Campus Ecologist

Volume 13, Number 3, 1995

Copyright 1995 By Carolyn Banning and James Banning

Homoprejudice within the Campus Ecology

By Jody Gerst, Ph.D.

               &

Laurie E. Fonken, M.A.

One of the original demotions of homophobia is the "dread" of being in close quarters with homosexuals",(Weinberg, 1972). Pharr (1988) defines homophobia as the irrational fear, hatred and intolerance of people who are gay, lesbian, or bisexual. David Haaga (1991), in his article "Homophobia?" describes homophobia's broad and general application as inaccurate and counterproductive when applied to attitudes and beliefs about homosexuality in society today.

Hagga (1991) compares the words phobia and prejudice to make his point. Phobia refers to an intense, illogical, abnormal fear of something specific. Phobias typically produce anxiety, which may be seen by the individual as excessive or unreasonable. A prejudice on the other hand produces anger which is seen by the person as justified. This anger may then be turned into aggression and discrimination against a targeted group. Those with a phobia tend to avoid what is causing them the fear and there is usually no action taken against the target. There may be even motivation of their part to explore and change their fearful behavior.

Prejudicial behavior is different. Those with a prejudice want to change others. They may externalize their anger and hatred through hostile attitudes and actions. It appears through this evaluation that homophobia is more of a prejudice in many cases, not an actual fear. Using homophobia to describe non-phobic reactions may contribute to a lack of clarity and consistency when studying anti homosexual prejudice. A recent term which more accurately addresses the issues of anti homosexual rhetoric is homoprejudice. It is this term which will be used in the remainder of this article.

In looking specifically at the college and university setting, homoprejudice is exhibited in a number of ways. One of the major indications of homoprejudice on a campus is the ignoring or denying the existence of the homosexual population, their needs, issues, and concerns as a group and as individuals. They are the invisible minority which leads to the assumption that all students, staff, and faculty are heterosexual. A second indication of homoprejudice focuses on the lack of programmatic attention. Student oriented services such as academic and career advising, health services, campus ministry, residence life, athletics, and counseling centers may not consider the special needs of the gay, lesbian, and bisexual population. While most campuses have programmatic efforts in "diversity" training for faculty, staff, and students, these programs most often over look gay,lesbian and bisexual issues. A third indication of homoprejudice are the overt incidents of "name calling" and other behavioral actions against gay, lesbian and bisexual students. Most universities have discipline policies and response teams to deal with discrimination and harassment. However, these systems are often not in place or unitized to protect the homosexual community on campus.

Some of the major, or high risk factors which have been found to contribute to homoprejudice are:

* Limited personal contact with lesbians, gays and bisexuals

* Conservative attitudes toward sexuality

* Individuals who are older and less well educated* Affiliation with a fundamentalists religious group* Regular church attendance

* Conservative political ideology

* Gender, males tend to be more homoprejudiced than females

*Negative or prejudicial beliefs about homosexuality held by parents

(Lind, 1993)

Early views on homosexuality were heavily influenced by religions which viewed homosexuality as a sin. Until recently, mental health professionals considered homosexuality a psychological disturbance. It was not until the 1940s that academics began to take a serious look at the study of homosexuality. Unfortunately, these studies tended to focus on finding the cause which might lead to discovery of a cure (Evans & Wall, 199 1). For many years, campus policies called for the expulsion of homosexual students. Many campuses gave up the policy, but maintained a psychological treatment approach which aimed to change homosexual behaviors to heterosexual behaviors.

Current campus interventions include: broad educational efforts for the entire campus community, services to the gay student population, and crisis intervention for stressful campus situations.

Campus educational efforts have included speakers bureaus and specific educational programs. Most often these are more or less informal efforts made by staff and faculty. More formal efforts such as multicultural training programs for students, staff, and faculty often fail to include sexual orientation as a topic of importance. Formal attempts at infusing curriculum with diversity content often follows the same pattern and sexual orientation gets left out. To impact the ecology of the campus, gay, lesbian, and bisexual issues cannot be left out. The content of these programs also appear to be changing, moving from an agenda of tolerance and acceptance to one of nurturance and appreciation.

Another educational and support movement on campuses is the establishment of heterosexual and homosexual groups for the support of homosexual issues. One of this groups is organized on a national basis and is called "Straight, but not Narrow". These groups often serve as channels for political activism.

Direct services in the form of offices for the gay, lesbian, and bisexual students are beginning to appear on college and university campuses. Oftentimes, these offices are run by students and are found off-campus, but more and more campuses are viewing these services as part of the overall institutional responsibility to students. These services become safe places within the ecology of the campus and serve as hubs of social support and staging areas for other institutional interventions.

Crisis intervention programs are also finding a place on the college campus. These programs are in place to respond to critical situations involving homoprejudice. For example, an incident involving anti-gay graffiti in a residence hall will be responded to with a full educational effort to reduce the duration of the stress and to build more healthy ways to look at similar issues in the future.

The campus ecology of all institutions could benefit from an overall campus assessment of homoprejudice and to what degree campus programs aimed at "inclusiveness" do in fact include the gay, lesbian, and bisexual community and the issues important to this community. Through increased understanding and acceptance and assertive programmatic efforts, the campus ecology will become a safer place for everyone.

Campus Images: Homoprejudice James H. Banning

A popular campus poster reads "Words Hurt." If "words hurt," then the following photographs of campus physical artifacts may inflict even more "hurt" on the gay, lesbian and bisexual campus communities. If homoprejudice is in part defined by the externalization of anger and hatred through hostile attitudes and actions, then these photographs attest to the presence of homoprejudice on our campuses.

Photograph 3., because of its use of the traditional symbol for "not allowed," increases the hostility associated with not being welcomed on campus.

Campus homoprejudice can also be subtle. Photograph 4. is a picture of a men's restroom in a campus academic building. The half-doors on the restroom stalls is obviously a cultural variance. The half-doors were installed years ago for the purpose of providing "visual" control over alleged homosexual behavior in campus restrooms. The doors remain today as a "visual" reminder of campus homoprejudice.

Resource References: Campus Homoprejudice

Rick Treter

Bendet, P. (1986)August/September). Hostile Eyes.CV: Campus Voice, 30-37.

Berrill, K. T. (1991). Organizing against hate. on campus: Stratgies for activists. Washington, DC: National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Policy Institute.

Coleman, E. & Remafedi, G. (1989). Gay, lesbian,and bisexual adolescents: A critical challenge to counselors. Journal of counseling and Development,68,38-40.

Crist, S. (1991). Out on campus. Bloomington,IN: Association of College Unions-International

Culligan, R. G. (1973). A gay identity emerges on campus amidst a sea of prejudice. N,4SP,4Journal, 10(4), 344-347.

D'Augelli, A. R. (1989). Homophobia in a university community: View of prospective resident assistants. Journal of College Student Development, 30(6), 546-552.

D'Augelli, A.R. (1989). Lesbians' and gay men's experiences of discrimination and harassment in a university community. American Journal of

Community Psychology, 17,317-321.

D'Emilio, J' (1990). The campus life for gay and lesbian life. Academe, 76,(1), 16-19.Evans, N. J., and Wall, V.A. (Eds). (1991). Beyond tolerance: Gays, lesbians,

and bisexuals on-campus. Alexandria, VA: American College Personnel Association Media Publication.

Haaga, D.A. (1991). "Homophobia". Journal of social Behavior and Personality, 6(l), 171-174.

Lind, K.A. (1993). Homophobia and the background characteristics of graduate students. Unpublished masters thesis. Coloardo State University.

Pharr, S. (1988). Homophobia: A weapon of sexism. Inverness, CA: Chardon Press

Weinberg, G. (1972). Society and the healthy homosexual. New York: St. Martins Press.