I was not happy about it at first. It was several weeks ago when it happened. The word “homophobia” was casually in play within American conversations, playing its part, when YANK! Out of nowhere, timeout was called. It was out of the game.
No flags on the field, no deliberation with the coach or team owner. The Associate Press just blew the whistle on it .
The explanation was unsatisfying. “It’s just off the mark,” said AP deputy standards editor Dave Minthorn to Politico. “It’s ascribing a mental disability to someone and suggests a knowledge that we don’t have. It seems inaccurate. Instead, we would use something more neutral: antigay, or some such, if we had reason to believe that was the case.”
Many who use the word to describe the atrocities inflicted on LGBT people were not happy. On the Huffington Post, Michelangelo Signorile commented “Those who are anti-gay have been railing against the use of the word by journalists and others for years and are cheering the AP for banning it. This comes at a critical juncture in the gay rights movement, when anti-gay forces appear to be losing ground and are grasping for ways to gain it back.”
Blogger Kathleen Zottarelli stated, “I feel like it is giving a free pass to those that have an irrational fear and who go out and cause harm with hateful words and actions.”
Popular blogger and Mom, Amelia chose to ignore the game call all together (which is only right, Moms’ should be exempt from the AP), and wrote a spirited article about homophobia being active and in play now, and permanently enshrined in old kid’s movies. She observed, “How many of the other movies we were nostalgic about carry the same homophobic message hiding under the guise of comedy? And how harmful was this message to the gay kids trying to grow up around us? I’m sure it didn’t go unnoticed by them. Well, it’s a chance we won’t be taking again.” Amelia is one of the coolest people on the planet as far as this gay Dad is concerned, but you would not know that to read the commentary that attached itself to her “homophobia is alive” article. They took her to task for being everything from a “vapid PC revisionist crusader” to being “thin skinned” and a “non-relaxed parent”. (Now, there is a fantasy concept if I have ever heard one… please show me a truly “relaxed” parent…)
Meanwhile, in the other part of The-Words-We-Use-ville, Huffington Post editor Noah Michelson was under fire for a fun and frivolous article on the “Gayest Christmas Songs”. Apparently, many readers did not like the fabulous concept of “gay” and complained. Noah shot back with “Hey Queers, Lighten Up”. The word “gay” breathed a heavy sigh, it would still be permitted to carry the festive Christmas ball for seasons to come.
Still elsewhere, the de facto referees, The Associated Press, were acting like addicts in denial – still using the word they had unceremoniously exorcised from play just weeks before. They just could not help themselves.
It was really the noisy outcry that Mom Amelia received that made me stop and ponder. We parents are like that, you see. We watch as one of us is berated by non-parents, thank God that in this instance it was “not our kid” under scrutiny, and then resolve never to do that thing again ourselves. Except, in this case, it was not being a parent of kids being raked, but being a parent of words.
Am I sorry that “homophobia” has been yanked? At first I was, but now , I may have hit the “Acceptance” level of the Kubler-Ross process, and I am not. Here are the five reasons why:
5. I love the way it sounds. OK, I am not an idiot (and for those who disagree, please, no need to comment, I know you are out there.). I know that what is being discussed is the WORD “homophobia” and not the concept, but words have power. I LOVE writing “homophobia is gone”. The more I write it, the more I believe that not only will the word go away, but so will the concept. Maybe breaking the word is like breaking a bottle, the acid in it was real, but now it has a chance to soak into the earth and disappear. It is not editing free speech, it could be instead, eradicating the world of a hideous philosophy. That philosophy is true in the world today, but maybe by taking away its word, we can really and truly say, someday, “homophobia is gone”.
4. Focus on Wrong-doing Blinds Us to Right-doing . I have been arguing for gay rights for decades. Anti-gay arguments have shifted. They have morphed into new arguments, there has been education and new mythologies. The conversations have changed. I would suggest that for pro-gay people, the hiding behind the blanket word “homophobia” and tossing it out as a cover-all blanket harms us more than the people on which we disperse it. We see them all the same. We see the ignorance all the same. We see one irrational, crazy blob. By losing “the word”, maybe we will be forced to take a closer look to describe the anti-gay sentiments and we may have a chance to see where those sentiments have actually progressed. In seeing that, we then may be able to capitalize on it, and give it momentum to truly evolve into revelation.
3. We Need to Disempower Words. If the current environment where young people are committing suicide from bullying teaches us nothing it is that words HAVE power. That leaves us with two choices to ultimately bring healing and strength to the vulnerable: 1) control all the words ever said and make sure they are nice ones (a virtual impossibility) or 2) take power away from words. The true answer, obviously, is a combination of the two. We do need to watch what is said, and especially watch the torrent in which it is delivered. We need to diffuse the power that we have given certain letters and syllables strung together however. “But words can never hurt me” is unfortunately NOT true today, but we need to make it true. In terms of “homophobia”, we are being asked to say goodbye to a word and all the implied power we have given it. Maybe it is a good wake up call, and by letting this one go, we will be all the stronger for it.
2. We Need to Let Go in Order to Heal. We need to heal ourselves and each other to not cringe at every ignorant nuance and focus instead on the principles of life we know are true. For me, the word “queer” is a painful one. For others it is not, it is truthful and positive. I need to let my concept of it go, there is no harm intended, and in fact, my psyche could use the lesson. Holding onto my old concept and pain serves absolutely no useful purpose. By letting it go, I won’t forget to not harm others myself, I will just rise above the injury inflicted on me and relish my new health in life in doing so. I do not need to keep creating an entity out there known as “homophobia” like it is a general toxic cloud choking me. I can parse up the concept I am describing as ignorance, hatred, dogmatic fears, or many other specific things, and deal with those one by one.
The most important reason that I am not sorry that “homophobia” is dead is this:
1. Individuals Need to be Allowed Their Unique Faults. First, by assigning actions a pathology, we actually subtly excuse away bad behavior. “Homophobia made her do it”. Let’s stop making excuses and make the individuals accountable for what they say and act as if they don’t have an emotional disease or societal malaise. Second, generalizations are fodder for misperception. I don’t know about you but I cannot stand any statement that starts out “Gay men are….” . All that statement makes me want to do is shout “NO I am not…!” Generalizations are intellectually lazy and whether based in some truth or not, will only lead to error. In this case, all “homophobes” are not created equal. Every one of them is not similarly motivated by ignorance, pathology, religion, sense of reality or emotional damage. Some are motivated by feeling superior as heterosexual, some are motivated by actually being gay themselves and hating that they are. Who knows? I don’t. Just because many of them sound the same does not mean they are the same. Maybe in losing the single word that we have employed to categorize them all, we will be enticed to take a closer look and sort out the misinformed from the truly evil, the opportunists from the agendized. We need to stop focusing on who we think they are or might be, and focus instead on what they are doing and the harm they are causing. In confronting the individuals with diverging motives about their actions rather than their secret psyches, we have a better chance of dividing them and conquering.
So, again, to be clear, I fully understand that even if the use of the word is gone, and that is highly debatable in spite of the AP action, the concept that gave it reality is not. There are people who hate irrationally. And they hate us. They will not be stopped because we use a certain word to describe them. For us to realize that may mean that “homophobia” did not get taken from us in vain.
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I think most people are missing the real point and real power of this word shift. Homophobia is too gentle a word. At it’s core it makes the oppressor the victim. I mean, generally, how do we feel towards people who are afraid (phobic)? Most of us are protective or nurturing to the needs of someone who is fearful. And in this term the real victim (homo) becomes the oppressor. That connotation, I have felt, was ALWAYS wrong for the people that this word is supposed to describe. These people are not afraid — they’re ignorant and arrogant and sometimes violent. We are talking about hatred here.
I, too, prefer the term bigot but in the world of journalism, they sometimes, attempt to actually be unbiased. I think the term Anti-Gay is much more accurate and more to the point, it has a more negative connotation. Words do have power and the word “Anti” is clearly AGAINST. Maybe 20 years ago, Against Gays would have been a proud rallying cry for haters to get behind but in 2012, when a whole generation of young people is flummoxed that we’re even having to discuss gay marriage let alone fight for it, being Anti- (or against) gay, just shows your ignorance in a way that is much more palpable than the word homophobia could ever convey. Yes, homophobia had power and was a great tool back in its day, but its a new day and a new audience and all that needs to be done now is to imbue this new, more accurate term with the power of its TRUE meaning (get a few marketing hacks on this) for it to march forward, even more effectively than its predecessor. “Being homophobic is outdated. Being Anti-Gay is so 1950s — it’s like being Anti-Civil Rights or Anti-Equal Rights. Isn’t it about time we Upped the Ante on equal rights for all.”
I totally agree Vanessa. Accuracy to what the exact sentiment is at the time is far more effective than a blanket, potentially sympathetic sounding term. Thanks for your thoughts!
I understand that the AP has to at least give the appearance of objectivity, but I for one will continue using less neutral terms like “bigot.”
59 year old activist. You may be gay but have you ever heard of “internalized homophobia”?
You might want to look inward. We have fought to long to have some fool blogger join the AP. the AP was, and is, homophobic – they want to avoid the word? Fine, start with their writing rather than taking our strongest word away. Fools throw in with the homophobes. Thanks for nothing.
Thanks for the discussion, Moksha. I would be happy to discuss how you see welcoming the freedom from generalizing about anti-gay hate speech as having something to do with self-loathing.
I disagree that “homophobia” is “our strongest word”– and thinking that it is ignores the real power of the principles of equality that are, in my opinion, what takes precedent. I have found it more effective to deal with adversaries on the specific issues they have with homosexuality than the need to blanket them under a non-specific generalization.
I think generalizing about the AP is not productive, and I do think there is a viable discussion to be had about it. I think the issue there is more complex than an assumption that it is an agency of thousands of anti-gay writers. In the article, I did not praise their stance and pointed out their own hypocritical behavior, but would ascribe their less than sympathetic accounts (which were not a subject of this article) as coming from the misguided desire to appear “unbiased” even when it means that they don’t examine that the facts are only with one side of the argument .
Case in point, labeling them with “homophobia”, or me, for that matter, is not productive in achieving understanding or change– it blocks it.
But thank you for sharing your thoughts, Michael.
Hi Mr. Efsea,
Full disclosure out of the box:
1. I am a straight man, so I will accept STFU as a response to my two cents on this.
2. Rob is my friend and so I am predisposed to respect what he has to say; I am not unbiased.
That said, I appreciate what he has to say about giving up a blanket term in favor of nuanced discussion. I also appreciate his stance which I read as, “We are strong enough that we can fight on without the use of that one word.”
I like what this man has to say regarding the use of the word “racist”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0Ti-gkJiXc
Thank you for joining the discussion.
Dave
Moksha..first off Rob W. is not ” some fool blogger” he is the kindest, most caring, non judgmental person…EVER! And you might want to “look inward” as to your own need to jump to conclusions about someone you don’t even know or the fact that something in you has kept you from truly seeing and hearing what Rob is saying.
And I agree with Michael Stewart..the word allows for an excuse, an almost acceptance, for the brutalities that continue..so if you choose to continue to accept the word and in so doing, the excuses for the vileiness that go along with it…that’s on you. Maybe others have chosen to find another path (and look to find better terms) to NOT allow or excuse any longer.
I welcome the demise of homophobia because it really doesn’t describe anything realistically. I have always thought one’s behavior should be addressed for what it is. Homophobia makes it sound like a disease or fear when it really is hatred, bigotry, distortion, and unfocused anger at what one does not understand. So, let’s get rid of one word use the word(s) for what the behavior really is.
I am reminded of something I learned from a Zen priest about physical pain during prolonged meditation. She talked about having pain in her legs, but instead of reacting to “pain”, she looked at it more closely and found that there was heat and pressure. When she dissected the experience of “pain”, it became less overwhelming. She could cope with the constituent parts.
I never really liked the word ‘homophobia’. I was a psychiatric technician in the Navy, and I always brought patients to task for making up an illness. I have even been guilty of that myself. I thought at the time that someone just made up ‘homophobia’ as an illness. Probably a legal defense. It just would not make sense to say that these 5 boys over here beat up that 1 over there because they were afraid that the 1 boy might like them. But if you make up a medical-sounding term that sounds like a possible illness, well then that explains it. I think you are correct in that leaving the word behind is the first step to leaving the concept behind. Those 5 boys in my hypothetical equation there all had different motives and they are all individuals with their own responsiblity for their actions.