Here’s the outline for “Brain Surgery: What’s in the minds of homophobes?”

How the term “homophobia” came about:
In 1972, at the onset of the stonewall rebellion [July 1969], George Weinberg coined “homophobia”. He defined it as “the dread of being at close quarters with homosexuals.. The revulsion toward homosexuals and often the desire to inflict punishment as retribution”. Mark Freedman later described it as “an extreme rage and fear reaction to homosexuals”. Poet Audre Lorde’s definition in 1978 was, “fear of feelings of love for members of one’s own sex and therefore hatred of those feelings in others”.

The definition of “homophobia”:
Homophobia has little in common with other types of phobia. It should be seen in the framework of prejudice (attitudes) and discrimination (behaviors). Researchers who published papers in recent years generally define it along the lines of prejudice, hatred or contempt towards lesbian and gay people [with extension to other sexual minorities].

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“Common types” of homophobes:
In these few slides, i put down examples that i have read of, seen, heard of or experienced e.g. gay bashers.

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Wright, Adams and Bernat’s homophobia scale:
You can access the scale from here. There are other scales measuring homophobia such as “The Attitudes Toward Gay Men Subscale” and “The attitudes towards lesbian women subscale”.
*Please note that scales are not just any set of questions put together. Scales are developed and rigorously tested by statisticians so that they measure what they are supposed to measure. Not just by face validity [i.e. the questions "look okay"], but with convergent and divergent validity [it correlates highly with other scales measuring similar things and correlates lowly with scales that measures dissimilar things], consistency [the items are tapping onto the same concept] etc. One item does not give you a meaningful score, answers to all items in a scale are required to compute a score. Not every researcher uses scales… simply because scales are not developed for every concept out there.*

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Profile of the homophobe:

Next, i discussed the article which was used in the anti-repeal of 377A.
The reference:
Detenber, B. H., Genite, M., Ku, M. K. Y., Ong, C. P. L., Tong, H. Y., & Yeow, M. L. H. (2007). Singaporeans’ attitudes towards lesbians and gay men and their tolerance of media portrayals of homosexuality. Internal journal of public opinion, 19(3), 367-379.

From this article, someone made the conclusion that Singapore is not ready for the repeal of 377A [377A criminalize sex between gay men] because 68.6% expressed negative attitudes, 22.9% expressed positive attitudes, 8.5% were neutral. The participants for this study were acquired randomly and the demographics profile was similar to that of the general population.

But if you read the study for yourself, the study is actually seeking predictors of negative attitudes towards lesbian and gay people. Guess what they found?

There are 3 tables in the journal article. Table 1 displayed results showing predictors. Using correlation, they found that age [older], income [lower], education [lower], conformity to norms [more conformist] and intrinsic religious orientation [versus extrinsic religious orientation] correlate highly with poor attitudes towards LG people. The highest correlation going to intrinsic religious orientation [IRO]. Intrinsic religious orientation is defined as “seeing religion as a driving force in life”.

Using regression, which estimates the unique contribution of each predictor, marital status [these people were significantly older] and IRO were the strongest predictors.

In the second table, the researchers showed that Christians scored the highest in IRO, followed by Muslims, Buddhists and free-thinkers. In the third and last table, the researchers showed that Christians and Muslims were less tolerant compared to Buddhists and freethinkers.

Essentially, the researchers are saying that intrinsic religious orientation is the biggest predictor of negative attitudes towards LG people. And they showed that people of certain religions were more likely to be intrinsically religious and hence more likely to be anti-gay.

Adding to the study above [continuing on the profile of the homophobe]:

1. Male
Majority of gay bashers are in their teens or early twenties. Some have said that anti-gay violence is a control of manhood. Researchers have also shown that men who endorse homophobic and sexist items are likely to endorse hegemonic masculinity items.

2. Heterosexist
Heterosexism is the belief in the superiority of heterosexuals or heterosexuality evidenced in the exclusion, by omission or design, or non heterosexual persons in policies, procedures, events or activities.

3. Misognic
Researchers found links between homophobic violence and violence against young women. Those with traditional gender role attitudes tend to express higher levels of homophobia.

4. Authoritarian
Authoritarians have been described as “self righteous individuals who maintain a strong acceptance of traditional values and norms, possess a general willingness to submit to authority, and display a general tendency to aggress against others (especially those who threaten their conventional and traditional values)”.

It has been suggested that there is an underlying trait called “Conservatism”. Conservatism is linked to “national strength and order”. Order, discipline and striving to be successful and powerful. Outcomes of behavior important. Societal norms should be obeyed.

Conservatism has been linked to racism [e.g. lack of support for benefits for Australian Aborigines], sexism [e.g. lack of support for increased job options for women], greater acceptance of rape myth [i.e. rape victims deserve to be raped], lack of support for income redistribution, religious intolerance, homophobia etc.

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Homophobia may lead to violence.

A study:
Homophobia and physical aggression toward homosexual and heterosexual individuals. Journal of Abnormal Psychology. 110(1), 179-187.

Basically participants played a game in which winners administer shocks to losers. Shock intensity and shock duration were measured.

The gist of this study is easy to understand. Aggression against gay people may be powered by anger-hostility [angry, irritable, hostile, scornful, disgusted and loathing] and anxiety. Negative affect [afraid, ashamed, distressed, guilty, jittery, nervous, scared, upset...] was not found to be a contributing factor.

Some people pointed out that non-homophobic participants end up shocking their opponents more. Well, the difference for non-homophobic participants is very small like 0.16 seconds. For homophobic participants, the difference is about 1.00, which is many times more. Homophobic participants not only shock “homosexual” confederate more, they also shock the “heterosexual” confederate longer and harder than their non-homophobic participants counterparts [using mean].

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Combating homophobia

No one is born homophobic… homophobia is learned. Through direct observation, imitation… participation in rewarding interactions and experience of differential treatment.

And after it is learned, homophobia is sustained by the functions it serves. The functional approach says that people hold attitudes because of the psychological function or need that they satisfy. For example: to make sense of the world, to relate and maintain relationships with others, to protect the self from own homoerotic feelings, to maximize rewards and minimize punishments.

Some ways of combating homophobia:

1. Pointing out inconsistencies
E.g. Correcting myths
[Those who perceive the issue as extremely important to themselves are unlikely to change.]

2. Introducing new perspectives
E.g. Introducing gay friends if that’s an area that they are not sure about. It’s somewhat like correcting myths in a non-verbal way.

3. Providing substantiated information
Only works for those who are willing to think or assess the quality of their perspective’s assumptions and arguments carefully.

4. The contact hypothesis
Equal status contact between gay and non-gay people.

5. The media

The reference:
Remembering Gay/Lesbian Media Characters: Can Ellen and Will Improve Attitudes toward Homosexuals? Bonds-Raacke, Cady, Schlegel, Harris & Firebaugh (2007)

In the experiment, one group of participants was asked to recall a positive portrayal of a gay/lesbian character on TV or movie, while another group was asked to recall a negative portrayal. Will [from Will and Grace] and Ellen Degeneres were mentioned most frequently. When a character was portrayed positively, participants perceived character’s friends as more accepting of her/his homosexuality. It was also found that attitudes towards gay men improved through positive portrayal priming.

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* Special thanks to Kai for coming up with the graphics for this talk; to pleinelune for being a dedicated mouse-clicker; to Kelly for organizing this; Alex Au for the catchy title of the talk [i first entitled it blandly as "homophobia"]; photographers [humph and edshutter] and to everyone from Irene’s gang of helpers who came down to run the event… last of all, friends who supported me one way or another. Thank you.

“… Should we mix the man and the woman’s role?
What is the man’s role?
What is the woman’s role?

Should we mix the sun and the moon’s role?
What is the sun’s role?
What is the moon’s role?
Can the two roles be interchanged?”

First of all:
Lesbians and gays don’t necessarily adopt “opposite” roles from that of their gender [with reference to traditional roles and gender]. This person probably has never seen the wide gamut of lesbians and gays. Just this assumption alone shows ignorance about sexual orientation and sexuality. But this assumption is still forgivable, given that the most salient among us are usually masculine lesbians and effeminate gays.

But then comes the deplorable analogy:
The sun and moon cannot be mixed even if you want to… simply because one is a mass of rock and another is a ball of explosive gas. If you want to liken the sun and moon to women and men, in effect, you are saying that one of them is inhuman. But women and men are capable of majority of each other’s roles [with the exception of child-birth and impregnation, nothing comes to mind at this point]. Haven’t you heard of women in leadership and male nurses? [This is Anj's very nice way of expressing that this analogy is stupid.] Now this is not forgivable… because it reeks of selective amnesia in spite of exposure.

People who believe in rigidity of roles tend to believe in race/class segregation. E.g. They might think that certain races are better than others or if you are of a certain faith, you are superior. Of course, these delineations work to their advantage more often than not. [Not surprising now, is it?]

For starters, the term “gaydar” is generally defined as the ability to identify members of the gay community. It is perceived as innate, not learned. Sentences like “my gaydar sucks” or “she has a fantastic gaydar; she can identify straight-acting gay men!” are often heard. The more normative a correctly identified gay person looks and dresses, the more skilled you are perceived to be. Now to the article…

Woolery (2007) wrote of gaydar as a cognitive high skill. Because sexual orientation is not something you know by simply looking at someone. And lesbians were found to be best at identifying gay folks when presented with only a photograph [compared to straight women and men, as well as gay men] according to Ambady, Hallahan and Conner (1999) and Berger, Hank, Rauzi and Simkins (1987). Gay men run second in line. Across all participants, the more information one was given, the greater the likelihood of “getting it right”. This edge over heterosexuals is only apparent when information is sparse e.g. a photograph without additional details. And this, argues Woolery, shows a “keener, more finely developed skill” among gay women and men.

The article goes on to suggest that gaydar is a form of impression formation, with several factors like experience, stereotypes, contextual factors etc coming into play. Since first impressions are categorical and heavily dependent on apparent physical cues, Ambady, Hallahan and Conner (1999) proposed that our superior gaydar is due to a better developed schema. [A schema is like a network of related ideas in your mind, such that thinking of one thing will spark out thoughts of related stuff.] I assume categories are like sex [female/male] and the like. So when we see someone with boobs [physical attribute], we think “female”.

So, those with wonderful gaydars are considered experts. And experts operate differently from novices: they know the most relevant features to look out for and they make quick judgements based on these to-the-point observations.

How do we develop a novice-gaydar into an expert-gaydar?
By apprenticeship! Apprenticeship can be formal or informal. Since no school has ever incorporated a module entitled “gaydar” into its syllabus, it’s fair to say that our apprenticeship occurs in our everyday life [informal learning process]. Social activities with lesbians and gays help develop one’s understanding of the gay culture, which has an impact on our ability to recognize gay individuals. Woolery supports this with the observation that gay folks who travel to countries with different cultures and those who come out later in life tend to have poorer gaydars.

When will gaydar cease to exist?
Woolery wrote that gaydar exists because of the need to solve a problem: we need to identify fellow gay members especially in oppressive environments. So she argues that in the best scenario i.e. no discrimination, the gaydar will cease to exist. [I don't know about that. Because it's not just discrimination that brings salience to a certain identity. There are other factors too. For example, if you are proud of your partner and your relationship, for example, your gay identity might remain salient, resulting in a desire to set yourself apart. Hmm... i guess it might come true if the whole world is gay. Then gay signals will no longer be useful as markers of differences.]

So hurray ladies, we are highly skilled experts!
[... can someone teach me how to identify feminine lesbians?]

Main article:
Woolery, L. M. (2007). Gaydar: a social-cognitive analysis. Journal of homosexuality, 53(3), 9-17.
[All references in this post come from this article.]

I never knew how much editing needs to be done just for submission. [Down to spacing, font etc!] Okay, so it’s my first time. And i am investing in a comprehensive APA book from Borders just for this purpose. Thankfully, things get better with practice. [Unfortunately i ain't one of those who 'get it' at first few attempts, but i am a learner over time... proven with many other activities i took up. Sadly, sometimes it's a long time. *sobs*]Anyway, a few take-aways from a book i picked up from the library:

8 Standards for Evaluating a Psychology Paper

1. Surprising results that makes sense.
2. Has major theoretical significance or practical significance.
3. New ideas, or new perspectives of an old problem.
4. Clear interpretation of results.
5. Simplifies a previous complex framework.
6. Refutation of previously accepted ideas.
7. An experiment with clever manipulation or paradigm.
8. Findings or theories in paper are general, with wide applications.

Reference:
Sternberg, R. J. (2003) The psychologist’s companion, a guide to scientific writing for students and researchers. (4th ed). Cambridge University Press.

Yes, it’s possible that it’s real.
BUT…

Words from God are personal- unless specified otherwise.

[You may be told to do something, but the job of passing on the message is usually given to pastors and preachers. Even then, these humans may err or abuse their authority.] Generalizing what God inspired you to do, as a mandate from the heavens for everyone else, is erroneous. For example, God told Abraham to sacrifice his son as a burnt offering [well, He provided a sheep for Abraham there after; it was a covenant exchange for God to give up His Son for the human race]. Can you imagine if Abraham went around telling people to sacrifice their sons to God, so as to show God their faithfulness towards Him?! What bloodshed there would have been, especially if there were plenty of religious ignoramuses?! [People don't usually die from a lack of good intentions, but ignorance kills.]

We cannot turn every word God spoke into an universal law.

God may tell someone to eat less fatty food and yet another person to eat a bowl of Laksa. [Ya, God is interested in even minute details of your life.] Each person is crafted uniquely, with different needs and calibrations. Paul exhorted people to be single in the new testament. Yet marriage was allowed as an option for people. In Moses’ time, they had divorce too. [I hate Adam and Steve arguments. If you want to talk about Adam and Eve, please note that it's "Adam and Eve", not "Adam and Eve, Ella, Adeline, Isabelle etc". The number of wives that male bible characters took totally violated this "divine law". Apparently, God didn't mean to say it's a divine order, rather that both females and males are made by Him.]

God is not rigid.

Human beings are inflexible, with an uncanny liking for constant rules. But God doesn’t always stick by fixed rules. For starters, He rendered the old covenant obsolete, replacing it with a new one [Hebrews 8]. And in the old testament for the Israelites, the “ruling” system evolved from priests to prophets to kings etc. Think Jesus… Jesus healed different blind men differently. Some were healed by mere touching, others had to wash mud off their eyes to see. Jesus usually heals in the presence of the sick, but the faithful centurion told him that His word suffices for the sick. And so Jesus did.

So what i am trying to say is:
God may have told Lesile Lung to refrain from a sex-change, but that doesn’t mean that sex-changes are not valid for anyone. [Please don't argue with me about the natural sex. Unless you want to show me that you did absolutely nothing "unnatural" with yourself e.g. no hair-dye, no Lasik, no medical surgery, no pills for any purpose.]

Forget the conflation of transsexuals and homosexuals. [Exasperating to say the least!]
Someone should provide a course on gender, sex, sexual orientation for those who dare speak with authority on this matter.

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A little about Lesile Lung:
“Leslie Lung, the founder and executive director of the group [Liberty League], has been featured several times in various newspapers as an ex-transsexual who changed his mind three days before his sex-change operation in 1984 after having a spiritual encounter. He is also the author of Freedom of Choice, a collection of 20 essays about how people ”overcame” their struggles including homosexuality.” – Source

My first contact with his name was in 2006:
When he started Liberty League, a private registered company that almost received $100,000 from the National Volunteer and Philanthropic Centre (NVPC) to support its activities in 2006. Liberty League is linked to Exodus, a fundamentalist Christian group that utilizes reparative therapy. The harms of reparative therapy has been documented in numerous studies. You can read news surrounding Liberty League here, here, here and here.

Smart play of words that impressed me:
“Coming out of homosexuality”, instead of “Coming out”.
Similar words… meanings as vast apart as you can imagine- One destroys lives, the other empowers.

I rarely see FTMs in Singapore [and thus have little opportunity to chit-chat with them]. Maybe because there are few of them in SgButterfly, a Singaporean portal for transsexuals. There are amazingly resilient sistas there though.

And this site on how to date a trans-boy is hilarious!

A recent article by Dave Muskera asks why we bother jumping into marriage… given the high divorce rates and how marriage is not a guarantee of relationship satisfaction. [I have also previously argued that divorce is not a bad thing.]

“Wouldn’t gay marriage result in gay couples staying together because of legal encumbrances? Don’t we want to promote real love?”

Real love and marriage are not incompatible.
While marital life may not be all airy fairy and wonderful… and while some people screw their marital lives up… that doesn’t mean that a marriage covenant is meaningless.

Just because lots of people break promises doesn’t mean that making a promise is meaningless. A marriage covenant is a celebration of commitment and love for each other. It’s like a promise to be a source of support for each other through thick and thin.

A promise can be meaningful and beautiful- as long as it is feasible and reasonable.
If a promise is broken, it doesn’t reflect badly on the promise…
… It reflects on the circumstances, other factors and/or the covenant parties. [To varying degrees of responsibility, depending on the case.]

“A marriage is a promise between two people… okay… then why bother the government with it?”

Yes, the fight for gay marriage is not a fight for recognition of our love. We don’t need anyone else to tell us our love is real… we know our love is real.

The fight for gay marriage is about facilitating love.

Not to be left at the door in agonizing anxiety when your partner is in the hospital. To protect your spouse in the event of death. To celebrate your love according to the customs of your faith (e.g. Christian lesbians and gays).

If you love your partner, you want her/him to be protected.

And so i believe in the covenant of marriage…
… and i believe in the fight for gay marriage.

Their principles are here.

<<How did the Principles come about?
The Principles were developed and unanimously adopted by a distinguished group of human rights experts, from diverse regions and backgrounds, including judges, academics, a former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, UN Special Procedures, members of treaty bodies, NGOs and others. The Rapporteur of the process, Professor Michael O�Flaherty, has made immense contributions to the drafting and revision of the Yogyakarta Principles.

A key event in the development of the Principles was an international seminar of many of these legal experts that took place in Yogyakarta, Indonesia at Gadjah Mada University from 6 to 9 November 2006. That seminar clarified the nature, scope and implementation of States� human rights obligations in relation to sexual orientation and gender identity under existing human rights treaties and law.>> Taken from their website.

This is their main webbie.

*Courtesy of onekell.

“Can you change your sexual identity?”

Sure.

… if you are schizophrenic…

… self-delusional …

… or you don’t know what sexual orientation is.

Sexual orientation is something inherent for many people. That’s not something you change; that’s something you come to be aware of when you experience physical attractions. So if you want to change your sexuality identity with integrity, your sexual orientation has to be re-wired. And that, i believe, is 99.99% impossible for the person who has derived her sexual identity through thorough consideration of all her physical preferences.

It has been argued that sexuality for men is stable and sexuality for women is fluid over a life time. But these studies typically define sexuality at specific times according to self-reports.
Here’s a problem-
Your participants may not know how sexual orientation is defined [and hence discrepant definitions].
For most people, they make the error of defining it according to the gender of the partners they have been with i.e. the person whom they have romantic attraction towards. But being with a guy doesn’t make you a straight; just as being a woman doesn’t make you gay. And having been with members of both genders doesn’t automatically qualify you for the title “bisexual”.

Another thing to note is this- emotional attraction is a far cry from physical attraction and physical attraction is really the foundation of sexual orientation. [And your sexual orientation is only part of your sexual identity. You can read about it here.]

Sometimes i wonder if gender differences in relational dynamics are the culprit.
For example: Even if there are “Towel clubs” for gay women [i have yet to hear of one successful "towel club" for gay women here], i am guessing there won’t be many. And even through there are agency-managed male escorts and prostitutes [for straight women], there are not many.

If romantic attraction for women is determined by emotional attraction for a much larger part than physical attraction (as compared to men), is there little wonder that they found most women to be “bisexual” over a lifetime?

She asked… aren’t there always multiple perspectives?

Yes… and No.

It depends on what you are talking about.
Some things are established.
For example: gay people are capable of sustaining long-lasting relationships. Or that homosexuality is not a mental illness.

Some things have multiple perspectives/theories.
For example: In counseling, different counselors are trained in different perspectives. The increasing popular way is the eclectic approach, where several therapies are combined.

How do people establish certain details and move on?

When you look at the general research field and studies done down the years, if results are fairly consistent across participant samples and methodologies, then things are quite clear.

Sometimes, there are interesting new studies that people do. When these studies are presented, the presenter will usually say “it was found in this study that blar blar blar”. And every study has limitations depending on the nature of its sample, design and way of analysis. However, to present all these caveats in a short presentation is impossible. People usually spend 30-50 minutes just talking about one study of their own when we have seminars. So, in a short presentation, only critical information are presented. For example, in dating fluctuations (where fluctuations in levels of relationship satisfaction are more likely to result in a break up whether it’s increasing or decreasing in levels of satisfaction), the limitation i perceived as critical, and hence presented, is- participants are tertiary students in the first 3 months of dating.

Sometimes, it’s exasperating trying to explain how psychological studies work, how theories are born, discussing what’s controversial and what’s no longer controversial.

Also read: Skewed representations?