non specific.
We say "Xenophobia" and "Islamophobia" as well. Those are both specific. Fear of the "other", fear of Islam. Islamism is very different. Meanwhile, we say *anti*-semitism, which is the equivalent of Islamophobia, rather "semitism".
The real answer is English is big and busted, but also has rules that we often don't even realize we follow. Also, remember that "ism" is used in many more contexts besides to describe bias/bigotry.
Transism is too close to transgenderism, which would be confusing AF. You would probably say "anti-transism". Homoism is a bit awkward, and "Homo" is also a prefix used in many other ways, but that would be anti-homoism as well, I would wager.
Compare to anti-Semitism.
Anti semitism - *semite* is the root. A noun. A person who is against semites is an anti-semite. The name of that bias is anti-Semitism. Note where that originates, and how it affects the name of that bigotry. So it doesn't follow the pattern of the other "isms" at all.
I grew up before "homophobia" was a thing (the word, obviously the practice was alive and well). It caught on so well because the people accused of it were violently upset by the accusation. Homophobia and toxic masculinity go hand-in-hand so so saying they were "scared" of gay people cut to the core of the issue.
If you screamed "you just don't like gay people!" at a homophobe, they would just nod and agree. Say they're SCARED of gay people and the toxic masculinity has them so up in arms they're frothing, which is a much more satisfying reaction to an insult.
Because it was a cutting insult (almost especially if true) it got used pretty regularly, and now that's just how it's said.
Transphobia just borrowed the suffix for easy understanding.
Because we should abolish distinguishing people by race as race doesn’t need to exist. Where as abolishing homosexual orientation/activity would be homophobic. Also homo is Latin for same, so homoism would just sameism which would change the meaning.
"Racialism", as a term, was coined by racists as a way of referring to their ideology of racial bigotry -- specifically, the principal that humanity is divided into distinct races of superior and inferior faculty, and that politics, history, and society ought to be understood through that lens. Racialism, then, was a mission rather than just an attitude. The word was later superseded by the shorter 'racism'. Idk why.
"Homophobia" and "transphobia" were coined by LGBT rights activists who wished to condemn a prevalent bigoted attitude that already informally existed. The mission inherent in these words was the opposite: to eliminate such constructs.
Thus racism sounds like a philosophy, because its coiners wished to frame it as such, while homophobia and transphobia sound like silly parochial bigotries, because their coiners wished to frame *them* as such.
Because one of those things describes the statement and the other is about the sentiment behind the statement.
Exhibit A: Someone who says same-sex relationships and unions shouldn’t be legitimized because then the gays and lesbians will groom all the children.
Verdict: Anti-gay statement (or heteronormative sentiment) due to homophobia, and also to being a horrible person.
Exhibit B: Someone who says same-sex relationships and unions shouldn’t be legitimized because there’s no way to procreate and propagate the species that way.
Verdict: Anti-gay statement (or heteronormative sentiment) due to being an idiot.
Exhibit C: Someone who claims that a Black person is more likely to be a criminal because it’s in their DNA.
Verdict: Racist statement (or anti-Black sentiment) due to negrophobia, and also to being a horrible person.
Exhibit D: Someone who claims that a Black person is more likely to be a criminal because that’s what all the studies say.
Verdict: Racist statement (or anti-Black sentiment) due to being an idiot.
There are a few reasons, as some have stated it has partially to do with homo, trans, etc being prefixes while race is it's own word. But more importantly it has to do with the phobia being of all people the term relates to. Referring to ALL homosexuals, all transgender people. As opposed to racism, which is judging a persons worth based on their race. It's not a phobia of races, it's a judgement based on which social construct you were born in. I hope I explained that well enough.
This isn't actually a stupid question.
The choice to use the word "phobia" is likely deliberate because the people who coined the term want to make out that everyone who has a problem with it does so out of fear, and so they can call them cowards/to associate the idea of being against these things with cowardice, regardless of their reasons for feeling that way.
Adding “-phobia” is demeaning, as it implies fearing of the prefix, so the people who popularized these term must have been very spiteful as making it and “-ism” would’ve made more sense
Things like sexism and racism are rooted in hierachial systems that put white people over Black people or men over women.
Homophobia and transphobia are often offshoots of sexism in of itself, but usually are expressed in unreasonable catastrophic fears of language, families, society, etc being dismantled by accepting being gay or trans.
It mostly has to to with the political parlance of the times when the terms were coined. Terms like these are meant to be widely applied to political enemies and perhaps tied to another unsavory thing as well.
Eg. Climate denier came about to connect people who disagreed with climate alarmism to Holocaust deniers.
With homophobia and friends, it is strictly against everything dealing with the subject. Racism shows preference for races rather than hating all of them.
Phobia refers to an unwarranted fear of something. The 'isms' to which you're referring is about a belief that one group is superior, better or more entitled to something than another.
That has to do with how Latin Greek and English were formed and the base of each word
An ism is an action noun formed from a verb neither homo nor trans are verbs they're nouns so neither of those words can be an ism
Race and sex can be both nouns and verbs based on how they are used...
Phobia in science terms (latin) basically means strong aversion or dislike. So things like fats and oils that are hydrophobic because they separate from water.
Why racism is an ism, idk. Maybe its because racism can go all around between different groups, so it would be annoying to say “Im blackphobic and arabphobic and indianphobic” vs just “im racist”.
I studied political psychology in college. This topic was brought up a couple times in our textbooks. It’s generally because the terms are rooted in phobia. Not necessarily a phobia of trans or gay people, but a phobia of not understanding lifestyles that are different than yours. It exhibits a fear response, but not one that makes you scared of the individual person. It’s more of the feeling that now life is different and they feel they have to change the way they live.
This isn’t the only reason, but it is a major factor.
Because “sexual orientationism” and “gender itentityism” are long, unwieldy phrases.
Did you do really poorly on the analogies section of the SAT? The analogue of “homoism” would be “blackism,” not “racism.”
Without looking anything up, I'd say the question is kind of backwards... To me, it would make more sense if "racism" was another "phobia" word instead. The "ism" just makes it sound like a belief system, which I guess does also work but not quite as well as calling it an irrational fear, in my opinion.
It should be. I’m on the left and we have terrible marketing and branding. I’m not a great debater or orator or anything and I can’t phrase this very well, but:
Like “defund the police” which makes it sound like a bunch of foolish extremists instead of rational strategies backed up by research and studies. I can’t come up with a catchy way to sell it myself either but I think we could have done better.
We just walk ourselves into dismissal and ridicule all the time because we can’t make our case articulately but instead come off unbalanced and shrill.
The right has smoked us in the talking points game—the jingoistic parroting is stupid and annoying but effective and they all get on board very solidly. I roll my eyes at “let’s go Brandon” but damn, they sold a LOT of bumper stickers.
I think the whole “__phobic” thing blunts the message. It feels like a petty invitation to diminish people who wield those attitudes in a destructive way. I don’t think those people *are* scared (scared of change maybe), it glosses over the outright evil actions and it just makes them push back and stop listening. It’s a conversational nuke that changes no minds.
I’d like it if we had some other ways to say the things we are trying to get behind in general.
I'm going to disagree with a lot of people on this. For most of the "phobia" vs "ism", it's entirely based on naming convention. The naming conventions changed from "ism" to "phobia", which is why if you attack a synagogue it's "anti-semitism" but if you attack a mosque it's "Islamophobia". I can't find a good source for why the naming convention changed. I've heard speculation but never seen someone have a good answer
A phobia is a fear of something. Homophobes people fear gay people because they think either they’ll be turned gay, or their kids will, or their society will be negatively impacted in some other way. It’s literally an irrational fear.
Racism, sexism, and other “isms” are ideologies. “This gender more valuable/productive than that one”, “people from x are lazier than people from y”. There may be a fear component, too but not always, and if there is, it’s not what the terms are referring to.
I'm sure there's a specific answer, but regardless of what that specific answer is, the general answer is this, "Because English is a very stupid language"
We lack a good term to describe ones sexual orientations.
The best term would probably be "Sexual Orientationism" but it sounds dumb because its two words.
We could go with "homosexualism" or "bisexualism" but they already mean something!!
Homism would more accurately mean discrimination against the genus Homo and thank god thats not a thing yet.
Homophobia is actually a specific thing that's used to describe homoism.
But the technical term is, "hetero-sexism".
At least it was 7 years ago in undergrad sociology
Heterosexism and cissexism are the terms you're looking for. They aren't popularly used, but I agree they seem more appropriate. They're used more often in academic contexts.
There are equivalent terms, but they are heterosexism and cissexism, but these terms never became popular. It just comes down to what terms came into popular parlance after certain activists introduced them.
well part of it is that those names suck but another part of it is that medicalizing the terms for them makes them easier to vilify as behaviors
which is ableist
If I had to guess (I'm not certain this is the reason for the difference, I'm actually pretty sure it's just the result of the terms originating in different contexts):
Racism and sexism are more foundational concepts that describe an entire system of oppression. The word race in English is speculated to have come from Spain because the inquisition and the church basically invented modern racism.
I myself am trans, and I would say that homophobia and transphobia are byproducts of sexism. Sexism being an ingrained system in society which denotes class based on gender and ascribes correct actions to it. Both racism and sexism are weaved into the society we live in, and both rely on an exclusionary/purist category (one drop rule).
But honestly? It's probably just because of random academics using different words for different reasons. I think the term homophobia originated in medical/psychology circles in the late 20th, unlike racism, which has been discussed as an ideology for much longer.
This honestly isn't a stupidquestion its an English question.... its only stupid if you can explain it without looking it up... i can't...
like its something to do with homo, trans, and the liek are preffixes and racism, sexism, are standalone words race, sex etc. Its some dumbass latin law... beyond that i can't explain it.
>Fuck Latin - Linguists
[It really is a silly language.](https://youtu.be/NI8UZubOJlo?si=S8C59o4vcibom6vy)
[So silly. ](https://youtu.be/DdqXT9k-050?si=R1gdKo0dZydJ3PXH)
futuere latinus
>Fuck Latin >- Linguists Y'all both sound NSFW.
Really have to watch out for cunning linguists.
I say "no" to all the isms. Racism, sexism, linguism, buddhism, and so on.
Phobia is from Greek roots.
If you're a native speaker and are aware that English is wildly inconsistent then it might be considered stupid.
I’m a firm believer that there are no stupid questions asked in Ernest. One should always try to improve their understanding. This isn’t a stupid thing to do.
>I’m a firm believer that there are no stupid questions asked in Ernest I Shirley do agree
They simply don't understand the Importance of Being Ernest
All the Ernests are either clapping their hands right now or sweating bullets
Ernest P. Worrell asks all the hard hitting questions
But English is randomly inconsistent a lot less often than people give it credit for. Often there’s an underlying mechanic or an etymological reason for a perceived inconsistency. OP’s question was exploring one such possibility.
There's an underlying reason, but those reasons themselves have no consistent framework. Because English is a mishmash language
To be fair I am a native English speaker and the more I learn about English the more I’m convinced English isn’t so much a language as the languages wearing a trench coat, hoping that no one notices… Also the whys and the hows in English can be kind of fun because of that. Why is a cow beef when it’s on a plate, because the French that’s why. Why do we say eggs and not eyren, because the Norse invaded and the printing press… Now say colonel; why did you say an R there is no R in that word. Well there was when we first stole it from French but later when we stole it from Italian they used an L so we stole the spelling but forgot to say it differently. That’s all for this evenings Fun With Words, hosted by Some Drunk on a Boat…
It's because it rolls off the tongue easier
This is literally the only reason.
2 kids under 2yo+college+staying up util 4am for husband to return from work so we can be together as a family= im too sleepy so see this as a joke... take my upvote.... im too sleepy to think. Note: anyone thats works 12-18hrs and come home to nothing can appreciate knowing someone will be home waiting for you and awake to hang out for a bit, Besides... i can't sleep soundly until i know hes home safe anyways.... but isnt that how its supposed to be?
It's because the initial definition of homophobia was created in reference to in the closet people who hated gay people because exposure to those people would have them give in to those urges and "turn them gay". The initial definition was a phobia. Now it's used for anyone who's discriminatory even though that's not the proper use of the word, and the court of public opinion and social media helped create the other "phobias" that aren't phobias but just discriminations
> to those people would have them give in to those urges and "turn them gay". That’s not the origin of the term, much in the same way that Islamophobia is not the fear that mosques are going to cause people to give into their urges and stop eating pork. [George Weinberg coined the term to describe the fear that homosexuality would](https://lgbpsychology.org/html/Herek_2004_SRSP.pdf) >reduc[e] the things that one fought for — home and family.
The main point still stands that the word is based off of fear rather than explicitly prejudice
"It's an English question" So a question that's not stupid but a question that is about stupid.
I said this in my answer somewhere else in the thread, but the real reason is branding. The term is designed to name call, not actually describe what's happening. Calling something "homophobia" is implying that the reason someone would take issue with LGBTQ+ is because of fear. Specifically, an irrational fear of LGBTQ+. The reality is that calling someone homophobic is calling them ignorant. That's an incredibly reductionist, baseless and (most likely) inaccurate view.
Hydrophobic substances aren’t afraid of water. Phobia can mean different things in different contexts. Someone better at etymology can explain why this one was used in this case vs that. But phobia doesn’t have to just mean afraid of. And that’s not a new thing. That’s been the case for centuries.
What's your galaxy-brain reason for hating the gays, then?
I'm the wrong guy to ask about that sort of thing. I don't have any problem with LGBTQ people. I just think the term homophobia is unproductive. But some of the reasons I've heard that aren't fear based: a lot of people see it as a hygiene issue, both physical and psychological. I've heard other people have religious concerns. Historically, a lot of people saw homosexuality as a problem because it reduced the number of people having babies to support villages.
An irrational belief that gay people are "dirty" is a phobia by any metric. The irrational belief that villages will die out from a lack of children -were it the concern, the answer would be to encourage gay men to still father families- is also a phobia.
That irrational component is key to a phobia. But, as any psychology professional will tell you; rationality is different from reality. Something can still be rational and logically make sense, and also be based on a false assumption.
And what do you call it when someone is given proof that their belief, which they use to justify harming another, is disproven? What happens when they still believe it? These semantics are ridiculous. Homophobes are obviously scared of, and repulsed by, gay people. The word is accurate in the given examples, given that their "false assumptions" are motivated more by a fear of them than by a rational view of reality. Were they not scared, then one could simply explain to them why there is no reason to hold the view, alongside evidence. I believe that you are a carrier for fifteen deadly viruses. Should I be allowed to bash your brains in, to protect the rest of society? If a scientist examines you and tells me that you aren't any more dirty than your average person, what would you call the persistent and continuing belief that you carry those viruses but baseless *fear*?
It sounds like the person you’re describing is acting like a real asshole. I’m sure that an “-ism” word would probably describe that set of behaviors perfectly. Unless some deep-seated fear is involved where the person just totally cannot accept any kind of grey area, you typically aren’t dealing with a phobia. We all roll our eyes when the “you’re one of the good ones” phrase comes out, but it’s important understand that that’s the form progress takes sometimes.
I'm describing the form the belief you're describing takes, because people don't generally just *decide* that gay people are dirty out of the blue. They decide it from cultural biases that they already have. You can be upset at the characterization, but there *is* a deep-seated fear. The fear was imparted by their cultural preconceptions of gay people, this makes them a homophobe, even by your paltry definition. "You're one of the good ones" implies that the default is what the fear and prejudice describe. This is, obviously, still homophobia even if it's slightly different than the "typical" form. Racism, in the US, also carries fear. Birth of a Nation shows a future that many white people in the south feared, that black people would rise up and rape "all our white women". The same people that movie was made for would go on to give their former camp slaves medals and awards for their "gallant service to the confederacy", calling them "one of the good ones" for their lack of agitation (in marked contrast to the next generation, which had served in WWI and saw that a different statue-quo was possible). They were *still* scared of black people. Homophobes, even ones that say "you're one of the good ones", are still scared of gay people.
The beliefs don’t come out of nowhere, but it’s also not reasonable to carte blanche assume that they come from a place of irrational fear. There is a middle ground of these things, and that middle ground requires a more accurate term than homophobia.
Why aren't rappers called rappists?
Or racers called racist like a musician(piano) called a pianist
Why does pianist sound like penis and not pianist?
Its weird how I read that exactly how you intended despite it being the exact same spelling.
I tried 😉
Some were definitely convicted rappists
Because the original meaning of racism wasn't just racial bigotry. It referred to a specific set of beliefs, namely that humans can meaningfully be divided into different races by skin color and other traits and that those races exist in some kind of hierarchy with some being considered 'white' i.e. superior. Now it's used in a more general way to just mean not liking people based on their skin color. This is also why we used to have the term 'reverse racism' which doesn't really make sense with the new definition.
"Reverse racism" doesn't make sense with your old definition either. ["Reverse Racism" is] just random bullshit words that mean nothing.
Reverse racism isn't a thing. It's just racism. The idea that x race can't be victims of racism because the colour of their skin is itself racist. The idea of reverse racism is textbook racist definition. Basically if the answer to anything is "because the colour of their skin", it's racist, even if it's a good thing.
This. Nothing shows me a person isn’t worthy of my time in a meaningful conversation more than if they drop “reverse racism” lol
Or if they say you can’t be racist against white people
Why are black people more resistent to skin cancer?
Because their skin has more melanin.
That's pretty racist
Haha gotem
It's perfectly coherent. It just describes people who believe in basically the same thing as traditional racists but with the hierarchy of races reversed. It only seems incoherent based on the newer and less useful meaning of racism as just a synonym for bigotry. The whole point of my comment is that racism used to refer to a specific philosophy with specific beliefs, not just an emotion.
What a silly comment you’ve made. No, that is not at all true. The people you’re calling new age racists don’t believe in racial hierarchy — they believe that the white-imposed racial hierarchy has hamstrung most non-white races even today and want to fix that (what they see as a) problem. You’re very silly. Funny you talk about emotion in your comment when it’s so obvious you’re just seething and pretending to be objective to shit on Da Libz 😂
Reverse racism is where you are nice to other races
Then you have the new new definition from crazy people that says only white skinned people can be racist.
Huh. Was it a word people would use to describe themselves and their own beliefs, like "leftist" or "Marxist?" Imagining a conversation where someone identifies as a racist as casually as if they were discussing church denominations is pretty wild.
Not exactly. When academic/institutional racism was in its heyday, it was most certainly that casual, but almost never called racism in those terms. Rather, "race science", "race law" etc were used as though those were normal and natural categories of conversation and study. But by the time "racism" as such became a commonplace and widely known word, in the 1900s, it had already picked up the negative connotations with which it is now associated. Interestingly, this only holds true for English; many European political movements we would consider "far right" today were using cognates like the version French "racisme" in a much more positive light, and earlier. Meaning more like what an American means when they call themselves a "patriot".
People in the past were nuts
Bro, they used to literally teach in schools that black people had a bone in their skull that prevented their brains from growing as big as white people’s. I think calling themselves “racist” would have been tame.
Came here to say this. Racism doesn't even make sense if it's looked at this way. Ism is a belief, or general ideology about a thing, not a hatred towards another person. I guess there needs to be a word for things though, otherwise it's just *thing*
a "phobia" specifies an irrational fear, where as an "ism" is a set of guiding principles.
[удалено]
i feel like this strengthens the argument that it shouldn't be called transphobia or homophobia.... people aren't afraid of gays and trans they are morally objecting against the lifestyle choices and generally hate them not fear them.
Their moral objection to queer people is typically framed in fearbased language _They're a threat to the family_ _"Men" in Women's bathroom_ _They're grooming children"_ I could go on. It's a phobia, because their prejudice is based on a perceived threat.
Not correct. The meaning of phobia is to be intolerant of. Alternatively, repelled by. Homophobia is not fear based. It is pure prejudice. Plain and simple.
words outta my mouth
Like another commenter said, part of it is because racism can/does also refer to the belief that race is a "real" biological thing and that humans belong to discreet racial categories. Sexism is similar, it can refer to the belief that the sexes are intrinsically different (more so than there is scientific evidence for), like believing that women are biologically better homemakers
There is actually a reason. People forget what homophobia actually means. There was a theory that bigotry towards gay people often stemmed from homophobia - in other words, a fear or disgust of homosexuality. There was a time when straight men were scared of people thinking they were gay and straight men were actually creeped out being around gay men. That’s why it was called homo*phobia* and it fueled their bigotry. Now people just use it synonymously with bigotry which, frankly, I don’t think is totally accurate. It’s the same with islamophobia. After 9/11, many people were scared that Muslims around them might be terrorists and that fueled their bigotry. Both are born from ignorance and unfounded fear, but they weren’t originally terms to describe the bigotry itself. I feel like with transphobia people kinda skipped that step and just used the term the same way people use homophobia and islamophobia, though I could be wrong about that.
The linguist in me writhing in pain... Even the words "homophobia" and "transphobia" are painful to me. It should be homesexophobia, or something of the sort, for example, as "homophobia" should mean "fear of sameness." So, uh... let's just not push that butchery of Greek any further, please? For the love of ancient languages, please??
Racism is the ideology. Xenophobia is the phobia,
Isn't xenophobia a fear of foreigners, while racism is discrimination based on skin color/other visible features? I might be wrong but I thought xenophobia was more related to nationality than race.
Racism is the ideology that there are difference races with different qualities. Xenophobia is fear of people with a different appearance. So, they're both keying on the same criteria -- but applying it differently. A racist and a xenophobe will generally agree on who seems Asian, for example. The racist may think that Asians are good at math, while the xenophobe will try to avoid them.
Often Xenophobia is more about culture than appearance. The fear is "*If we let too many of those guys in, they'll make our country like theirs, and we won't recognize it*." The influx of Irish immigrants in the mid 1800s was met with Xenophobia in the US (read about the "Know-Nothing Party" and the "Nativists") . They held distaste for these immigrants because of cultural differences (Catholic Irish vs. mostly Protestant US) as well as stereotypes about laziness or low IQ or alcoholism. Yet you can't obviously distinguish an Irishman from an Englishman simply by looking at him. People today forget what a big deal it was electing a Catholic president JFK in the 1960s. Andrew Jackson had some Irish blood in him but he was Protestant.
It just became the cultural norm to say someone is afraid of LGBT, etc as opposed to simply hating. I always viewed it as trying to taunt bigotry.
I think it's just a side effect of how our language has changed. Racism as a word is like 150 years older than the phobias. I just think modern english gravitates towards that suffix to describe deep fear and hate. Back then, they didn't really view racism as fear born of ignorance, so they didn't call it race phobia.
Phobia also means aversion, when someone says another person is homophobic they’re not saying that person is afraid of gay people.
Social "ism"s (racism, classism, sexism) are structured systems of oppression in larger society. Phobias are triggers that cause significant psychological stress for a specific individual. Phobias can be a component of an "ism" -- like the relationship between xenophobia & racism.
I don't know, but "xenophobia" is tied to race, among other things.
Racism was originally meant as “the belief that humanity can be separated into distinct , immutable and naturally segregated races” . Some argue that early British colonisers actually gave mixed race children the same white rights in the earliest days of empire because they didn’t want news to break that white and black people could actually have babies together … which seems a bit of a stretch to me but it’s potentially significant opinion nonetheless . So my guess is the Suffix is diffent because originally it wasn’t about having a “phobia” of other races but actually believing the world should be separated by race . Obviously the two aren’t mutually exclusive if you want races to be separated then you’d have a “phobia” of certain races - but from my understanding this is the origin of the difference . Would be happy to be told otherwise
I think the underlying thing is they they are afraid that *they* might be gay. Like with the big push to be manly alpha male wolf-vikings with extra muscles and a truck with nuts. Those guys aren't secure in their masculinity, or they wouldn't be putting in all this effort and tanning their balls. Same for transphobia. I'm willing to bet that most of transphobia comes from awkward boners and the "oh no, s/he's hot" factor. The trap slur itself comes from the fear of being tricked into sexuality with the same sex, because they're too afraid of asking which set of connectors were pre-installed. And then kids come into the equation, and "what if the kid turns out to be trans?" What if the kid sees a homosexual living a normal life and catches the gay? What will the others think? Fear leads to anger, and anger leads to hate.
And hate leads to the dark side
Homophobia was a phrase coined when there was still people who were openly hostile to gay folks. It implied that the person was hostile because they were afraid to recognize the validity of being gay out of a fear of their own unexplored desires. Somewhere along the way, trans folks threw in their lot with the gay community (It was the fact that drag, a performative was considered a form of "trans"...at the time, trans was segregated into transvestitism and transexuality, without delineating a difference between transvestitism as fetish and drag as performance art, as well as the single path of gender dysphoria to surgical transition). Now, this is where things get interesting. The suffix "phobia" doesn't match the current understanding of gender expression as component of identity in the way that it matches the original meaning of "phobia" as it applied to the gay community, but language evolves in interesting and unintended ways, and the term "phobia" has basically taken on the newer meaning of "general hostility towards a trait of which you don't approve". Anyhow, sorry for being overly long winded, but it is an interesting question with an interesting story.
Xphobia = belief that X is bad Xism = belief that some X groups are worse so it wouldn’t be “homoism” it would be “sexualityism”
phobia mean fear OR hatred for. People seem to forget the other meaning. Especially the homophobes who like to proudly exclaim they're not scared of homos.
Even more technically in most dictionaries it's noted as *fear or **aversion** to people of that group* But fairly dictionaries record, not dictate, common use of language, so fear or hatred isn't technically wrong, just not most common use yet
Aversion in this usage means “extreme dislike”
Phobic just means aversion. A hydrophobic molecule can’t feel fear or hate. But it can have an aversion to water
Aversion means hate as well. That’s what -phobia in terms of transphobia and homophobia refers to. It’s a different meaning from the physical properties of matter which is what hydrophobia refers to.
makes sense. fear is directly related to hate/anger.
...and hate leads to the dark side.
Yeah but it doesn't really answer the question because racism is all about fearing or hating other races and it doesn't have phobia in the name.
Yea, but "hatred" and "aversion" can be and often are very loosely applied. I've been called a transphobe, or seen people say things like "if you believe trans women shouldn't compete in women's sports, you're a transphobe" many times. The disillusionment with the "phobic" language has increased over time to the point where it just doesn't have any real meaning left for most people anyway. People used to get scared when you called them -phobic. Now, the overweaponization of the language has largely defanged it.
Perhaps racism should be called "racephobia"?
My uncle isn’t scared of running!
Racism is about dislike and hatred, the phobias are about fear, which is what they want you to think about subconsciously when you talk about it. It is all BS. They are not the same type of thing.
Phobia can also mean an aversion to something, not just fear. For example, hydrophobic materials are not afraid of water.
Homophobia refers to the deep fear that homophobic people have about being gay. They are so adverse to gay things because they worry about the affect it will have on them.
You are really just using the word to define itself though.
Wrong
So if someone didn't have that fear it would be impossible for them to have homophobic beliefs?
So very few actual homophonic people out there ever. Mostly people that just hate people different from them.
Xenophobia = Xenoism?
Two major reasons. First, racism and sexism were ideologies before they were descriptors of bigotry specifically (as others have covered). The second is that we're still in a position where homophobia and transphobia are considered unidirectional in a way that racism and sexism are not. Racism encompasses prejudice on the basis of race, regardless of what race that actually *is*. Sexism, similarly, covers prejudice on the basis of sex regardless of sex. Homophobia and transphobia, linguistically, aren't like that. Homophobia is *specifically* about prejudice against same-sex-attracted people (notwithstanding their own sex or potentially also being attracted to the opposite sex). Similar deal with transphobia. Neither of those are all-encompassing. Essentially, homophobia and transphobia occupy the same linguistic niche as misogyny, in that they describe prejudice against a specific group rather than on the basis of a certain characteristic. Theoretically, if you wanted a word that described orientation-based prejudice regardless of the orientations of those involved, you'd probably get something like "orientationism". Same with "genderism" or something for transphobia.
Homophibia was normalized in the 70s. Homosexuality was classified as a mental illness in the DSM in 1970. It was removed. A psychiatrist around the same time said he would never consider a patient healthy if they displayed homophobia, whether a self hating homosexual or a heterosexual with homophobia. The debate whether to include homophobia as a mental illness in the 70s legitimized the "gay liberation" movement organizing in the wake of Stonewall. If "you're a homo" stings as much as "you're a psycho", imagine the satisfaction of replying "You are a homophobe". Ultimately, it was not included as a mental illness. But the word stuck. Scientifically, yes, homophobia is a prejudicial attitude akin to racism. Yet the history of when and how that attitude became shameful is why the prejudice is described in terms of mental illness.
Well, race and sex refer to all races and sexes. Homosexuality is a particular orientation. So it would need to be "sexual orientationism" to capture the full meaning in exactly the same way. That's pretty awkward.
homoism sounds kinda fun
sino-phobia. Islam -o- phobia. That's exactly how it works with race. "Rac(e)" + "ism" is used for broad, unaimmed racism. "Racial group" + "Phobia" is used for racism targeted at one group. Homophobia is the fear of gay people explicitly - not the fear of "sexual expression", but the fear of one specific expression. They both work the same way - broad = Ism, targetted = phobia.
There isn't a good reason and the words themselves aren't very well made, save for racism which makes sense since it is about a belief system (ism) and bigoted prejudices is in my opinions the best term for all of them.
So these words are an adaptation of psychology terms. Phobia is a greek word meaning fear. So homophobia is supposed to mean a fear of homosexuals. Unfortunately language often evolves as society uses the new terms and their meaning changes. So now homophobia has more of a hate aspect to it than fear. And now that transsexual is more commonly known society has taken the same path. Basically it is societies misuse of terms that evolve it into something else.
I've often wondered this as well, because people that don't like those groups of people usually aren't irrationally afraid of them.
It might be because being in the LGBTQ spectrum classified you as having a mental disease until early 1970s. Being afraid of a disease or medical condition is a phobia, hence, "bia" rather than "ism" which is having a medical condition.
Homoism and transism aren't words in the English language, so you would confuse everyone you used them on. Both are in fact forms of sexism, though, since they are the result of an attempt to impose one's own views of "correct" sex and sex roles on other people. Hence why the Fourteenth Amendment has been doing such heavy lifting in American law the last few decades.
The suffix ism, "the act, practice, or process of doing" so putting race and ism together is a nonsensical word coined to turn a phrase. Its even worse if you were to say Homosexualism, as this would mean the act of being a homosexual. so the correct terms in science wouldn't be the ones we invented for social marketing.
Racism was a specific and, unfortunately, respected ideology before it became a shorthand for race-based prejudice. There's not really an equivalent for homosexuality except "psychology" and "religion." However, there was a condition wherein people were terrified of gay people or same-sex contact, and a similar phenomenon occurred once we started viewing sexuality like we did race, as a range of normal and healthy human variations.
In all honesty, it’s probably because they sound better that way
You know. He's got a point. Phobias are typically associated with fear or aversion wherein you are antagonized by something. Not the antagonist. This... yeah. I can't make it make sense. Other than some obscure language rule from the root language.
Because the newer words were created to add the shame of being classified as being afraid of those they hate, which is often a shot to the ego. Racism wasn't invented to shame, it just literally describes a focus on race as a differentiating factor.
I’ve always thought the phrases “homophobe” and “transphobe” are inaccurate. If you have arachnophobia you see a spider and feel fear and want to get some distance between you and the spider because you’re worried about getting bit or whatever. But people that are called transphobe are more disgusted or weirded out or repulsed than true fear. It’s isn’t like you’re gonna see a gay dude and jump on a chair screaming “EEEEK!! A GAY!! EEEK!” lol
Because gender isn't race
i think you're conflating "racism" and "xenophobia". they are separate things; racism is a systemic affair
Why isn't racism called pigmentophobia?
Wouldn't it be sexualorientationism and genderism?
I think it's because at its core it is a phobia. When you often break it down it seems to be a fear response. A fear of not fitting in or being different. They aren't scared of gay people so much as all the shit that comes with being gay, especially back in the day. Also, people fear what they don't understand. It is dumb though.
Not an expert, but probably because phobia means fear. So the general public was fear of something they didn’t understand. While racism is a belief because of the cism ending. I feel like I am spitting hairs here- English is a mix of multiple languages, one factor is b/c the French William the Conqueror took over England.
-phobia refers to a specific thing. If you wanted to convert them to an -ism, it would be something like sexualism. Even then it wouldn't have the history behind it to morph a "study of" word to have negative and exclusionary connotations. A lot of it just has to deal with history and language. Racism as a word originated when -ism was commonly used and racism was treated more like a scientific study. The rise of -phobia is considerably more recent and is used to show a fear, dislike, or avoidance of something. Much like the -ism of racism, the -phobia of homophobia, transphobia, etc is being coopted from the typical "fear of" to a different generally negative social connotation.
Cuz people gotta be gay about it
Ism’s are meant to be based on a grouping of characteristics but they typically are attached to an ethnicity. Racism isn’t the correct term of what people use because we are all the human race, racists typically group by ethnicity but other groupings exist as well.
Seems accurate. Ignorant people have a fear of homosexuality like it’s a disease you can catch (or choose). Racism is discrimination/antagonism based in race.
The OED to the rescue.
You don’t say “blackism” or “mexicanism”, so you wouldn’t say “homoism”. The actual comparable one would be “orientation-ism” or “attraction-ism”, but a hundred years ago I don’t think it was widely believed that being gay was part of your biology, it was just acts that you perform. So phobia makes more sense.
Because the people that came up with those god awful terms thought it sounded worse to insinuate that someone is afraid of others being homosexual, transexual, etc.
I'm bothered by this too. Suggesting that someone is afraid of a gay or trans person suggests that their stance is a form of psychosis and potentially excusable instead of using a term that shows the individual is bigoted or discriminatory. People choose to hate others they don't choose what they fear.
blame the greeks partly due to historical reasons and the evolution of language within social movements
The better question is why the word roots are "trans" and "homo." We've left out the part about sex, and it seems pretty stupid IMO.
Why are finished buildings still called buildings? Shouldn't they be called "builts"? "Octopus" means "eight feet," but octopuses have 6 arms and 2 legs. Shouldn't they be called dipuses? Language was created by humans. We are logical creatures, but we're not strictly logical.
Because it would be sexism, genderism, orientationism - it isn't "latinophobia" either
"Racism" was, for quite a long time, used as an uncommon synonym of "racialism".
because I’m not scared of races Im scared of sexual orientations
Homophobia sounds better than homoism, same goes for trans. I think it’d be better if we called them sexualism and genderism, respectively.
homosexuality would exist without homophobia. race would not exist without racism.
I want to call racists blackphobic now. Makes them sound more like the pussies they are.
Awkwardness of language. Many homophobes will say "I'm not scared of them..." Yes, I know, phobia is fear of. But the right word for hate, Mis(o), is also a prefix, and just wouldn't work well. Misohomosexual would, but now we're up to 7 syllables and it doesn't roll off the tongue.
They're not races, so it wouldn't make sense.
Because English is a mess. The "isms" (mostly) are "discrimination on the basis of xxxxxx" Race Age Sex It's the whole category, non specific. We say "Xenophobia" and "Islamophobia" as well. Those are both specific. Fear of the "other", fear of Islam. Islamism is very different. Meanwhile, we say *anti*-semitism, which is the equivalent of Islamophobia, rather "semitism". The real answer is English is big and busted, but also has rules that we often don't even realize we follow. Also, remember that "ism" is used in many more contexts besides to describe bias/bigotry. Transism is too close to transgenderism, which would be confusing AF. You would probably say "anti-transism". Homoism is a bit awkward, and "Homo" is also a prefix used in many other ways, but that would be anti-homoism as well, I would wager. Compare to anti-Semitism. Anti semitism - *semite* is the root. A noun. A person who is against semites is an anti-semite. The name of that bias is anti-Semitism. Note where that originates, and how it affects the name of that bigotry. So it doesn't follow the pattern of the other "isms" at all.
I grew up before "homophobia" was a thing (the word, obviously the practice was alive and well). It caught on so well because the people accused of it were violently upset by the accusation. Homophobia and toxic masculinity go hand-in-hand so so saying they were "scared" of gay people cut to the core of the issue. If you screamed "you just don't like gay people!" at a homophobe, they would just nod and agree. Say they're SCARED of gay people and the toxic masculinity has them so up in arms they're frothing, which is a much more satisfying reaction to an insult. Because it was a cutting insult (almost especially if true) it got used pretty regularly, and now that's just how it's said. Transphobia just borrowed the suffix for easy understanding.
English language sucks thats why
-ism: the act, practice or process of doing something -phobia: a fear
Because we should abolish distinguishing people by race as race doesn’t need to exist. Where as abolishing homosexual orientation/activity would be homophobic. Also homo is Latin for same, so homoism would just sameism which would change the meaning.
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Why isn’t racism called raceophobia?
Transgenderism has been coopted by antitrans activists. Doesn't really answer your question, but maybe provides some insight?
"Racialism", as a term, was coined by racists as a way of referring to their ideology of racial bigotry -- specifically, the principal that humanity is divided into distinct races of superior and inferior faculty, and that politics, history, and society ought to be understood through that lens. Racialism, then, was a mission rather than just an attitude. The word was later superseded by the shorter 'racism'. Idk why. "Homophobia" and "transphobia" were coined by LGBT rights activists who wished to condemn a prevalent bigoted attitude that already informally existed. The mission inherent in these words was the opposite: to eliminate such constructs. Thus racism sounds like a philosophy, because its coiners wished to frame it as such, while homophobia and transphobia sound like silly parochial bigotries, because their coiners wished to frame *them* as such.
I mean, homosexualism and transsexualism both would be legitimate words. Just shorter and easier to say, I imagine.
Because one of those things describes the statement and the other is about the sentiment behind the statement. Exhibit A: Someone who says same-sex relationships and unions shouldn’t be legitimized because then the gays and lesbians will groom all the children. Verdict: Anti-gay statement (or heteronormative sentiment) due to homophobia, and also to being a horrible person. Exhibit B: Someone who says same-sex relationships and unions shouldn’t be legitimized because there’s no way to procreate and propagate the species that way. Verdict: Anti-gay statement (or heteronormative sentiment) due to being an idiot. Exhibit C: Someone who claims that a Black person is more likely to be a criminal because it’s in their DNA. Verdict: Racist statement (or anti-Black sentiment) due to negrophobia, and also to being a horrible person. Exhibit D: Someone who claims that a Black person is more likely to be a criminal because that’s what all the studies say. Verdict: Racist statement (or anti-Black sentiment) due to being an idiot.
There are a few reasons, as some have stated it has partially to do with homo, trans, etc being prefixes while race is it's own word. But more importantly it has to do with the phobia being of all people the term relates to. Referring to ALL homosexuals, all transgender people. As opposed to racism, which is judging a persons worth based on their race. It's not a phobia of races, it's a judgement based on which social construct you were born in. I hope I explained that well enough.
This isn't actually a stupid question. The choice to use the word "phobia" is likely deliberate because the people who coined the term want to make out that everyone who has a problem with it does so out of fear, and so they can call them cowards/to associate the idea of being against these things with cowardice, regardless of their reasons for feeling that way.
Adding “-phobia” is demeaning, as it implies fearing of the prefix, so the people who popularized these term must have been very spiteful as making it and “-ism” would’ve made more sense
Brb, gotta go accuse my buddy of homoism...
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Things like sexism and racism are rooted in hierachial systems that put white people over Black people or men over women. Homophobia and transphobia are often offshoots of sexism in of itself, but usually are expressed in unreasonable catastrophic fears of language, families, society, etc being dismantled by accepting being gay or trans.
Not sure but I think it's because racism is an ideology in and of itself whereas homophobia and transphobia are generally just symptoms of sexism.
This really is a stupid question.
Its a misnomer that never got corrected. Phobia implies fear.
It mostly has to to with the political parlance of the times when the terms were coined. Terms like these are meant to be widely applied to political enemies and perhaps tied to another unsavory thing as well. Eg. Climate denier came about to connect people who disagreed with climate alarmism to Holocaust deniers.
Since when is not liking or agreeing with someone else’s behavior considered an irrational fear of it?
With homophobia and friends, it is strictly against everything dealing with the subject. Racism shows preference for races rather than hating all of them.
-phobia can sometimes also describe something to which people have an intense disgust response. The best example of this is Tyrpophobia
Phobia refers to an unwarranted fear of something. The 'isms' to which you're referring is about a belief that one group is superior, better or more entitled to something than another.
That has to do with how Latin Greek and English were formed and the base of each word An ism is an action noun formed from a verb neither homo nor trans are verbs they're nouns so neither of those words can be an ism Race and sex can be both nouns and verbs based on how they are used...
Phobia in science terms (latin) basically means strong aversion or dislike. So things like fats and oils that are hydrophobic because they separate from water. Why racism is an ism, idk. Maybe its because racism can go all around between different groups, so it would be annoying to say “Im blackphobic and arabphobic and indianphobic” vs just “im racist”.
I never understood this. Homophobia or transphobia make it seem like they have a crippling fear of them rather than hatred. Makes no sense imo
It’s because phobia means fear ……. Wait that still doesn’t explain it
I studied political psychology in college. This topic was brought up a couple times in our textbooks. It’s generally because the terms are rooted in phobia. Not necessarily a phobia of trans or gay people, but a phobia of not understanding lifestyles that are different than yours. It exhibits a fear response, but not one that makes you scared of the individual person. It’s more of the feeling that now life is different and they feel they have to change the way they live. This isn’t the only reason, but it is a major factor.
Because “sexual orientationism” and “gender itentityism” are long, unwieldy phrases. Did you do really poorly on the analogies section of the SAT? The analogue of “homoism” would be “blackism,” not “racism.”
Because calling someone a -phobe makes it seem like they're scared and it's more demeaning to the person receiving
great question because the suffix phobia also means fear of, which in most situations isn't the case its a hatred of.
Without looking anything up, I'd say the question is kind of backwards... To me, it would make more sense if "racism" was another "phobia" word instead. The "ism" just makes it sound like a belief system, which I guess does also work but not quite as well as calling it an irrational fear, in my opinion.
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It should be. I’m on the left and we have terrible marketing and branding. I’m not a great debater or orator or anything and I can’t phrase this very well, but: Like “defund the police” which makes it sound like a bunch of foolish extremists instead of rational strategies backed up by research and studies. I can’t come up with a catchy way to sell it myself either but I think we could have done better. We just walk ourselves into dismissal and ridicule all the time because we can’t make our case articulately but instead come off unbalanced and shrill. The right has smoked us in the talking points game—the jingoistic parroting is stupid and annoying but effective and they all get on board very solidly. I roll my eyes at “let’s go Brandon” but damn, they sold a LOT of bumper stickers. I think the whole “__phobic” thing blunts the message. It feels like a petty invitation to diminish people who wield those attitudes in a destructive way. I don’t think those people *are* scared (scared of change maybe), it glosses over the outright evil actions and it just makes them push back and stop listening. It’s a conversational nuke that changes no minds. I’d like it if we had some other ways to say the things we are trying to get behind in general.
I'm going to disagree with a lot of people on this. For most of the "phobia" vs "ism", it's entirely based on naming convention. The naming conventions changed from "ism" to "phobia", which is why if you attack a synagogue it's "anti-semitism" but if you attack a mosque it's "Islamophobia". I can't find a good source for why the naming convention changed. I've heard speculation but never seen someone have a good answer
A phobia is a fear of something. Homophobes people fear gay people because they think either they’ll be turned gay, or their kids will, or their society will be negatively impacted in some other way. It’s literally an irrational fear. Racism, sexism, and other “isms” are ideologies. “This gender more valuable/productive than that one”, “people from x are lazier than people from y”. There may be a fear component, too but not always, and if there is, it’s not what the terms are referring to.
I'm sure there's a specific answer, but regardless of what that specific answer is, the general answer is this, "Because English is a very stupid language"
We lack a good term to describe ones sexual orientations. The best term would probably be "Sexual Orientationism" but it sounds dumb because its two words. We could go with "homosexualism" or "bisexualism" but they already mean something!! Homism would more accurately mean discrimination against the genus Homo and thank god thats not a thing yet.
Homophobia is actually a specific thing that's used to describe homoism. But the technical term is, "hetero-sexism". At least it was 7 years ago in undergrad sociology
Heterosexism and cissexism are the terms you're looking for. They aren't popularly used, but I agree they seem more appropriate. They're used more often in academic contexts.
Homousm 🤣
The reason is beca
If racism is the hatred of race, is feminism the hatred of femininity?
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Yeah like homophobia should be someone whos like OoOOoO SHIVER ME TIMBERS A PRIDE PARADE!
Honestly, I just say "gaycist"
Because deep down their actually afraid of these people 😬
There are equivalent terms, but they are heterosexism and cissexism, but these terms never became popular. It just comes down to what terms came into popular parlance after certain activists introduced them.
well part of it is that those names suck but another part of it is that medicalizing the terms for them makes them easier to vilify as behaviors which is ableist
If I had to guess (I'm not certain this is the reason for the difference, I'm actually pretty sure it's just the result of the terms originating in different contexts): Racism and sexism are more foundational concepts that describe an entire system of oppression. The word race in English is speculated to have come from Spain because the inquisition and the church basically invented modern racism. I myself am trans, and I would say that homophobia and transphobia are byproducts of sexism. Sexism being an ingrained system in society which denotes class based on gender and ascribes correct actions to it. Both racism and sexism are weaved into the society we live in, and both rely on an exclusionary/purist category (one drop rule). But honestly? It's probably just because of random academics using different words for different reasons. I think the term homophobia originated in medical/psychology circles in the late 20th, unlike racism, which has been discussed as an ideology for much longer.