File:Save_Our_Children_From_Homosexuality_Brochure.jpg · Wikimedia Commons · See Wikimedia Commons
heterosexism
Sign in to saveHeterosexism is a system of attitudes, bias, and discrimination in favor of heterosexuality and heterosexual relationships. According to Elizabeth Cramer, it can include the belief that all people are or should be heterosexual and that heterosexual relationships are the only norm and therefore superior.
Heterosexism is a system of attitudes, bias, and discrimination that favors heterosexuality and treats heterosexual relationships as the only normal or superior form of relationship. It matters because it can lead to unfair treatment of people who are not heterosexual, based on the false belief that heterosexuality is what everyone is or should be.
AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.
~21 min read
Encyclopedic overview
19 sectionsContents
- Background
- Etymology and usage
- Contrast to homophobia
- Parallels and intersections
- As a set of beliefs and attitudes
- Individual and group level
- Institutional level
- Research and measurements
- Measurements
- Research
- As discrimination
- Explicit or open
- Implicit or hidden
- Effects
- Marginalization
- Anti-LGBT violence and abuse
- Responses
- See also
- References
Heterosexism is a system of attitudes, bias, and discrimination in favor of heterosexuality and heterosexual relationships. According to Elizabeth Cramer, it can include the belief that all people are or should be heterosexual and that heterosexual relationships are the only norm and therefore superior.
Although heterosexism is defined in the online editions of the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language and the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary as anti-gay discrimination or prejudice "by heterosexual people" and "by heterosexuals", respectively, people of any sexual orientation can hold such attitudes and bias, and can form a part of internalised hatred of one's sexual orientation.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “heterosexism” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.