homophobia

The thing that really grabbed my attention in this section was when the author mentioned how a gay man was beaten and stabbed to death by ten teenage boys. It reminded me of the extreme racist acts performed by groups like the kkk. The author explains that there are different terms for being “anti-gay and the 2 most common are heterosexism and homophobia. Heterosexism is dealing mostly with the protection of heterosexist rights and privileges. He uses homophobia to refer more to “physical abuse and strong verbal, economic and juridical abuse against gays”. He does explain that both terms are political terms and are used differently in different situation. I really liked the statement “homophobia is a product of institutional heterosexism and gendered identity”. This again reminds me of racism because violent acts of racism can also be seen as a product of institution racism