Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia: Understanding These Forms of Discrimination

Both homophobia, biphobia and transphobia are types of discrimination that are so harmful that even today they produce many deaths year after year.

Although they not only cause discomfort due to the cost they entail in people who lose their lives due to murder or suicide; It must also be taken into account that even when they do not kill directly, they lead to missed trips; people who for decades have been afraid to show themselves as they are and try to hide it from everyone, people who try to impose on themselves a lifestyle that does not fit their sexual orientation, etc.

In this article we will talk about the psychological implications of homophobia, transphobia and biphobia to better understand the problems they pose.

What do homophobia, transphobia and biphobia have in common?

The common ingredient of these three forms of discrimination is that they arise from the imposition of gender roles. The sexual division of labor has meant that, for many centuries, The fact of being a man or a woman is not seen simply as a set of biological characteristics but rather a series of stereotypes and expectations have been associated with it with profound implications in the path that society proposes to its members depending on which of these two categories they fit into.

The activities, values ​​and attitudes that are linked to the fact of being a man or woman vary depending on the culture in which we focus; However, what does not change is that there is a radical division of gender roles in all human societies today. In all tribes and ethnic groups in the world, women and men have a series of assigned tasks a set of lifestyles that they cannot carry out, and even different rules when it comes to expressing their emotions.

Of course, all of this is reflected in the way in which people express their gender identity and sexual orientation; It is very rare that a culture accepts both trans and non-heterosexuality, since these two phenomena, each in their own way, challenge gender roles, which have as their origin the way in which gender is interpreted. tasks linked to the reproduction and maintenance of a tribe or a family by having babies and caring for them.

Both sexual activity and raising children are experiences that for millennia we have linked to the differences between men and women, given that have to do with reproduction, and that is why rigid rules have been created to delimit the roles of members of both sexes. And those who break these rules are punished in various ways.

Self-rejection as a consequence of discrimination

As we have seen, both homophobia, transphobia and biphobia operate cultural dynamics that have been operating for centuries and can even be reflected in laws and political measures that discriminate against non-heterosexual or non-cisgender minorities.

However, these phenomena are not just something that works at a social level, through interactions between people and groups. Also They are reflected at the individual level, in the way people think and feel as individuals And this is the reason why, among other things, even the victims of this type of discrimination can reproduce homophobia, transphobia and biphobia and interpret reality through them, harming themselves.

In this case, what is known as internalized homophobia, transphobia or biphobia occurs; That is to say, the person who is not heterosexual or not cis finds himself in a situation in which his identity collides with what he considers acceptable, assuming that what is out of the “normal” in that sense is something bad, something that must be hidden.

This is because in the vast majority of cases, boys and girls learn to reject trans or non-heterosexual people before they learn to understand what their sexual identity and sexual orientation is. By the time they realize how they feel or who they are sexually attracted to, they have already internalized that only what fits perfectly with gender roles is acceptable. And obviously, makes the self-discovery process very hindered by the rejection of all stereotypes associated with trans, homosexual and bisexual people, which on the one hand produces behavioral dynamics that the individual imposes on himself despite his true desires, and on the other hand leads him to not dare to know oneself better because of fear.

On the other hand, even those who on an intellectual/cognitive level already know that they are homosexual, bisexual or trans can desperately search for ways to distance themselves from these stereotypes. This means that there are quite a few who even discriminate against other members of the LGBT community to “mark distances”, make it clear that they are not like them and that, in one way or another, they are like cis and heterosexual people except on rare reserved occasions. to privacy. Due to this, not only does discrimination against these minorities continue to continue, but self-rejection also continues to be reproduced and, on the other hand, LGBT people they cannot even feel totally safe and respected in their own contexts of encounter and in the activities linked to the subcultures that are born in those places.

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My name is Thomas Saint Cecilia I am a psychologist, and I specialize in the cognitive-behavioral model applied to problems such as low self-esteem, excess anxiety, depressive symptoms, relationship crises, and other forms of emotional discomfort or reflected in relationships. personal.