homophobia

homophobia, culturally produced fear of or prejudice against homosexuals that sometimes manifests itself in legal restrictions or, in extreme cases, bullying or even violence against homosexuals (sometimes called “gay bashing”). The term homophobia was coined in the late 1960s and was used prominently by George Weinberg, an American clinical psychologist, in his book Society and the Healthy Homosexual (1972). Although the suffix phobia generally designates an irrational fear, in the case of homophobia the word...