homophobia

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˌhəʊ.məˈfəʊ.bi.ə/, /ˌhɒ.mə-/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˌhoʊ.məˈfoʊ.bi.ə/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -əʊbiə
• Hyphenation: ho‧mo‧pho‧bia

From homo- (“from homosexual”) +‎ -phobia. Coined by American psychologist George Weinberg in 1971 in Society and the Healthy Homosexual.

homophobia (countable and uncountable, plural homophobias)

1. Hatred, fear, dislike of, or prejudice against homosexuals, or LGBTQ people in general. [from 1971]

   Synonyms: gay-hate, gaycism, gayphobia, heterosexism, homoerotophobia, homomisia, homophobism

   Antonym: homomania

   Hypernyms: see Thesaurus:prejudice

   Hyponyms: gayphobia, lesbophobia, dykephobia

   Coordinate terms: acephobia, biphobia, transphobia

   • 2005, Bill Clinton, My Life‎^[3], volume II, New York: Vintage Books, →ISBN, →OCLC, pages 45–46:

     He lost his racism when he worked with a black man in Chicago. He lost his homophobia when he was befriended and looked after by his gay neighbors, a doctor and a nurse, in Little Rock.

   • 2025 June 20, Nick Levine, “'In every theatre, people would leave': How 'gay cowboy movie' Brokeback Mountain challenged Hollywood – and the US”, in BBC‎^[4]:

     Thinly-veiled homophobia – this time in early-2000s Hollywood – made Brokeback Mountain an immense challenge for Ossana and her fellow producer James Schamus.

2. (Internet slang, humorous) Deliberate misspelling of heterochromia. [from 2021]

   A beautiful otter with homophobia in her 💙 eyes 🧡

   • 2021 April 3, u/NotWurrmm, “A cat with homophobia in its eyes ♥️”, in r/aww‎^[5], Reddit, archived from the original on 3 April 2021
   • 2023 September 11, @Radstads, Twitter‎^[6], archived from the original on 5 August 2025:

     A dog with homophobia in its eyes ✨✨

   • 2024 June 4, (•˕ •マ.ᐟ (@lovesickdoe), Twitter‎^[7], archived from the original on 4 June 2024:

     beautiful cat with homophobia 💛🩵

   • 2024 December 16, u/NintendoFanboy986, “my ex-cat had homophobia”, in r/notinteresting‎^[8], Reddit, archived from the original on 30 January 2025
   • 2025 April 1, u/LostWithinChaos, “stray cat with homophobia 👀”, in r/notinteresting‎^[9], archived from the original on 1 April 2025
   • 2025 July 31, u/Broccoletta666, “Polentina with homophobia and not a single though^[sic] in her brain”, in r/catswithhomophobia‎^[10], Reddit, archived from the original on 5 August 2025
   • 2025 August 2, anonymous author, /vg/ - Video Game Generals‎^[11], 4chan, archived from the original on 7 August 2025:

     beautiful rabbit with homophobia

   • 2025 August 3, Leonata Ivan, Zenless Zone Zero Global‎^[12] (group), Facebook, archived from the original on 7 August 2025:

     Alice's Homophobia eyes is what make her beautiful 😔

• In the 1990s, behavioral scientists William O'Donohue and Christine Caselles argued that the term homophobia was pejorative.^[1] In 2012, the Associated Press Stylebook was revised to advise against using -phobia words in non-clinical ways, and AP editor Dave Minthorn suggested replacing "homophobic" with "anti-gay".^[2][3]

• heterosexism
• heterophobia
• heterophobism
• gaycism

• homophobia on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Latin homo (“man”) + -phobia (“fear”)

homophobia (uncountable)

1. (obsolete) A pathological fear of mankind.

   Synonym: anthropophobia

• misanthropy
• androphobia
• gynophobia

• “homophobia”, in Cambridge English Dictionary, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, 1999–present.
• “homophobia”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• “homophobia”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
• “homophobia”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.
• “Beautiful Cat with Homophobia”, in Know Your Meme, website first launched 2007