Homophobia
From Social Stigma to Hate Crimes
by Jamie Hunt
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PUBLISHED BY:
Mason Crest Publishers on Smashwords
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Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1. What’s So Scary About Difference?
Chapter 2. Homophobia and Its Victims
Chapter 3. An Ongoing Struggle for Rights and Respect
Chapter 4. What Can YOU Do About Homophobia?
Bibliography
Index
About the Author and the Consultant
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Introduction
We are both individuals and community members. Our differences define individuality; our commonalities create a community. Some differences, like the ability to run swiftly or to speak confidently, can make an individual stand out in a way that is viewed as beneficial by a community, while the group may frown upon others. Some of those differences may be difficult to hide (like skin color or physical disability), while others can be hidden (like religious views or sexual orientation). Moreover, what some communities or cultures deem as desirable differences, like thinness, is a negative quality in other contemporary communities. This is certainly the case with sexual orientation and gender identity, as explained in Homosexuality Around the World, one of the volumes in this book series.
Often, there is a tension between the individual (individual rights) and the community (common good). This is easily visible in everyday matters like the right to own land versus the common good of building roads. These cases sometimes result in community controversy and often are adjudicated by the courts.
An even more basic right than property ownership, however, is one’s gender and sexuality. Does the right of gender expression trump the concerns and fears of a community or a family or a school? Feeling Wrong in Your Own Body, as the author of that volume suggests, means confronting, in the most personal way, the tension between individuality and community. And, while a community, family, and school have the right (and obligation) to protect its children, does the notion of property rights extend to controlling young adults’ choice as to how they express themselves in terms of gender or sexuality?
Changes in how a community (or a majority of the community) thinks about an individual right or responsibility often precedes changes in the law enacted by legislatures or decided by courts. And for these changes to occur, individuals (sometimes working in small groups) often defied popular opinion, political pressure, or religious beliefs. Some of these trends are discussed in A New Generation of Homosexuality. Every generation (including yours!) stands on the accomplishments of our ancestors and in Gay and Lesbian Role Models you’ll be reading about some of them.
One of the most pernicious aspects of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is that “homosexuality” is a stigma that can be hidden (see the volume about Homophobia). While some of my generation (I was your age in the early 1960s) think that life is so much easier being “queer” in the age of the Internet, Gay-Straight Alliances, and Ellen, in reality, being different in areas where difference matters is always difficult. Coming Out, as described in the volume of the same title, is always challenging—for both those who choose to come out and for the friends and family they trust with what was once a hidden truth. Being healthy means being honest—at least to yourself. Having supportive friends and family is most important, as explained in Being Gay, Staying Healthy.
Sometimes we create our own “families”—persons bound together by love and identity but not by name or bloodline. This is quite common in gay communities today as it was several generations ago. Forming families or small communities based on rejection by the larger community can also be a double-edged sword. While these can be positive, they may also turn into prisons of conformity. Does being lesbian, for example, mean everyone has short hair, hates men, and drives (or rides on) a motorcycle? What Does It Mean to Be Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, or Transgender? “smashes” these and other stereotypes.
Another common misconception is that “all gay people are alike”—a classic example of a stereotypical statement. We may be drawn together because of a common prejudice or oppression, but we should not forfeit our individuality for the sake of the safety of a common identity, which is one of the challenges shown in Gay People of Color: Facing Prejudices, Forging Identities.
Coming out to who you are is just as important as having a group or “family” within which to safely come out. Becoming knowledgeable about these issues (through the books in this series and the other resources to which they will lead), feeling good about yourself, behaving safely, actively listening to others and to your inner spirit—all this will allow you to fulfill your promise and potential.
James T. Sears, PhD
Consultant
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Chapter 1
What’s So Scary About Difference?
On the night of October 7, 1998, a University of Wyoming freshman, Matthew Wayne Shepard, met Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson at the Fireside Lounge in Laramie, Wyoming. The three young men talked and had a few drinks, and at the end of the night, McKinney and Henderson offered Matthew a ride home. It was a ride from hell. Matthew was robbed, beaten, and tortured, then tied to a fence in a remote area overlooking the lights of Laramie. Having found his address in his wallet, McKinney and Henderson planned to burglarize Matthew’s apartment. They left him to die, lashed to the fence. Eighteen hours later, Aaron Kriefels found Matthew in a coma and near death. Kriefels at first thought he had come across a beat-up old scarecrow.
Shepard had fractures to his skull and severe brain stem damage. He never regained consciousness and remained on full life support in an intensive care unit at Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins, Colorado. The medical staff at the hospital determined that his injuries were too severe for treatment. He was pronounced dead at 12:53 a.m. on October 12, 1998. He was twenty-one years old.
Matthew Shepard was the son of Dennis and Judy Shepard; he had a younger brother named Logan. Matthew was a bright young man studying political science and was chosen as the student representative for the Wyoming Environmental Council. He had many friends and a close extended family. His father described him as “an optimistic and accepting young man who had a special gift of relating to almost everyone. He was the type of person who was very approachable and always looked to new challenges.” Matthew was also a gay man, well known in his college community for his openness and, as his father said, for his “great passion for equality and . . . for the acceptance of people’s differences.”
Matthew’s murder was quickly identified by the media and members of the Laramie LGBT community and their allies as a hate crime. Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson were arrested and tried for the crime. At their trial, Chastity Pasley and Kristen Price, girlfriends of McKinney and Henderson, testified that the two men had made a plan to rob a gay man and had gone to the Fireside Lounge that night and selected Matthew Shepard as their victim. But McKinney and Henderson pleaded the “gay panic defense”: their lawyers claimed the two men were so terrified by Matthew’s alleged sexual advances that they were driven to temporary insanity, and they were, therefore, not responsible for their actions. Both men were found guilty of felony murder, but Matthew Shepard’s father made an emotional statement in the courtroom asking that, in memory of his murdered son’s compassion, the judge sentence the killers to life imprisonment rather than impose the death penalty.