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Sunday, March 16, 2025

Transsexual

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Transsexual woman July Schultz displaying her palm with the letters "XY" written on it at an outdoor demonstration.

A transsexual person is someone who experiences a gender identity that is inconsistent with their assigned sex, and desires to permanently transition to the sex or gender with which they identify, usually seeking medical assistance (including gender affirming therapies, such as hormone replacement therapy and gender affirming surgery) to help them align their body with their identified sex or gender.

The term transsexual is a subset of transgender, but some transsexual people reject the label of transgender. A medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria can be made if a person experiences marked and persistent incongruence between their gender identity and their assigned sex.

Understanding of transsexual people has rapidly evolved in the 21st century; many 20th century medical beliefs and practices around transsexual people are now considered outdated. Transsexual people were once classified as mentally ill and subject to extensive gatekeeping by the medical establishment, and remain so in many parts of the world.

Terminology

Transsexual has had different meanings throughout time. In modern usage, it refers to "a person who desires to or who has modified their body to transition from one gender or sex to another through the use of medical technologies such as hormones or surgeries". Within the transgender community, the term is a subject of debate, and it is sometimes considered an antiquated or pejorative term. The more widely preferred terms are transgender or the abbreviated form trans. However, due to its historical usage, continued usage in the medical community, and continued self-identification with the term by some people, transsexual remains in the modern vernacular.

In understanding the subject, it is noted that there is a difference between gender and sex. Gender is defined as a "set of social, cultural, and linguistic norms that can be attributed to someone's identity, expression, or role as masculine, feminine, androgynous, or nonbinary". Sex is defined as being "assigned at birth by medical professionals based on the appearance of genitalia, and related assumptions about chromosomal makeup, gender identity, expressions, and roles [that] emerge over the life span, sometimes changing over time".

Origins

Norman Haire reported that in 1921 Dora Richter of Germany began a surgical transition, under the care of Magnus Hirschfeld, which ended in 1930 with a successful genital reassignment surgery (GRS). In 1930, Hirschfeld supervised the second genital reassignment surgery to be reported in detail in a peer-reviewed journal, that of Lili Elbe of Denmark. In 1923, Hirschfeld introduced the (German) term "Transsexualismus", after which David Oliver Cauldwell introduced "transsexualism" and "transsexual" to English in 1949 and 1950.

Cauldwell appears to be the first to use the term to refer to those who desired a change of physiological sex. In 1969, Harry Benjamin claimed to have been the first to use the term "transsexual" in a public lecture, which he gave in December 1953. Benjamin went on to popularize the term in his 1966 book, The Transsexual Phenomenon, in which he described transsexual people on a scale (later called the "Benjamin scale") of three levels of intensity: "Transsexual (nonsurgical)", "Transsexual (moderate intensity)", and "Transsexual (high intensity)".

Relationship to transgender

The term transgender was coined by John Oliven in 1965. By the 1990s, transsexual had come to be considered a subset of the umbrella term transgender. The term transgender is now more common, and many transgender people prefer the designation transgender and reject transsexual. Some people who pursue medical assistance (for example, gender affirming surgery) to change their sexual characteristics to match their gender identity prefer the designation transsexual and reject transgender. One perspective offered by transsexual people who reject a transgender label for that of transsexed is that, for people who have gone through sexual reassignment surgery, their anatomical sex has been altered, whilst their gender remains constant.

Historically, one reason some people preferred transsexual to transgender is that the medical community in the 1950s through the 1980s encouraged a distinction between the terms that would only allow the former access to medical treatment. Other self-identified transsexual people state that those who do not seek gender affirming surgery are fundamentally different from those who do, and that the two have different concerns, but this view is controversial. Others argue that medical procedures do not have such far-reaching consequences as to put those who have had them and those who have not (e.g. because they cannot afford them) into such distinctive categories. Some have objected to the term transsexual on the basis that it describes a condition related to gender identity rather than sexuality. For example, Christine Jorgensen, the first person widely known in the United States for having had gender affirming surgery (in this case, male-to-female), rejected transsexual and instead identified herself in newsprint as trans-gender, on this basis.

A common argument in opposition to the term transsexual is that it over-medicalizes the trans experience, focuses too much on diagnosis, or both. The term transgender emerged in part in an attempt to break the "medical monopoly" on transitioning that transsexual implied.

GLAAD's media reference guide offers the following distinction on the use of transsexual:

An older term that originated in the medical and psychological communities. As the gay and lesbian community rejected homosexual and replaced it with gay and lesbian, the transgender community rejected transsexual and replaced it with transgender. Some people within the trans community may still call themselves transsexual. Do not use transsexual to describe a person unless it is a word they use to describe themself. If the subject of your news article uses the word transsexual to describe themself, use it as an adjective: transsexual woman or transsexual man.

Terminological variance

The word transsexual is most often used as an adjective rather than a noun – a "transsexual person" rather than simply "a transsexual". As of 2018, use of the noun form (e.g. referring to people as transsexuals) was often deprecated by those in the transsexual community. Like other trans people, transsexual people prefer to be referred to by the gender pronouns and terms associated with their gender identity. For example, a trans man is a person who was assigned the female sex at birth on the basis of his genitals, but despite that assignment, identifies as a man and is transitioning or has transitioned to a male gender role; in the case of a transsexual man, he furthermore has or will have a masculine body. Transsexual people are sometimes referred to with directional terms, such as "female-to-male" for a transsexual man, abbreviated to "F2M", "FTM", and "F to M", or "male-to-female" for a transsexual woman, abbreviated "M2F", "MTF" and "M to F".

Individuals who have undergone and completed gender affirming surgery are sometimes referred to as transsexed individuals; however, the term transsexed is not to be confused with the term transsexual, which can also refer to individuals who have not undergone SRS, and whose anatomical sex (still) does not match their psychological sense of personal gender identity.

A rarer, alternate spelling for transsexual has been transexual, with a single S. This variation is British in origin. This spelling was used by The Transexual Menace, an activist group, for example. This spelling has been used by some activists in an attempt to remove "pathologizing implications" from their use of the word. Another rare variation, a synonym for transsexual, is transsex.

The terms gender dysphoria and gender identity disorder were not used until the 1970s, when Laub and Fisk published several works on transsexualism using these terms. "Transsexualism" was replaced in the DSM-IV by "gender identity disorder in adolescents and adults".

Male-to-female transsexualism has sometimes been called "Harry Benjamin's syndrome" after the endocrinologist who pioneered the study of dysphoria. As the present-day medical study of gender variance is much broader than Benjamin's early description, there is greater understanding of its aspects, and use of the term Harry Benjamin's syndrome has been criticized for delegitimizing gender-variant people with different experiences.

Sexual orientation

Since the middle of the 20th century, homosexual transsexual and related terms were used to label individuals' sexual orientation based on their birth sex. Many sources criticize this choice of wording as confusing, "heterosexist", "archaic", and demeaning because it labels people by sex assigned at birth instead of their gender identity. Sexologist John Bancroft also recently expressed regret for having used this terminology, which was standard when he used it, to refer to transsexual women. He says that he now tries to choose his words more sensitively. Sexologist Charles Allen Moser is likewise critical of the terminology. Sociomedical scientist Rebecca Jordan-Young challenges researchers like Simon LeVay, J. Michael Bailey, and Martin Lalumiere, who she says "have completely failed to appreciate the implications of alternative ways of framing sexual orientation".

The terms androphilia and gynephilia to describe a person's sexual orientation without reference to their gender identity were proposed and popularized by psychologist Ron Langevin in the 1980. The similar specifiers attracted to men, attracted to women, attracted to both or attracted to neither were used in the DSM-IV.

Many transsexual people choose the language of how they refer to their sexual orientation based on their gender identity, not their birth assigned sex.

Surgical status

Several terms are in common use, especially within the community itself relating to the surgical or operative status of someone who is transsexual, depending on whether they have already had gender affirming surgery, have not had but still intend to, or do not intend to have surgery. A pre-operative ("pre-op") transsexual person is someone who intends to have SRS at some point, but has not yet had it. A post-operative ("post-op") transsexual person is someone who has had SRS.

A non-operative ("non-op") transsexual person is someone who has not had SRS, and does not intend to have it in the future. There can be various reasons for this, from personal to financial. Having SRS is not a requirement of being transsexual. Evolutionary biologist and trans woman Julia Serano criticizes the societal preoccupation with SRS as phallocentric, objectifying of transsexuals, and an invasion of privacy.

Historical understanding

Transgender people are known to have existed since ancient times. A wide range of societies had traditional third gender roles, or otherwise accepted trans people in some form. However, a precise history is difficult because the modern concept of being transgender, and gender in general, did not develop until the mid-1900s. Historical understandings are thus inherently filtered through modern principles, and were largely viewed through a medical lens until the late 1900s. The Hippocratic Corpus (interpreting the writing of Herodotus) describes the "disease of the Scythians" (regarding the Enaree), which it attributes to impotency due to riding on a horse without stirrups. This reference was well discussed by medical writings of the 1500s–1700s. Pierre Petit writing in 1596 viewed the "Scythian disease" as natural variation, but by the 1700s writers viewed it as a "melancholy", or "hysterical" psychiatric disease. By the early 1800s, being transgender separate from Hippocrates' idea of it was claimed to be widely known, but remained poorly documented. Both trans women and trans men were cited in European insane asylums of the early 1800s. One of the earliest recorded gender nonconforming people in America was Thomas(ine) Hall, a seventeenth century colonial servant. The most complete account of the time came from the life of the Chevalier d'Éon (1728–1810), a French diplomat. As cross-dressing became more widespread in the late 1800s, discussion of transgender people increased greatly and writers attempted to explain the origins of being transgender. Much study came out of Germany, and was exported to other Western audiences. Cross-dressing was seen in a pragmatic light until the late 1800s; it had previously served a satirical or disguising purpose. But in the latter half of the 1800s, cross-dressing and being transgender became viewed as an increasing societal danger.

William A. Hammond wrote an 1882 account of transgender Pueblo "shamans" [sic] (mujerados), comparing them to the Scythian disease. Other writers of the late 1700s and 1800s (including Hammond's associates in the American Neurological Association) had noted the widespread nature of transgender cultural practices among native peoples. Explanations varied, but authors generally did not ascribe native transgender practices to psychiatric causes, instead condemning the practices in a religious and moral sense. Native groups provided much study on the subject, and perhaps the majority of all study until after WWII.

Critical studies first began to emerge in the late 1800s in Germany, with the works of Magnus Hirschfeld. Hirschfeld coined the term "Transvestit" in 1910, borrowed from 19th-century French word travesti with the same meaning,[62] as the scope of transgender study grew, and it was translated to English as "transvestite". His work would lead to the 1919 founding of the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft in Berlin. Though Hirscheld's legacy is disputed, he revolutionized the field of study. The Institut was destroyed when the Nazis seized power in 1933, and its research was infamously burned in the May 1933 Nazi book burnings. Transgender issues went largely out of the public eye until after World War II. Even when they re-emerged, they reflected a forensic psychology approach, unlike the more sexological that had been employed in the lost German research.

20th century medical understanding

Although there are records of gender affirming surgery (SRS) going back to the 2nd century, the first modern types of such practice first appeared in the 20th century. In this context, Harry Benjamin suggested that moderate intensity male to female transsexual people may benefit from estrogen medication as a "substitute for or preliminary to operation". In Benjamin's view, people may have had gender affirming surgery even though they do not meet the definition of transsexual, while others do not desire SRS although they fit his definition of a "true transsexual". "Transsexuality" was included for the first time in the DSM-III in 1980 and again in the DSM-III-R in 1987, where it was located under Disorders Usually First Evident in Infancy, Childhood or Adolescence.

Beyond Benjamin's work, which focused on male-to-female (MTF) transsexual people, there are cases of the female to male transsexual, for whom genital surgery may not be practical. Benjamin gave certifying letters to his MTF transsexual patients that stated "Their anatomical sex, that is to say, the body, is male. Their psychological sex, that is to say, the mind, is female." Starting in 1968 Benjamin abandoned his early terminology and adopted that of "gender identity".[43]

Medical diagnosis

Transsexualism is no longer classified as a mental disorder in the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD). The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) and many transsexual people had recommended this removal, arguing that at least some mental health professionals are being insensitive by labelling transsexualism as a "disease" rather than as an inborn trait, as many transsexuals believe it to be. Now, instead, it is classified as a sexual health condition; this classification continues to enable healthcare systems to provide healthcare needs related to gender. The eleventh edition was released in June 2018. The previous version, ICD-10, had incorporated transsexualism, dual role transvestism, and gender identity disorder of childhood into its gender identity disorder category. It defined transsexualism as "[a] desire to live and be accepted as a member of the opposite sex, usually accompanied by a sense of discomfort with, or inappropriateness of, one's anatomic sex, and a wish to have surgery and hormonal treatment to make one's body as congruent as possible with one's preferred sex". ICD-11 renamed Transexualism as Gender incongruence of adolescence or adulthood (HA60), and Gender identity disorder of childhood was renamed Gender incongruence of childhood (HA61).

HA60 of the ICD-11 reads:[8]

Gender Incongruence of Adolescence and Adulthood is characterised by a marked and persistent incongruence between an individual's experienced gender and the assigned sex, which often leads to a desire to 'transition', in order to live and be accepted as a person of the experienced gender, through hormonal treatment, surgery or other health care services to make the individual's body align, as much as desired and to the extent possible, with the experienced gender. The diagnosis cannot be assigned prior the onset of puberty. [HA61 applies before puberty] Gender variant behaviour and preferences alone are not a basis for assigning the diagnosis.

[failed verification] Historically, transsexualism has also been included in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). With the DSM-5, transsexualism was removed as a diagnosis, and a diagnosis of gender dysphoria was created in its place. This change was made to reflect the consensus view by members of the APA that the desire for gender affirming surgery is not, in and of itself, a disorder and that transsexual people should not be stigmatized unnecessarily. By including a diagnosis for gender dysphoria, transsexual people are still able to access medical care through the process of transition.

The current diagnosis for transsexual people who present themselves for medical treatment is gender dysphoria (leaving out those who have sexual identity disorders without gender concerns). According to the Standards of care formulated by WPATH, formerly the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association, this diagnostic label is often necessary to obtain gender affirming therapy with health insurance coverage, and the designation of gender identity disorders as mental disorders is not a license for stigmatization or for the deprivation of gender patients' civil rights.[11][71]

Causes, studies, and theories

Causes

Focus on trans women over trans men

Historically, formal efforts by the medical community to provide transsexual healthcare were extremely focused on transsexual women, with little thought for transsexual men. Julia Serano suggests that effemimania (the idea that male femininity is more psychopathological than female masculinity) was the driving factor. She sees this as a kind of transmisogyny (hatred of trans women as an extension of sexism). This effimimania conflates male homosexuality, transsexual women, and feminine gender expression, while treating them all as a disease. She points to the medical community's long love of now outdated theories such as autogynephilia.

Medical assistance

Individuals make different choices regarding gender affirming therapy, which may include hormones, minor to extensive surgery, social changes, and psychological interventions. The extent of medical intervention is a highly personal decision: there is no one-size-fits-all solution.

Hormone replacement therapy

Transsexual individuals frequently opt for masculinizing or feminizing hormone replacement therapy (HRT) to modify secondary sex characteristics.

Sex reassignment therapy

Sex reassignment therapy (SRT) is an umbrella term for all medical treatments related to gender affirming of both transgender and intersex people. Sex reassignment surgery (such as orchiectomy) alters primary sex characteristics, including chest surgery such as top surgery or breast augmentation, or, in the case of trans women, a trachea shave, facial feminization surgery or permanent hair removal.

To obtain gender affirming therapy, transsexual people are generally required to undergo a psychological evaluation and receive a diagnosis of gender identity disorder in accordance with the Standards of Care (SOC) as published by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health. This assessment is usually accompanied by counseling on issues of adjustment to the desired gender role, effects and risks of medical treatments, and sometimes also by psychological therapy. The SOC are intended as guidelines, not inflexible rules, and are intended to ensure that clients are properly informed and in sound psychological health, and to discourage people from transitioning based on unrealistic expectations.

Gender roles and transitioning

After an initial psychological evaluation, trans men and trans women may begin medical treatment, starting with hormone replacement therapy or hormone blockers. In these cases, people who change their gender are usually required to live as members of their target gender for at least one year prior to genital surgery, gaining real-life experience, which is sometimes called the "real-life test" (RLT). Transsexual individuals may undergo some, all, or none of the medical procedures available, depending on personal feelings, health, income, and other considerations. Some people posit that transsexualism is a physical condition, not a psychological issue, and assert that gender affirming therapy should be given on request. (Brown 103)

Like other trans people, transsexual people may refer to themselves as trans men or trans women. Transsexual people desire to establish a permanent gender role as a member of the gender with which they identify, and many transsexual people pursue medical interventions as part of the process of expressing their gender. The entire process of switching from one physical sex and social gender presentation to another is often referred to as transitioning, and usually takes several years. Transsexual people who transition usually change their social gender roles, legal names and legal sex designation.

Not all transsexual people undergo a physical transition. Some have obstacles or concerns preventing them from doing so, such as the expense of surgery, the risk of medical complications, or medical conditions which make the use of hormones or surgery dangerous. Others may not identify strongly with another binary gender role. Still others may find balance at a midpoint during the process, regardless of whether or not they are binary-identified. Many transsexual people, including binary-identified transsexual people, do not undergo genital surgery, because they are comfortable with their own genitals, or because they are concerned about nerve damage and the potential loss of sexual pleasure, including orgasm. This is especially so in the case of trans men, many of whom are dissatisfied with the current state of phalloplasty, which is typically very expensive, not covered by health insurance, and commonly does not achieve desired results. For example, not only does phalloplasty not result in a completely natural erection, it may not allow for an erection at all, and its results commonly lack penile sexual sensitivity; in other cases, however, phalloplasty results are satisfying for trans men. By contrast, metoidioplasty, which is more popular, is significantly less expensive and has far better sexual results.

Transsexual people can be heterosexual, gay, lesbian, or bisexual; many choose the language of how they refer to their sexual orientation based on their gender identity, not their birth assigned sex.

Psychological treatment

Psychological techniques that attempt to alter gender identity to one considered appropriate for the person's assigned sex, aka conversion therapy, are ineffective. The widely recognized Standards of Care note that sometimes the only reasonable and effective course of treatment for transsexual people is to go through gender affirming therapy.

The need for treatment of transsexual people is emphasized by the high rate of mental health problems, including depression, anxiety, and various addictions, as well as a higher suicide rate among untreated transsexual people than in the general population. These problems are alleviated by a change of gender role and/or physical characteristics.

Many transgender and transsexual activists, and many caregivers, note that these problems are not usually related to the gender identity issues themselves, but the social and cultural responses to gender-variant individuals. Some transsexual people reject the counseling that is recommended by the Standards of Care[71] because they do not consider their gender identity to be a cause of psychological problems.

Brown and Rounsley noted that "some transsexual people acquiesce to legal and medical expectations in order to gain rights granted through the medical/psychological hierarchy." Legal needs, such as a change of sex on legal documents, and medical needs, such as gender affirming surgery, are usually difficult to obtain without a doctor or therapist's approval. Because of this, some transsexual people feel coerced into affirming outdated concepts of gender to overcome simple legal and medical hurdles.

Regrets and detransitions

People who undergo gender affirming surgery can develop regret for the procedure later in life, largely predicted by a lack of support from family or peers, with data from the 1990s suggesting a rate of 3.8%. In a 2001 study of 232 MTF patients who underwent GRS, none of the patients reported complete regret and only 6% reported partial or occasional regrets. A 2009 review of Medline literature suggests the total rate of patients expressing feelings of doubt or regret is estimated to be as high as 8%.

A 2010 meta-study, based on 28 previous long-term studies of transsexual men and women, found that the overall psychological functioning of transsexual people after transition was similar to that of the general population and significantly better than that of untreated transsexual people.

Prevalence

Estimates of the prevalence of transsexual people are highly dependent on the specific case definitions used in the studies, with prevalence rates varying by orders of magnitude. In the United States, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V 2013) gives the following estimates: "For natal adult males [MTF], prevalence ranges from 0.005% to 0.014%, and for natal females [FTM], from 0.002% to 0.003%." It states, however, that these are likely underestimates since the figures are based on referrals to specialty clinics.

The Amsterdam Gender Dysphoria Clinic over four decades has treated roughly 95% of Dutch transsexual clients, and it suggests (1997) a prevalence of 1:10,000 among assigned males and 1:30,000 among assigned females.

Olyslager and Conway presented a paper at the WPATH 20th International Symposium (2007) arguing that the data from their own and other studies actually imply much higher prevalence, with minimum lower bounds of 1:4,500 male-to-female transsexual people and 1:8,000 female-to-male transsexual people for a number of countries worldwide. They estimate the number of post-op women in the US to be 32,000 and obtain a figure of 1:2500 male-to-female transsexual people. They further compare the annual instances of gender affirming surgery (SRS) and male birth in the U.S. to obtain a figure of 1:1000 MTF transsexual people and suggest a prevalence of 1:500 extrapolated from the rising rates of SRS in the US and a "common sense" estimate of the number of undiagnosed transsexual people. Olyslager and Conway also argue that the US population of assigned males having already undergone reassignment surgery by the top three US SRS surgeons alone is enough to account for the entire transsexual population implied by the 1:10,000 prevalence number, yet this excludes all other US SRS surgeons, surgeons in countries such as Thailand, Canada, and others, and the high proportion of transsexual people who have not yet sought treatment, suggesting that a prevalence of 1:10,000 is too low.

A 2008 study of the number of New Zealand passport holders who changed the sex on their passport estimated that 1:3,639 birth-assigned males and 1:22,714 birth-assigned females were transsexual.

A 2008 presentation at the LGBT Health Summit in Bristol, UK, showed that the prevalence of transsexual people in the UK was increasing (14% per year) and that the mean age of transition was rising.

Though no direct studies on the prevalence of gender identity disorder (GID) have been done, a variety of clinical papers published in the past 20 years provide estimates ranging from 1:7,400 to 1:42,000 in assigned males and 1:30,040 to 1:104,000 in assigned females.

In 2015, the National Center for Transgender Equality conducted a National Transgender Discrimination Survey. Of the 27,715 transgender and genderqueer people who took the survey, 35% identified as "non-binary", 33% identified as transgender women, 29% identified as transgender men, and 3% said that "crossdresser" best described their gender identity.

A 2016 systematic review and meta-analysis of "how various definitions of transgender affect prevalence estimates" in 27 studies found a meta-prevalence (mP) estimates per 100,000 population of 9.2 (95% CI = 4.9–13.6), equal to 1:11,000 for surgical or hormonal gender affirmation therapy and 6.8 (95% CI = 4.6–9.1), equal to 1:15,000 for transgender-related medical condition diagnoses. Of studies assessing self-reported transgender identity, prevalence was 355 (95% CI = 144–566), equal to 1 in 282. However, a single outlier study would have influenced the result to 871 (95% CI = 519–1,224), equal to 1 in 115; this study was removed. "Significant heterogeneity was observed in most analyses."

Those with an autism spectrum disorder or schizophrenia are transsexuals more often than the general population.

Country Publication Year Incidence in males Incidence in females
US DSM-IV 1994 1:30,000 1:100,000
Netherlands The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism 1997 1:10,000 1:30,000
US International Journal of Transgenderism 2007 1:4,500 1:8,000
New Zealand Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry 2008 1:3,639 1:22,714
US The Journal of Sexual Medicine 2016 1:11,000 1:15,000

Society and culture

A number of Native American and First Nations cultures have traditional social and ceremonial roles for individuals who do not fit into the usual roles for males and females in that culture. These roles can vary widely between tribes, because gender roles, when they exist at all, also vary considerably among different Native cultures. However, a modern, pan-Indian status known as Two-Spirit has emerged among LGBT Natives in recent years.

Poland's Anna Grodzka is the first transsexual MP in the history of Europe to have had gender affirming surgery.

Laws regarding changes to the legal status of transsexual people are different from country to country. Some jurisdictions allow an individual to change their name, and sometimes, their legal gender, to reflect their gender identity. Within the US, some states allow amendments or complete replacement of the original birth certificates. Some states seal earlier records against all but court orders in order to protect the transsexual person's privacy.

In many places, it is not possible to change birth records or other legal designations of sex, although changes are occurring. Estelle Asmodelle's book documented her struggle to change the Australian birth certificate and passport laws, although there are other individuals who have been instrumental in changing laws and thus attaining more acceptance for transsexual people in general.

Medical treatment for transsexual and transgender people is available in most Western countries. However, transsexual and transgender people challenge the "normative" gender roles of many cultures and often face considerable hatred and prejudice. The film Boys Don't Cry chronicles the case of Brandon Teena, a transsexual man who was raped and murdered after his status was discovered. In 1999 Brandon was memorialised in the first Transgender Day of Remembrance. The Transgender Day of Remembrance is observed annually on November 20 by members of the transgender community and LGBT+ organisations across the world.

Jurisdictions allowing changes to birth records generally allow trans people to marry members of the opposite sex to their gender identity and to adopt children. Jurisdictions which prohibit same sex marriage often require pre-transition marriages to be ended before they will issue an amended birth certificate.

Health-practitioner manuals, professional journalistic style guides, and LGBT advocacy groups advise the adoption by others of the name and pronouns identified by the person in question, including present references to the transgender or transsexual person's past. Family members and friends who may be confused about pronoun usage or the definitions of sex are commonly instructed in proper pronoun usage, either by the transsexual person or by professionals or other persons familiar with pronoun usage as it relates to transsexual people. Sometimes transsexual people have to correct their friends and family members many times before they begin to use the transsexual person's desired pronouns consistently. According to Julia Serano, deliberate mis-gendering of transsexual people is "an arrogant attempt to belittle and humiliate trans people".

Both "transsexualism" and "gender identity disorders not resulting from physical impairments" are specifically excluded from coverage under the Americans with Disabilities Act Section 12211. Gender dysphoria is not excluded.

Employment issues

Openly transsexual people can have difficulty maintaining employment. Most find it necessary to remain employed during transition in order to cover the costs of living and transition. However, employment discrimination against trans people is rampant and many of them are fired when they come out or are involuntarily outed at work. Transsexual people must decide whether to transition on-the-job, or to find a new job when they make their social transition. Other stresses that transsexual people face in the workplace are being fearful of coworkers negatively responding to their transition, and losing job experience under a previous name—even deciding which rest room to use can prove challenging. Finding employment can be especially challenging for those in mid-transition.

Laws regarding name and gender changes in many countries make it difficult for transsexual people to conceal their trans status from their employers. Because the Harry Benjamin Standards of Care requires one-year of real life experience prior to SRS, some feel this creates a Catch-22 situation which makes it difficult for trans people to remain employed or obtain SRS.

In many countries, laws provide protection from workplace discrimination based on gender identity or gender expression, including masculine women and feminine men. An increasing number of companies are including "gender identity and expression" in their non-discrimination policies. Often these laws and policies do not cover all situations and are not strictly enforced. California's anti-discrimination laws protect transsexual persons in the workplace and specifically prohibit employers from terminating or refusing to hire a person based on their gender identity. The European Union provides employment protection as part of gender discrimination protections following the European Court of Justice decisions in P v S and Cornwall County Council.

In the United States National Transgender Discrimination Survey, 44% of respondents reported not getting a job they applied for because of being transgender. 36% of trans women reported losing a job due to discrimination compared to 19% of trans men. 54% of trans women and 50% of trans men report having been harassed in the workplace. Transgender people who have been fired due to bias are more than 34 times likely than members of the general population to attempt suicide.

Stealth

Many transsexual men and women choose to live completely as members of their gender without disclosing details of their birth-assigned sex. This approach is sometimes called stealth. Stealth transsexuals choose not to disclose their past for numerous reasons, including fear of discrimination and fear of physical violence. There are examples of people having been denied medical treatment upon discovery of their trans status, whether it was revealed by the patient or inadvertently discovered by the doctors.

In the media

Nina Poon, a transsexual model who has appeared in Kenneth Cole ads, at the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival

Before transsexual people were depicted in popular movies and television shows, Aleshia Brevard—a transsexual woman whose surgery took place in 1962—was actively working as an actress and model in Hollywood and New York throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Aleshia never portrayed a transsexual person, though she appeared in eight Hollywood-produced films, on most of the popular variety shows of the day, including The Dean Martin Show, and was a regular on The Red Skelton Show and One Life to Live before returning to university to teach drama and acting.

In pageantry

Since 2004, with the goal of crowning the top transsexual of the world, a beauty pageant by the name of The World's Most Beautiful Transsexual Contest was held in Las Vegas, Nevada. The pageant accepted pre-operation and post-operation trans women, but required proof of their gender at birth. The winner of the 2004 pageant was a woman named Mimi Marks.

Jenna Talackova, a 23-year-old woman, successfully challenged Donald Trump and the Miss Universe Canada pageant, leading to the removal of the ban on transgender contestants. She participated in the pageant held in Toronto on May 19, 2012. On January 12, 2013, Kylan Arianna Wenzel was the first transgender woman allowed to compete in a Miss Universe Organization pageant since Donald Trump changed the rules to allow women like Wenzel to enter officially. Wenzel was the first transgender woman to compete in a Miss Universe Organization pageant since officials disqualified 23-year-old Miss Canada Jenna Talackova the previous year after learning she was transgender.

Homophobia

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homophobia
Homophobic protesters of Westboro Baptist Church, in Oklahoma, 2005

Homophobia encompasses a range of negative attitudes and feelings toward homosexuality or people who identify or are perceived as being lesbian, gay or bisexual. It has been defined as contempt, prejudice, aversion, hatred, or antipathy, may be based on irrational fear and may sometimes be attributed to religious beliefs. Homophobia is observable in critical and hostile behavior such as discrimination and violence on the basis of sexual orientations that are non-heterosexual.

Recognized types of homophobia include institutionalized homophobia, e.g. religious homophobia and state-sponsored homophobia, and internalized homophobia, experienced by people who have same-sex attractions, regardless of how they identify. According to 2010 Hate Crimes Statistics released by the FBI National Press Office, 19.3 percent of hate crimes across the United States "were motivated by a sexual orientation bias." Moreover, in a Southern Poverty Law Center 2010 Intelligence Report extrapolating data from FBI national hate crime statistics from 1995 to 2008, found that LGBTQ people were "far more likely than any other minority group in the United States to be victimized by violent hate crime."

Etymology

Although sexual attitudes tracing back to Ancient Greece – from the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity (c. 600 AD) – have been termed homophobia by scholars, and it is used to describe an intolerance towards homosexuality and homosexuals that grew during the Middle Ages, especially by adherents of Islam and Christianity, the term itself is relatively new.

Coined by George Weinberg, a psychologist, in the 1960s, the term homophobia is a blend of (1) the word homosexual, itself a mix of neo-classical morphemes, and (2) phobia from the Greek φόβος, phóbos, meaning "fear", "morbid fear" or "aversion". Weinberg is credited as the first person to have used the term in speech. The word homophobia first appeared in print in an article written for the 23 May 1969 edition of the American pornographic magazine Screw, in which the word was used to refer to heterosexual men's fear that others might think they are gay.

Conceptualizing anti-LGBTQ prejudice as a social problem worthy of scholarly attention was not new. A 1969 article in Time described examples of negative attitudes toward homosexuality as "homophobia", including "a mixture of revulsion and apprehension" which some called homosexual panic. In 1971, Kenneth Smith used homophobia as a personality profile to describe the psychological aversion to homosexuality. Weinberg also used it this way in his 1972 book Society and the Healthy Homosexual, published one year before the American Psychiatric Association voted to remove homosexuality from its list of mental disorders. Weinberg's term became an important tool for gay and lesbian activists, advocates, and their allies. He describes the concept as a medical phobia:

[A] phobia about homosexuals.... It was a fear of homosexuals which seemed to be associated with a fear of contagion, a fear of reducing the things one fought for — home and family. It was a religious fear and it had led to great brutality as fear always does.

In 1981, homophobia was used for the first time in The Times (of London) to report that the General Synod of the Church of England voted to refuse to condemn homosexuality.

However, when taken literally, homophobia may be a problematic term. Professor David A. F. Haaga says that contemporary usage includes "a wide range of negative emotions, attitudes and behaviours toward homosexual people," which are characteristics that are not consistent with accepted definitions of phobias, that of "an intense, illogical, or abnormal fear of a specified thing."

Types

Brochure used by Save Our Children, a political coalition formed in 1977 in Miami, Florida, U.S., to overturn a recently legislated county ordinance that banned discrimination in areas of housing, employment, and public accommodation based on sexual orientation

Homophobia manifests in different forms, and a number of different types have been postulated, among which are internalized homophobia, social homophobia, emotional homophobia, rationalized homophobia, and others. There were also ideas to classify homophobia and other types of bigotry as intolerant personality disorder.

In 1992, the American Psychiatric Association, recognizing the power of the stigma against homosexuality, issued the following statement, reaffirmed by the Board of Trustees, July 2011:

Whereas homosexuality per se implies no impairment in judgment, stability, reliability, or general social or vocational capabilities, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) calls on all international health organizations, psychiatric organizations, and individual psychiatrists in other countries to urge the repeal in their own countries of legislation that penalizes homosexual acts by consenting adults in private. Further, APA calls on these organizations and individuals to do all that is possible to decrease the stigma related to homosexuality wherever and whenever it may occur.

Institutional

Religious attitudes

Religious protestors at a pride parade in Jerusalem, with a sign that reads, "Homo sex is immoral (Lev. 18/22)". The association of homosexual sex with immorality or sinfulness is seen by many as a homophobic act.

Some world religions contain anti-homosexual teachings, while other religions have varying degrees of ambivalence, neutrality, or incorporate teachings that regard homosexuals as third gender. Even within some religions which generally discourage homosexuality, there may also be people who view homosexuality positively, and some religious denominations bless or conduct same-sex marriages. There also exist so-called Queer religions, dedicated to serving the spiritual needs of LGBTQ people. Queer theology seeks to provide a counterpoint to religious homophobia. In 2015, attorney and author Roberta Kaplan stated that Kim Davis "is the clearest example of someone who wants to use a religious liberty argument to discriminate [against same-sex couples]."

Christianity and the Bible

Passages commonly interpreted as condemning homosexuality or same-gender sexual relations are found in both Old and New Testaments of the Bible. Leviticus 18:22 says "Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination." The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is also commonly seen as a condemnation of homosexuality. Christians and Jews who oppose homosexuality may often cite such passages; the historical context and interpretation of which is more complicated. Scholarly debate over the interpretation of these passages has tended to focus on placing them in proper historical context, for instance pointing out that Sodom's sins are historically interpreted as being other than homosexuality, and on the translation of rare or unusual words in the passages in question. In Religion Dispatches magazine, Candace Chellew-Hodge argues that the six or so verses that are often cited to condemn LGBTQ people are referring instead to "abusive sex". She states that the Bible has no condemnation for "loving, committed, gay and lesbian relationships" and that Jesus was silent on the subject. This view is opposed by a number of conservative evangelicals, including Robert A. J. Gagnon.

The official teaching of the Catholic Church regarding homosexuality is that same-sex behavior should not be expressed. In the United States, a February 2012 Pew Research Center poll shows that Catholics support gay marriage by a margin of 52% to 37%. That is a shift upwards from 2010, when 46% of Catholics favored gay marriage. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that, "'homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.'...They are contrary to the natural law.... Under no circumstances can they be approved."

Islam and Sharia

In some cases, the distinction between religious homophobia and state-sponsored homophobia is not clear, a key example being territories under Islamic authority. All major Islamic sects forbid homosexuality, which is a crime under Sharia Law and treated as such in most Muslim countries. In Afghanistan, for instance, homosexuality carried the death penalty under the Taliban. After their fall, homosexuality was reduced from a capital crime to one that is punished with fines and prison sentences. After the revolution of 1979 in Iran and the establishment of a new government based on Islamic Sharia, the pressure and punishment against LGBTQ people has expanded in this country. The legal situation in the United Arab Emirates, however, is unclear.

In 2009, the International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA) published a report entitled State Sponsored Homophobia 2009, which is based on research carried out by Daniel Ottosson at Södertörn University College, Stockholm, Sweden. This research found that of the 80 countries around the world that continue to consider homosexuality illegal:

  • Seven carry the death penalty for homosexual activity: Iran, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Yemen, Afghanistan and Brunei. Since the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran, the Iranian government has executed more than 4,000 people charged with homosexual acts. In Saudi Arabia, the maximum punishment for homosexuality is public execution, but the government will use other punishments – e.g., fines, jail time, whipping – and even forced sex change as alternatives, unless it feels that people engaging in homosexual activity are challenging state authority by engaging in LGBTQ social movements. On the other hand, due to the traditional and religious structure of Islamic societies, people also refuse to accept the identity of homosexuals and have a conservative attitude towards them.
  • Two do in some regions: Nigeria, Somalia

In 2001, Al-Muhajiroun, an international organization seeking the establishment of a global Islamic caliphate, issued a fatwa declaring that all members of The Al-Fatiha Foundation (which advances the cause of gay, lesbian, and transgender Muslims) were murtadd, or apostates, and condemning them to death. Because of the threat and because they come from conservative societies, many members of the foundation's site still prefer to be anonymous so as to protect their identities while they are continuing a tradition of secrecy.

In some regions, gay people have been persecuted and murdered by Islamist militias, such as Al-Nusra Front and ISIL in parts of Iraq and Syria.

State-sponsored

Worldwide laws regarding same-sex intercourse, unions and expression
Same-sex intercourse illegal. Penalties:
  Death
  Prison; death not enforced
  Death under militias
  Prison, with arrests or detention
  Prison, not enforced1

Same-sex intercourse legal. Recognition of unions:
  Extraterritorial marriage2
  Limited foreign
  Optional certification
  None
  Restrictions of expression, not enforced
  Restrictions of association with arrests or detention

1No imprisonment in the past three years or moratorium on law.
2Marriage not available locally. Some jurisdictions may perform other types of partnerships.

State-sponsored homophobia includes the criminalization and penalization of homosexuality, hate speech from government figures, and other forms of discrimination, violence, persecution of LGBTQ people.

Past governments

In medieval Europe, homosexuality was considered sodomy and was punishable by death. Persecutions reached their height during the Medieval Inquisitions, when the sects of Cathars and Waldensians were accused of fornication and sodomy, alongside accusations of Satanism. In 1307, accusations of sodomy and homosexuality were major charges leveled during the Trial of the Knights Templar. The theologian Thomas Aquinas was influential in linking condemnation of homosexuality with the idea of natural law, arguing that "special sins are against nature, as, for instance, those that run counter to the intercourse of male and female natural to animals, and so are peculiarly qualified as unnatural vices."

Although bisexuality was accepted as normal human behavior in Ancient China, homophobia became ingrained in the late Qing dynasty and the Republic of China due to interactions with the Christian West, and homosexual behavior was outlawed in 1740. During the Cultural Revolution, homosexuality was treated by the government as a "social disgrace or a form of mental illness", and individuals who were homosexual widely faced persecution. Although there were no laws specifically against homosexuality, other laws were used to prosecute homosexual people and they were "charged with hooliganism or disturbing public order."

The Soviet Union under Vladimir Lenin decriminalized homosexuality in 1922, long before many other European countries. The Soviet Communist Party effectively legalized no-fault divorce, abortion and homosexuality, when they abolished all the old Tsarist laws and the initial Soviet criminal code kept these liberal sexual policies in place. Lenin's emancipation was reversed a decade later by Joseph Stalin and homosexuality remained illegal under Article 121 until the Yeltsin era.

In Nazi Germany, gay men were persecuted and approximately five to fifteen thousand were imprisoned in Nazi concentration camps.

Current governments
Protests in New York City against Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Bill

As of May 2016, homosexuality is illegal in 74 countries. The North Korean government condemns Western gay culture as a vice caused by the decadence of a capitalist society, and it denounces it as promoting consumerism, classism, and promiscuity. In North Korea, "violating the rules of collective socialist life" can be punished with up to two years' imprisonment. Park Jeong-Won, a law professor at Kookmin University, said that, while he was not aware of any North Korean laws explicitly prohibiting homosexual relationships, laws against extramarital affairs and breaking moral customs would likely be used to prosecute homosexual acts.

LGBT-free zone stickers distributed by the Gazeta Polska newspaper

Robert Mugabe, the former president of Zimbabwe, waged a violent campaign against LGBTQ people, arguing that before colonisation, Zimbabweans did not engage in homosexual acts. His first major public condemnation of homosexuality was in August 1995, during the Zimbabwe International Book Fair. He told an audience: "If you see people parading themselves as lesbians and gays, arrest them and hand them over to the police!" In September 1995, Zimbabwe's parliament introduced legislation banning homosexual acts. In 1997, a court found Canaan Banana, Mugabe's predecessor and the first President of Zimbabwe, guilty of 11 counts of sodomy and indecent assault.

In Poland, local towns, cities, and Voivodeship sejmiks have declared their respective regions as LGBTQ ideology free zone with the encouragement of the ruling Law and Justice party.

Since 2006, under Vladimir Putin, regions in Russia have enacted varying laws restricting the distribution of materials promoting LGBTQ relationships to minors. In June 2013, a federal law criminalizing the distribution of materials among minors in support of non-traditional sexual relationships was enacted as an amendment to an existing child protection law. The law resulted in the numerous arrests of Russian LGBTQ citizens. In 2023 the Supreme Court of Russia declared that the international LGBTQ rights movement is an extremist organization.

Internalized

Internalized homophobia refers to negative stereotypes, beliefs, stigma, and prejudice about homosexuality and LGBTQ people that a person with same-sex attraction turns inward on themselves, whether or not they identify as LGBTQ.

Some studies have shown that people who are homophobic are more likely to have repressed homosexual desires. In 1996, a controlled study of 64 heterosexual men (half said they were homophobic by experience, with self-reported orientation) at the University of Georgia found that men who were found to be homophobic (as measured by the Index of Homophobia) were considerably more likely to experience more erectile responses when exposed to homoerotic images than non-homophobic men. Weinstein and colleagues arrived at similar results when researchers found that students who came from controlling and homophobic homes were most likely to reveal repressed homosexual attraction. The researchers said that this explained why some religious leaders who denounce homosexuality are later revealed to have secret homosexual relations. One co-author said, "In many cases these are people who are at war with themselves and they are turning this internal conflict outward." A 2016 eye-tracking study showed that heterosexual men with high negative impulse reactions toward homosexuals gazed for longer periods at homosexual imagery than other heterosexual men. According to Cheval et al. (2016), these findings reinforce the necessity to consider that homophobia might reflect concerns about sexuality in general and not homosexuality in particular. In contrast, Jesse Marczyk argued in Psychology Today that homophobia is not necessarily repressed homosexuality.

The effect of these ideas depends on how much and which they have consciously and subconsciously internalized. These negative beliefs can be mitigated with education, life experience, and therapy, especially with gay-friendly psychotherapy/analysis. Internalized homophobia also applies to conscious or unconscious behaviors which a person feels the need to promote or conform to cultural expectations of heteronormativity or heterosexism. This can include repression and denial coupled with forced outward displays of heteronormative behavior for the purpose of appearing or attempting to feel "normal" or "accepted". Other expressions of internalized homophobia can also be subtle. Some less overt behaviors may include making assumptions about the gender of a person's romantic partner, or about gender roles. Some researchers also apply this label to LGBTQ people who support "compromise" policies, such as those that find civil unions acceptable in place of same-sex marriage.

Researcher Iain R. Williamson finds the term homophobia to be "highly problematic," but for reasons of continuity and consistency with the majority of other publications on the issue retains its use rather than using more accurate but obscure terminology. The phrase internalized sexual stigma is sometimes used in place to represent internalized homophobia. An internalized stigma arises when a person believes negative stereotypes about themselves, regardless of where the stereotypes come from. It can also refer to many stereotypes beyond sexuality and gender roles. Internalized homophobia can cause discomfort with and disapproval of one's own sexual orientation. Ego-dystonic sexual orientation or egodystonic homophobia, for instance, is a condition characterized by having a sexual orientation or an attraction that is at odds with one's idealized self-image, causing anxiety and a desire to change one's orientation or become more comfortable with one's sexual orientation. Such a situation may cause extreme repression of homosexual desires. In other cases, a conscious internal struggle may occur for some time, often pitting deeply held religious or social beliefs against strong sexual and emotional desires. This discordance can cause clinical depression, and a higher rate of suicide among LGBTQ youth (up to 30 percent of non-heterosexual youth attempt suicide) has been attributed to this phenomenon. Psychotherapy, such as gay affirmative psychotherapy, and participation in a sexual-minority affirming group can help resolve the internal conflicts, such as between religious beliefs and sexual identity. Even informal therapies that address understanding and accepting of non-heterosexual orientations can prove effective. Many diagnostic "Internalized Homophobia Scales" can be used to measure a person's discomfort with their sexuality and some can be used by people regardless of gender or sexual orientation. Critics of the scales note that they presume a discomfort with non-heterosexuality which in itself enforces heteronormativity.

Social

The fear of being identified as gay can be considered as a form of social homophobia. Theorists including Calvin Thomas and Judith Butler have suggested that homophobia can be rooted in an individual's fear of being identified as gay. Homophobia in men is correlated with insecurity about masculinity. For this reason, homophobia is allegedly rampant in sports, and in the subculture of its supporters that is considered stereotypically male, such as association football and rugby.

Nancy J. Chodorow states that homophobia can be viewed as a method of protection of male masculinity. Various psychoanalytic theories explain homophobia as a threat to an individual's own same-sex impulses, whether those impulses are imminent or merely hypothetical. This threat causes repression, denial or reaction formation.

Distribution of attitude

Boys Beware, a 1961 US social guidance film warning boys to beware the "predatory" dangers of homosexual men. The film pushes the common homophobic tropes that homosexuality is a mental illness, and that gay men are pedophiles.
Between January 2010 and November 2014, 47 individuals have been killed due to their real or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity in Turkey according to online news sources.

Homophobia is not evenly distributed throughout society, but is more or less pronounced according to ethnicity, age, geographic location, race, sex, social class, education, partisan identification and religion. According to UK HIV/AIDS charity AVERT, religious views, lack of homosexual feelings or experiences, and lack of interaction with gay people are strongly associated with such views.

The anxiety of heterosexual individuals (particularly adolescents whose construction of heterosexual masculinity is based in part on not being seen as gay) that others may identify them as gay has also been identified by Michael Kimmel as an example of homophobia. The taunting of boys seen as eccentric (and who are not usually gay) is said to be endemic in rural and suburban American schools, and has been associated with risk-taking behavior and outbursts of violence (such as a spate of school shootings) by boys seeking revenge or trying to assert their masculinity. Homophobic bullying is also very common in schools in the United Kingdom. At least 445 LGBTQ Brazilians were either murdered or committed suicide in 2017.

In some cases, the works of authors who merely have the word "Gay" in their name (Gay Talese, Peter Gay) or works about things also contain the name (Enola Gay) have been destroyed because of a perceived pro-homosexual bias.

In the United States, attitudes vary on the basis of partisan identification. Republicans are far more likely than Democrats to have negative attitudes about gays and lesbians, according to surveys conducted by the National Election Studies from 2000 through 2004. Homophobia also varies by region; statistics show that the Southern United States has more reports of anti-gay prejudice than any other region in the US.

In a 1998 address, civil rights leader Coretta Scott King stated, "Homophobia is like racism and anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry in that it seeks to dehumanize a large group of people, to deny their humanity, their dignity and personhood." One study of white adolescent males conducted at the University of Cincinnati by Janet Baker has been used to argue that negative feelings towards gay people are also associated with other discriminatory behaviors. According to the study, hatred of gay people, antisemitism, and racism are "likely companions". Baker hypothesized "maybe it's a matter of power and looking down on all you think are at the bottom." A study performed in 2007 in the UK for the charity Stonewall reports that up to 90 percent of the population support anti-discrimination laws protecting gay and lesbian people.

Economic cost

There are at least two studies which indicate that homophobia may have a negative economic impact for the countries where it is widespread. In these countries there is a flight of their LGBTQ populations—with the consequent loss of talent—as well as an avoidance of LGBTQ tourism, that leaves the pink money in LGBTQ-friendlier countries. As an example, LGBTQ tourists contribute 6.8 billion dollars every year to the Spanish economy.

As soon as 2005, an editorial from the New York Times related the politics of don't ask, don't tell in the US Army with the lack of translators from Arabic, and with the delay in the translation of Arabic documents, calculated to be about 120,000 hours at the time. Since 1998, with the introduction of the new policy, about 20 Arabic translators had been expelled from the Army, specifically during the years the US was involved in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

M. V. Lee Badgett, an economist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, presented in March 2014 in a meeting of the World Bank the results of a study about the economic impact of homophobia in India. Only in health expenses, caused by depression, suicide, and HIV treatment, India would have spent additional 23,100 million dollars due to homophobia. On top, there would be costs caused by violence, workplace loss, rejection of the family, and bullying at school, that would result in a lower education level, lower productivity, lower wages, worse health, and a lower life expectancy among the LGBTQ population. In total, she estimated for 2014 in India a loss of up to 30,800 million dollars, or 1.7% of the Indian GDP.

The LGBTQ activist Adebisi Alimi, in a preliminary estimation, has calculated that the economic loss due to homophobia in Nigeria is about 1% of its GDP. Taking into account that in 2015 homosexuality is still illegal in 36 of the 54 African countries, the money loss due to homophobia in the continent could amount to hundreds of millions of dollars every year.[112]

Another study regarding socioecological measurement of homophobia and its public health impact for 158 countries was conducted in 2018. It found that the prejudice against gay people has a worldwide economic cost of $119.1 billion. Economical loss in Asia was 88.29 billion dollars due to homophobia, and in Latin America & the Caribbean it was 8.04 billion dollars. Economical cost in East Asia and Middle Asia was 10.85 billion dollars. Economical cost in Middle East and North Africa was 16.92 billion dollars. The researcher suggested that a 1% decrease in the level of homophobia is correlated with a 10% increase in the gross domestic product per capita – though this does not imply causation.

A 2018 study by The Williams Institute (UCLA School of Law) concludes that there is a positive correlation between LGBTQ inclusion and GDP per capita. According to this study, the legal rights of LGBTQ people have a bigger influence than the degree of acceptance in the society, but both effects reinforce each other. A one-point increase in their LGBT Global Acceptance Index (GAI) showed an increase of $1,506 in GDP per capita, and one additional legal right was correlated with an increase of $1,694 in GDP per capita.

Countermeasures

The NYC Pride March is the world's largest LGBTQ event. Regional variation exists with respect to tolerance, the antithesis of homophobic discrimination, in different parts of the world.

Most international human rights organizations, such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, condemn laws that make homosexual relations between consenting adults a crime. Since 1994, the United Nations Human Rights Committee has also ruled that such laws violated the right to privacy guaranteed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. In 2008, the Roman Catholic Church issued a statement which "urges States to do away with criminal penalties against [homosexual persons]." The statement, however, was addressed to reject a resolution by the UN Assembly that would have precisely called for an end of penalties against homosexuals in the world. In March 2010, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe adopted a recommendation on measures to combat discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation or gender identity, described by CoE Secretary General as the first legal instrument in the world dealing specifically with one of the most long-lasting and difficult forms of discrimination to combat.

LGBTQ activists at Cologne Pride carrying a banner with the flags of over 70 countries where homosexuality is illegal

To combat homophobia, the LGBTQ community uses events such as gay pride parades and political activism (See gay pride). Cities across the word use crossings repainted in rainbow colors for their annual pride parades. The first permanent crossings have been put on roads in Lambeth, England.

One form of organized resistance to homophobia is the International Day Against Homophobia (or IDAHO), first celebrated 17 May 2005, in related activities in more than 40 countries. The four largest countries of Latin America (Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia) developed mass media campaigns against homophobia since 2002.

In addition to public expression, legislation has been designed, controversially, to oppose homophobia, as in hate speech, hate crime, and laws against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Successful preventative strategies against homophobic prejudice and bullying in schools have included teaching pupils about historical figures who were gay, or who suffered discrimination because of their sexuality.

Some argue that anti-LGBTQ prejudice is immoral and goes above and beyond the effects on that class of people. Warren J. Blumenfeld argues that this emotion gains a dimension beyond itself, as a tool for extreme right-wing conservatives and fundamentalist religious groups and as a restricting factor on gender-relations as to the weight associated with performing each role accordingly. Furthermore, Blumenfeld in particular stated:

"Anti-gay bias causes young people to engage in sexual behavior earlier in order to prove that they are straight. Anti-gay bias contributed significantly to the spread of the AIDS epidemic. Anti-gay bias prevents the ability of schools to create effective honest sexual education programs that would save children's lives and prevent STDs (sexually transmitted diseases)."

Drawing upon research by Arizona State University Professor Elizabeth Segal, University of Memphis professors Robin Lennon-Dearing and Elena Delavega argued in a 2016 article published in the Journal of Homosexuality that homophobia could be reduced through exposure (learning about LGBTQ experiences), explanation (understanding the different challenges faced by LGBTQ people), and experience (putting themselves in situations experienced by LGBTQ people by working alongside LGBTQ co-workers or volunteering at an LGBTQ community center).[128]

Criticism of meaning and purpose

Distinctions and proposed alternatives

Researchers have proposed alternative terms to describe prejudice and discrimination against LGBTQ people. Some of these alternatives show more semantic transparency while others do not include -phobia:

  • Homoerotophobia, being a possible precursor term to homophobia, was coined by Wainwright Churchill and documented in Homosexual Behavior Among Males in 1967.
  • The etymology of homophobia citing the union of homos and phobos is the basis for LGBTQ historian John Boswell's criticism of the term and for his suggestion in 1980 of the alternative homosexophobia.
  • Homonegativity is based on the term homonegativism used by Hudson and Ricketts in a 1980 paper; they coined the term for their research to avoid homophobia, which they regarded as being unscientific in its presumption of motivation.
  • Heterosexism refers to a system of negative attitudes, bias, and discrimination in favour of opposite-sex sexual orientation and relationships. It can include the presumption that everyone is heterosexual or that opposite-sex attractions and relationships are the only norm and therefore superior.
  • Sexual prejudice – Researcher at the University of California, Davis, Gregory M. Herek preferred sexual prejudice as being descriptive, free of presumptions about motivations, and lacking value judgments as to the irrationality or immorality of those so labeled. He compared homophobia, heterosexism, and sexual prejudice, and, in preferring the third term, noted that homophobia was "probably more widely used and more often criticized." He also observed that "Its critics note that homophobia implicitly suggests that antigay attitudes are best understood as an irrational fear and that they represent a form of individual psychopathology rather than a socially reinforced prejudice."

Other names

Negative attitudes toward identifiable LGBTQ groups have similar yet specific names: lesbophobia is the intersection of homophobia and sexism directed against lesbians, gayphobia is the dislike or hatred of gay men, biphobia targets bisexuality and bisexual people, and transphobia targets transgender and transsexual people and gender variance or gender role nonconformity.[134][1][3][135]

Non-neutral phrasing

Use of homophobia, homophobic, and homophobe has been criticized as pejorative against LGBTQ rights opponents. Behavioral scientists William O'Donohue and Christine Caselles stated in 1993 that "as [homophobia] is usually used, [it] makes an illegitimately pejorative evaluation of certain open and debatable value positions, much like the former disease construct of homosexuality" itself, arguing that the term may be used as an ad hominem argument against those who advocate values or positions of which the user does not approve.

Psychologists Gregory M. Herek and Beverly A. Greene also find fault with the term "homophobia:" "Technically, homophobia means fear of sameness, yet its usage implies a fear of homosexuals....the –phobia suffix implies a specific kind of fear... Fear or aversion may comprise one component of beliefs about homosexuality, but other factors are unquestionably important. Several alternative terms have been offered ...These include homonegativism (Hudson & Ricketts, 1980), homosexism (Hansen, 1982), and heterosexism (Herek, 1986a). Unfortunately, none has gained widespread acceptance."

However, neutral use of the term has gained acceptance and usage over time since the 1990s. In 2017, the Associated Press Stylebook added an entry for "homophobia" and "homophobic" for the first time,[138] after having excluded it in 2012. The entry says the terms are "acceptable in broad references or in quotations to the concept of fear or hatred of gays, lesbians and bisexuals."

Heterophobia

The term heterophobia is sometimes used to describe reverse discrimination towards heterosexuals. The scientific use of heterophobia in sexology is restricted to a few researchers who question Alfred Kinsey's sex research. To date, the existence or extent of heterophobia is mostly unrecognized by sexologists. Beyond sexology, there is no consensus as to the meaning of the term because it is also used to mean "fear of the opposite", such as in Pierre-André Taguieff's The Force of Prejudice: On Racism and Its Doubles (2001). Referring to the debate on both meaning and use, SUNY lecturer Raymond J. Noonan stated:

The term heterophobia is confusing for some people for several reasons. On the one hand, some look at it as just another of the many me-too social constructions that have arisen in the pseudoscience of victimology in recent decades. (Many of us recall John Money's 1995 criticism of the ascendancy of victimology and its negative impact on sexual science.) Others look at the parallelism between heterophobia and homophobia, and suggest that the former trivializes the latter... For others, it is merely a curiosity or parallel-construction word game. But for others still, it is part of both the recognition and politicization of heterosexuals' cultural interests in contrast to those of gays—particularly where those interests are perceived to clash.

Stephen M. White and Louis R. Franzini introduced the related term heteronegativism to refer to the range of negative feelings that some gay individuals may hold toward heterosexuals. This term is preferred to heterophobia because it does not imply extreme or irrational fear. The Merriam-Webster dictionary of the English language defines heterophobia as "irrational fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against heterosexual people".

Eigenvalues and eigenvectors

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eigenvalu...