Homophobia: The Fear of Skeletons Inside Our Own Closets
Why do we easily identify other people's faults but struggle to recognise our own?
Despite our nose sitting right above the mouth, it doesn’t detect our bad breath. While people standing feet away can easily smell it.
On the 13th of August 2023, two men were stabbed in South London for what appears to be nothing more than their sexual preference. One of the victims posted this statement on social media,
“What can lead to changing a person’s mind that much that they feel it’s okay to attack anyone, whatever their reasons?
A couple of days later, LBC radio hosted a discussion on the incident and homophobia in general. A caller came on air weeping to say,
‘The attacker must be in the closet.’
In other words, the attack was a display of internalised homophobia: an expression of the attacker’s fear, relating to homosexual tendencies he himself has tucked away in shame.
The caller qualified this insight with the following,
“I used to do the same thing, then twenty-five years ago, I came out as gay.”
Sticking the Plasters On the Mirror.
Having tucked his homosexual tendencies away ‘in the closet.’ He was easily offended by similar tendencies reflecting off other people and, thus, verbally abused them.
Like the drunk man who fell into a thorn bush and cut up his face. Staggered home to analyse the injuries in the mirror. But stuck the plasters on the mirror instead of his face. The caller stuck plasters of verbal abuse on the human mirrors that reflected tendencies he tried to hide away from.
This reflection thing made sense to me after blaming the ex-wife for my own faults and shortfalls. The recognition forced a towel load of toxicity from my tear ducts. A bath towel, I may add, and in that very moment, my outlook on life opened up like a parachute.
Multigenerational Phobia
The fear of homosexuality is common in the black community. Yet, in all fairness, one has to consider the effects of sexual abuse upon both males and females during the enslavement of black people.
Of course, this doesn’t excuse homophobic behaviour. But it does highlight a crucial factor relating to multigenerational phobia and our overall attitude towards intimacy.
Lee Malvo, one of the infamous Washington D.C. snipers, was born and raised in Jamaica. Now serving multiple life sentences in America. He shares details of the first time his father visited him in prison.
Having heard that Lee was sexually abused by his now executed co-defendant, John Mohammed. Mr. Malvo’s first enquiry was not, how are you, son? Or, why the hell did you kill those people? He greeted the son he hadn’t seen for years, with the Jamaican patio, homophobic version of — are you gay?
Judgement Is a Fear
Judging people over their sexual preference is nothing new. LGBTQ communities have suffered decades of abuse and strings of murders. Triggering many protests and the introduction of new legislation.
Still, UK records show homophobic attacks have more than doubled over the last five years.
26,152 of the 155,841 hate crimes reported between 2021 and 2022 were of sexual orientation. Another 4,355 relate to transgender hate.
A group of young men hospitalised a gay man in an attack on him and his partner as they walked through East London on the 1st of October, 2023. The same threats are real for LGBTQ communities in America, Australia, and other places of the world.
Fear appears to be the underlying attribute from which a judgement is cast to make way for such narrow-minded actions.
Judgement represents an attempted dissection of life’s unification. It demonstrates our distrust of life and could well be humanity’s greatest obstacle. For what could be worse than to divide life in two?
Yet, it has to begin with self-judgment. Only then are we imbalanced enough to judge and ridicule others. Self-judgment gives birth to most mental conditions, including shyness and other social anxieties.
Renowned therapist and author Pete Walker defines shyness as, “seeing people as danger and danger as people.” In other words, the fear of people — or in one word — homophobia.
Etymology shows the word homophobia to originally mean the fear of people in general. Homo, as in homo sapiens, relates to the genus of the human species, and phobia means fear.
Susan Jeffers, Ph.D., dissected our fears into three levels for her book Feel The Fear and Do It Anyway.
Human fear manifests in various forms and attracts a plethora of labels, but essentially, it’s rooted in our rigid identification with the human body, which gives birth to the notion of separation. A mindset that’s responsible for most human conflicts, large and small.
Fear, by the way — or phobia, is the fundamental attribute in all three clusters of the listed personality disorders.
Could the five hundred listed phobias be symptoms of a deeper condition?
The Science and Art of Human Reflection
Attacking tendencies we’ve hidden away in shame is not exclusive to sexual preferences. Most, if not all, the traits we dislike in other people are traits we dislike in ourselves and have tucked away in shame.
This does not infringe upon our uniqueness. It’s the underlying impetus, the essence of human behaviour that’s the same across the globe.
For example, the daily intake of caffeine or that glass of wine in the evening appears disparate from the daily use of cannabis or heroin. In fact, the word addict is more associated with cannabis and hard drugs than it is with caffeine and a daily glass or two.
But every addiction, regardless of the varying strengths, is a manifestation of human compulsiveness. The human journey is governed by compulsiveness (addiction). Caffeine, alcohol, cannabis, and heroin are just four of the many expressions of human compulsion.
Instead of learning to surf the waves of compulsiveness. We cast judgement upon compulsive behaviour (addiction), in an attempt to segregate or separate from a normal human tendency.
This phenomenon is common in all kinds of relationships. We enter them to have our needs met. But that motive doesn’t sound so sexy because it’s been judged as selfish and exploitative. Yet, there’d be nothing pulling you into relationships if your needs were not being met.
A small dose of honesty reveals our aims, goals, and ambitions to be in hot pursuit of personal benefits and comforts. Thus, selfishness is a normal human tendency. But due to the judgement passed upon it, when a party to the relationship, or anyone else for that matter, behaves selfishly. We lash out against the normal human tendency of selfishness.
“In a consumer society there are inevitably two kinds of slaves: the prisoners of addiction and the prisoners of envy.” — Frances Iles.
In a Unified World, You’re Always Looking at Yourself.
The primary motivator for tucking away traits or tendencies in shame is the delusion of worthiness. Delusional because a piece of life can never be unworthy. You are worthy by definition.
Perfection is another delusional pursuit that motivates us to hide parts of ourselves. Meanwhile, an unkept forest maintains order through its disorder and remains perfect in its imperfection.
Life is not only imperfectly perfect. It’s so unified there’s nowhere to hide. You’re always looking at yourself through the reflection of other people.
But an obsession with being good, attractive, positive, or simply perfect. Makes you label normal human behaviour as bad, ugly, negative, or imperfect. Yet, you wouldn’t have the pleasure of reading this post without negativity.
Moulded from one soil, sustained by one air, cleansed by one water, and warmed by one fire. We parallel a mixture of vegetables stewing in a pot sprinkled with a handful of spicy persona traits.
Still, like the drunk man who fell over and cut up his face. We prescribe invasive medicine for human mirrors that are merely reflecting aspects of our persona.
The relationship between our nose and mouth illustrates this human dilemma. Despite sitting right above the mouth, the nose doesn’t detect our bad breath. While people standing feet away can easily smell it.
Unification Is The Master Key.
Introspection is a crucial part of the human journey. It extends beyond analysing our thoughts, emotions, and actions. Introspection, meaning to look into oneself, can open you up to the oneness of life. Scientifically known as the principle of unification.
Despite the apparent diversity and differences in the world. There’s an essential sameness that connects everything together. It erases the notion of isolated beings, entities, or events. Rendering the idea of separation a grand illusion. Upon this rock lay the science and art of human reflection.
We're talking about a state of neutrality that allows the father of a 9-year-old girl to forgive and embrace her rapist-killer with brotherly love.
Although in pain, the father recognises that life cannot be divided in two; thus judgment is not only futile, it’s also delusional. In the clarity of that unification, he sees himself in the killer and the killer in himself and, subsequently, supports the human chain at its weakest link.
Other examples of human unification are shared right here.
Bonded Through Both Love And Hate
Experiencing a bond with my brother’s assailant was surprising and awkward at first, but I now understand.
In a unified world, it’s all bond, bond, and bond. We bond through love, and we bond through hate. Like inhalation and exhalation, love and hate are joined at the hip.
The impulse to judge between the two is born in the belief of separation, the root cause of fear. Hence, neutrality or equanimity is the pathway back home. If we want a solution to be workable anywhere, it has to be workable everywhere.
Homophobia, like all other conditions, is a holistic dis-ease. Reaching beyond sexual preferences to other issues, such as racism. Thus, a holistic approach would be best fitting.
By first recognizing the fear of people (homophobia) as a fundamental phobia. Then, instead of throwing gasoline on the fire by meeting fear with more fear. It could be treated like other phobias: with medication and therapy — or even meditation for that matter.
As it’s clear, we can all benefit from a long, hard look inside ourselves.
The truth is right beneath our noses.
If you enjoyed this story, you may check the remarkable perspectives from a scientific angle articulated by Dr Mehmet Yildiz in a recent story.
If you need assistance with any of the matters discussed herein. Please visit the appropriate link below.
Find a CenterLink Member in our LGBTQ Community Center Directory
Thank you for reading my story.
