Attitudes toward sexual orientation has been a topic of increasing interest in recent years, and people with homosexual (and also bisexual) orientations have long been stigmatized. This anti-homosexual bias is known as homophobia, and is most widely defined as an irrational fear of homosexuality. Some aspects of homophobia were described in "When You Meet a Lesbian: Hints for the Heterosexual Woman", and I thought it would be interesting to investigate the causes of this attitudes through this essay.
The process of identity formation constitutes a significant part in the development of homophobia, since it relies on labeling and self-labeling. People can't help labeling others, and categorizing themselves (Mandimore 1996). The simplest example that labeling is the number of "quizzes" found in different magazines, and that offer the reader to discover their deep insights, by helping them decide whether they fit into this category or that one.
The first part of this process of labeling is the most crucial one, since it occurs in childhood. Indeed, children learn labels of sexual orientation years before they are capable of understanding sexual concepts. In addition to that, they are sensitive to gender roles at a very young age, which makes children who do not conform to the expected standards of gender behavior ridiculed and excluded. Unfortunately, labels of mockery are the first terms children learn before they are mature enough to understand or feel sexual feelings. Kids (but also a lot of grown-ups) still use the words fag, sissy or tomboy to put down people they dislike or consider bizarre or effeminate.
Let's take a look at the identity formation process for homosexuals. Children who become later homosexuals do not usually think of themselves as sexually different, and the label homosexual doesn't hold any significance for them. As Mondimore nicely said it, "These children assume that they will grow up to be mommies and daddies just like their parents".