A unifying theory of the term “homophobia”, part 1: the historical perspective

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Let us jump right into the thick of it: homophobia does not exist. The term is a social construct and is a projection of the hatred and mistrust towards society that has been generated within the radical gay movement, which started around 1970. By projecting your hatred and heterophobia onto the other guy, your conscience is clear and pure. And the other guy is as guilty as they come. All we then need to do is to hunt for grievances.

And then, as the cloak of victimhood is wrapped around the shoulders, radical gay-lib aggression is justified and has been laundered, in the same way that Islamic extremists in Egypt managed around the same time to create the Muslim Brotherhood, wrapping a cloak of victimhood around the shoulders, borrowing the phrase ‘phobia’ from gay-lib for its own use (Islamophobia) and marching around as pure and sanctified as they come. And then they proceed to seize state power in order to persecute and indulge in self-righteousness. The comparison is striking and its implications are extremely worrying.

In Malta, the tiniest island mini-state of the EU, professionals who dare wish to explore the full sexual potential of a client, and who willfully ignore the false notion of a fixed identity, are marched to prison, not after they have seen clients, but before. It is preventive incarceration of dissident professionals before they can speak their language and express their thoughts. A contract of informed consent between professional and client is no excuse, neither are the client’s voluntary payments. These therapists are the political prisoners of the EU. And much more is on its way. Key to this persecuting of the unbelievers is the phrase ‘homophobia’, the imaginary mind-frame of the other guy. The term needs to be examined.

1.The origin of the term ‘homophobia’

It was first coined as a phrase in 1969 by psychologist George Weinberg and then published in his 1972 book “Society and the Healthy Homosexual”. Weinberg used homophobia in an attempt to describe the hesitance and awkwardness that men may experience when being in close quarters with men who sexualize other men. It is comparable to the awkwardness that 16-year-old girls feel if the male teacher stands around them in the locker room and looks at them while they change clothes. Weinberg argued that the hesitance had no rational basis; all men with (secret) sexual desires towards other men can be trusted at all times, and therefore any preliminary fear was unjustified, so he argued. Hesitance was merely a matter of prejudice, so he felt.

The recent revealing of the massive sexual abuse perpetrated secretly in the Catholic and other churches by men with same-sex inclinations, even in the decades when Weinberg wrote his book, proves how naive and politically motivated his label was. Very many boys and men had had a shocking and traumatizing youth at the hands of men whom they felt could be trusted. So, was there really nothing to worry about?

The American Heritage Dictionary (1992 edition) defines homophobia as “aversion to gay or homosexual people or their lifestyle or culture” and “behavior or an act based on this aversion.”

Other definitions identify homophobia as an irrational fear of homosexuality.

These definitions, however, imply that there is such a thing as a separate sexuality, that homosexual feelings define a complete person and not just the feelings, and that the social construct of ‘homosexual people’, ‘gay people’ and ‘their culture’ is justified. It is us/them thinking and it induces modern day social apartheid. It leads to the idea of the existence of separate worlds and communities, and if the phrases are repeated often enough, the train of thought is internalized by younger generations as the truth, the world as it is.

Class Enemy on display

It is comparable to the way that in China and behind the Iron Curtain of the previous century with all its propaganda, the Class Enemy dwelt on the Western side of the Wall, with all his malice and evil intent. All his accomplices were rounded up.

2. The emergence of homosexism

The term homophobia is the result of a political movement that can be defined as ‘homosexism’.

In this train of thought, the broad concept of sexuality is divided into two distinct sexualities which would be innate and immutable (we now know there is no scientific proof of this). It goes on to assert that every human being would be endowed with one of both.

When people stress that this division does not do justice to their feelings and that the division is wrong, these people are designated an immutable sexuality of their own, a ‘bisexuality’, thereby appeasing them but at the same time preserving or rescuing the concept of separate sexualities. It is called repressive tolerance. Therefore, one is always labeled as having an immutable separate sexuality or “orientation”, no matter what you say. This is the essence of homosexism, and by incessant repetition, it has become the pervasive and mainstream narrative in the West.

3. Dr. Karl-Maria Benkert, 1856

The idea of the existence of an ‘orientation’ is no older than 150 years. In one of our previous articles, (‘The False Notion Of “Sexual Orientation”‘), we described this historical process in great detail.

To put it briefly, in 1856 a Hungarian doctor, Karl-Maria Benkert, decided to name same-sex attractions and behaviors “homo-sexuality”. This was novel. He did this to help people stand up against the then current disapproval and persecution of behavior, first and foremost anal intercourse between men.

Later, it was expanded by others into the term ‘variation’ and ‘orientation’. In a new emerging Western tradition, Dr. Benkert made ‘orientation’ sound as an entity, a physical medical phenomenon like other medical conditions. Benkert coined the phrase but did not demonstrate any medical findings to substantiate his nomenclature.

Two years later, German activist Karl Heinrich Ulrich triumphantly used this new ‘medical condition’ to fight for civil rights and to receive public approval. He succeeded in doing so. The struggle for sexual freedom has been going on ever since, and along these very same lines.

Ulrich was sure that medical science would prove in the near future that these ‘orientations’ or ‘variations’ do indeed exist as a biological reality, thereby securing the right to conduct of your own, even if it is considered by others to be deviant.

But the disappointment was great when Sigmund Freud declared at the end of that century that no separate sexualities exist and that every person is capable of same-sex attractions and always also of opposite-sex attractions.

Sigmund Freud’s argument about sexuality was that we are all born bisexual and over time as we grow up, we are socialized, with our sexuality being the product of the influences on us during the formative years of our lives. To put it in the context of the ‘nature v/s nurture’ argument, nature brings us into the world with the full spectrum of sexual possibilities, whereas nurture results in our having distinct feelings and behaviors at the various adult stages of life.

Freud never said that sexuality was fixed; he said that inner strivings were always on the move and that a never-ending self-investigation is the road to happiness and understanding.

The activists felt that medical science was letting them down, and the positive hope that scientific progress had given them, turned into resentment. Political activism created the desire to stop all medical investigation of this field, so as political progress would not be undermined.

Things got worse for the activists when in 1947 researcher Alfred Kinsey demonstrated in huge surveys that the concept of fixed orientations was not replicated: the dividing line between orientations was vague and sexuality was fluid, that is to say always on the move. Temporary bouts of same-sex attractions were the rule, not the exception, and were to be found in wide parts of society.

The activists were confused, and ultimately in a frenzy of paranoia, activist ideology became a struggle against medical research itself. Doctors had to be silenced for once and for all; they had become the Enemy. The concept of fixed orientations had to be saved, and the fight against dissidence to this doctrine had become a political campaign. Radical gay activism was born.

4. Moderates versus radicals

In contrast to radical activism, moderate activism asserts that ‘orientation’ is merely a figure of speech. It does not exist as a demonstrable entity. Sexuality does not come in ‘variations’ either, and there is no published scientific article substantiating the emergence of these alleged ‘variations’. Moderate activism relies on mainstream scientific research.

To counteract the moderates, in 1970 radicals created a science of their own, ‘LGBT science’, in which a human is branded right from the start as being “a” homosexual or “a” lesbian with distinct and immutable traits.

These distinctly different sorts of people are then approached as an object of study and are set up against others who are branded “heterosexuals” with an own immutable sexuality. This newly fangled science is the result of political activism, and not based on scientific findings. It was widely spread by Glassgold and Drescher in their book “Activism And LGBT Psychology”.

We can safely say that the existence of “LGBT People”, “LGBT Science”, “The LGBT Community” and “Anti-LGBT Injustices” are the result of politically motivated prejudice directed at the Class Enemy on the other side of the wall. Fighting the Class Enemy reinforces his existence in the mind of the young. And the evil doings of the Enemy can be unified in a single phrase: homophobia.

“They are on to us, sound the alarm, be prepared for the most important historic battle ever to secure our safety, to secure our love, to secure our apartheid. May apartheid live forever and let no man intervene”.

5. Conclusion

This is the historical approach to the development of the phrase ‘homophobia” in which persons living inside the gay paradigm and separate world, know for sure what others think. It is a form of mind-reading and then they take it from there.

Just like the Communist rulers used the phrase Class Enemy abundantly, so do the homosexists use the phrase from 1969 onward to label and stigmatize freely.

In the next article, we will look at the psychological approach: why does the train of thought feel so right for the warriors in their self-constructed bastion and dreamy world?

To be continued.

Job Berendsen, MD.