Is there a word that means “a hatred of gay people”, rather than “a fear of or aversion to gay people”? Surely there are people who simply hate homosexuality without necessarily fearing it, and vice versa. Someone who hates homosexuality should probably be condemned for their unreasonable and hateful prejudices, but should someone who actually fears homosexuality but without hating it be condemned in the same way? Why isn’t there a distinction?
And similarly, why do we have words like “arachnophobia” which means a fear of something (not necessarily a hatred of it; though you might hate what you fear, that isn’t necessarily always the case, nor is the opposite always true either (fearing what you hate)), but “homophobia” is used to mean “hatred of homosexuality” rather than a genuine fear of it without necessarily hating it?
It makes me feel a bit sorry (as much as one can) for people who might genuinely be afraid of the idea of homosexuality, maybe even struggling with their own sexuality or possibly in denial of being homosexual themself, but without hating it at all (even possibly being supportive of it), not having a word that conveys a fear of the concept/phenomenon without any kind of disdain for it, since “homophobia” would generally be interpreted to mean something far more negative. Usually when someone has a phobia for something, we support them to deal with it in a non-accusatory way, but in this case, well, I guess there isn’t even a word for that kind of phobia if it’s actually a phobia in the usual sense.
It’s more like, if you use the word phobia for hatred in this case, that’s fine, but then what is the word for having a genuine fear? What are those people called, who don’t hate homosexuality, only fear it? They certainly exist and I feel like it should be a recognised thing rather than them having to either be called a term that doesn’t apply to them in how it’s used or have their phobia completely unacknowledged.
Nobody “fears” homosexuality for reasons unrelated to homophobia, stop giving bigots excuses to hide behind.
I’ve told you “this is the word, this is what it means, I get the confusion but you are unfortunately wrong about it being wrong”.
Meanwhile I don’t see how any one of your three replies (why? You can fit five thousand characters in one, and edit it after the fact) to my comment actually engage with anything in it, and the topic is now three days old. Have a nice day.