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[Aaron Patrick Lehmann]

On Mon, Oct 11, 2004 at 08:15:27PM -0400, Brian Derr wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 05, 2004 at 09:45:43PM -0500, Aaron Patrick Lehmann wrote:
> > Look at the following result from dictionary.com:
> > 
> > http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=homophobia
> > 
> > All three definitions on this page, which come from reputable dictionaries (
> > Miram-Webster Medical Dictionary, and others ), indicate that "homophobia"
> > involves contempt, aversion, or dislike of gays and lesbians, and two of three
> > indicate that it includes a behavioral component.  While fear is mentioned, it
> > appears to be optional.  I'll grant you that the root phobe would seem to
> > require fear, but it appears that in fact, the term is more inclusive then
> > that.  Of course, one could read it to mean that homophobia is the fear of
> > anything like the one doing fearing, but no one has had any difficulty
> > recognizing that that's not what the homo indicates.  I suppose that they used
> > the term homophobia because they wanted people to think it was a subcategory of
> > xenophobia...  which is pretty similar.
> 
> I hate to get involved in this discussion because it is rather a dumb
> one, but I cannot let this slide.  Lets look at the etymology of the
> word "homophobia".  We have the roots: "hom" and "phobia".

It only gets stupider when you repeat what I just said, as though that somehow
makes me wrong.  Whether or not we agree with its formulation, saying that its
not a word seems a little odd, since it is widely used and understood.  

> Etymology
> 
>    The  word  homophobia  is  a  neologism coined by psychologist George
>    Weinberg in his book Society  and  the  Healthy Homosexual in 1972.
>    It consists of the Greek words homo meaning "the  same" and phobia
>    which means "fear". However the word combines the prefix homo- from
>    "homosexual"  with  the  root  phobia.  A  precursor  was
>    homoerotophobia,  coined  by Dr Wainwright Churchill in Homosexual
>    Behavior Among Males in 1967.
> 
> (http://www.campusprogram.com/reference/en/wikipedia/h/ho/homophobia.html)
> 
> In other words, it is a made up word with no actual psychiatric backing.

What does "no actual psychiatric backing" mean?  I would have thought it meant
that no psychologists and pychiatrists backed it, but since the word was coined
by a psychologist, it must not mean that.

Aaron Lehmann
-- 
Sometimes you stay the course;
Sometimes the course stays you.