What is Internalized Homophobia?

Growing up different in any environment is tough – but growing up with any kind of sexual or gender identity that deviates from the social norm can be overwhelming, due to the expectations placed on us to conform to strict models of behaviour and expression.

My own experience growing up in the 90s and 00s in Australia – a very masculine and relatively conservative country – left me with a lot of work to do to overcome internalized homophobia and shame.

One of the most isolating features of growing up gay, lesbian, transgender, or queer is that it’s not something that’s immediately visible – to yourself or to others. If I think back to my earliest romantic attractions, they were feelings that emerged as naturally as any other emotions or thoughts. Initially, I had no reason to think that these feelings for other boys were in any way unusual or socially unacceptable.

At a certain point, though, as adolescence starts to overtake childhood, most expressions of even the slightest intimacy between two boys becomes almost entirely socially prohibited:

Hugs, or really any non-violent touch (unless accompanied by machoisms, wry irony or humor, and exclamations of “bro” or “no homo”).
Talking about feelings with friends, especially feelings of vulnerability, sadness, or affection.
Comforting a distressed friend physically or verbally without feeling the need to excuse or explain the gesture.
Caring gestures like checking in on a friend’s well-being or showing concern for their emotions.

For a gay teen to act on romantic feelings in the same way a straight teen risks total social ostracism or worse – Belgian filmmaker Lukas Dhont’s excellent 2022 film Close depicts how this plays out in extreme but unfortunately common cases. Even the simplest expressions of emotional vulnerability and connection are fiercely policed and discouraged.

I learned from my environment that I could not express my emotions, and furthermore, that to even think such things meant to risk betraying them.

The isolation of this experience is outlined by Australian actress and author Magda Szubanski, who writes in her memoir:

The crucial difference between Lesbian Gay Transgender Bi-Sexual Intersex and Questioning people and other minorities is this: in every other minority group the family shares the minority status. In fact it is often something that unites them. But gay people are a minority within the family. A minority of one. It means, among many things, that gay children cannot draw on the collective family wisdom about how to deal with their minority status. No one else in the family has experienced what the gay child is going through.^[1]

While I grew up in a relatively progressive environment by global standards, I still remember hearing my dad, teachers, radio hosts and politicians talk sneeringly about “poofters”, “shirt-lifters”, “fairies”, “dykes”, and “homos”. I was taught, implicitly and explicitly, that any perceived effeminate or weak behaviour – which really meant crying, playing with the wrong toys, enjoying the wrong activities, games, music, or TV shows, or expressing love (or really any emotion other than anger) was unacceptable.

Homosexuality was still illegal in my home state of Western Australia when I was born and wasn’t legalised across Australia until 1997. Between 1957 and 1984, Australia administered the only known prison in the world specifically for gay men, trans women, and non-binary people.^[2]

There was no such thing as a gay-straight alliance at my public high school. If any teacher had so much as told me it was okay to be gay, they could have been fired and also faced prosecution for “promoting or encouraging homosexual behaviour”, which remained a criminal offence until 2005.

There was also a complete lack of positive or healthy examples of gay, lesbian, transgender or queer lives. There were very few openly queer people on TV or in the media, and when they did appear, they were usually presented as abnormal – outcasts, deviants and the butts of jokes.

This environment conditioned me to unconsciously but overwhelmingly suppress any desire for love or intimacy.

This suppression led to an inability to even think of myself in an authentic way. I didn’t at first explicitly think “I don’t want to be gay” because the social framing of gay as other made it very difficult to think of myself that way – it was something other people were, but I was not an other, I was part of the in-group, whether that was my family, my school class, my friends, or mainstream society.

Many straight people think that “coming out” is merely a decision to share a secret about oneself with others, but often the most difficult part is discovering that secret about yourself for yourself.

The fundamental thing that makes growing up queer so challenging is that it creates conflict between living authentically and a very basic human need – to be part of the group.

Humans are a social species, and the need to belong to a group is not simply a social desire – it is deeply rooted in our genetics. The survival of early humans relied on survival of the group, and to be excluded from the group most likely meant an early death. For hundreds of thousands of years, humans who survived were those who developed an acute awareness and sensitivity to social ostracism or exclusion. Ostracism threatened your membership status in the group, and by extension, your survival. Because of this fundamental aspect of our evolution, we are extremely sensitive to exclusion, even more so than other negative social interactions.^[3]

In addition to this primary evolutionary drive to belong, we also need to maintain our self-esteem, feel some sense of control over our environment, be recognized as sentient and autonomous beings, and feel that we have a sense of purpose and control over our lives.^[4]

Teenagers are particularly attuned to group dynamics, even if they don’t recognize this directly. Feelings of exclusion or inclusion are often just that – feelings. Teens will intuitively just know when anything – a word, a phrase, an action, an opinion, a piece of clothing – raises or lowers their social standing. As we are finding our footing in the world, we are constantly navigating a social minefield in which one misstep could result in social death. As a gay, lesbian, trans, intersex, or queer teen, this navigation often involves taking part or being complicit in the suppression, or even degradation, of a core element of yourself.

To ensure your security in the social group (school friends, family, extended family, church, community, workplace, etc.), especially as a young person or adolescent, it’s particularly important to echo the values and beliefs of that group. To speak out, turn away, act authentically, or express your true passions or desires risks outing yourself and facing social ostracism.

This means laughing when a family member makes a homophobic joke, reaffirming a friend’s disgust at a gay kiss on TV, not listening to “gay” music, and not defending or performing any action perceived as “gay”.

For many straight people, overt homophobia is just a reflection of prevailing social norms and takes the form of actions or words with no critical thought behind them. Boys are raised to reject femininity, softness, nurturing, intimacy, and emotional vulnerability, and learn to police each other and themselves in this regard. For teen boys, suppressing these elements often involves pointing out and ridiculing them in others. Many of the most explicitly homophobic teens and adults are really reacting to fears of their own homosexual urges or desires for intimacy and emotional vulnerability.^[5,6]

For queer teens, this suppression of outward behaviour is often also accompanied by a denial of their authentic selves. Teens who are openly queer generally become targets of intense ridicule, scorn, and bullying, which reinforces the sense of shame and alienation imposed by external social forces.

This environment positions two fundamental human needs against each other:

The need to belong and feel included.
The need to live authentically, proudly, and assertively.

For most young people, our evolutionary wiring to belong wins out, as it’s driven by an immediate need to survive. Burying the authentic self, and even turning it into a punching bag, becomes a necessary path to avoid social death.

Being coerced into accepting, reflecting, or acting on society’s views of queerness reinforces the shame around it that has already been explicitly and implicitly drilled into us from birth, something that clinical psychologist Alan Downs describes as “the internalized and deeply held belief that [we] are somehow unacceptable, unlovable, shameful, and in short, flawed”.^[7]

As queer adolescents, often a minority of one within our own households, often with no role models, almost always feeling isolated and alone, we are unable and unequipped to deal with the overwhelming shame of being queer in a world that so openly vilifies any deviation of sexuality or gender from the heteronormative model.

We learn instead to avoid shame, and to act according to society’s expectations. The consequence of this is that who we really are, what we really like, our passions and desires all become hidden behind the walls we put up to shield ourselves.^[7] Downs writes that:

“The ability to derive internal satisfaction and contentment didn’t emerge from our adolescence as it should have. Instead, we sputtered along looking to others for the confidence and well-being that we needed to protect ourselves from being overcome with shame. What normally becomes an internal, self-sustaining process of self-validation in the healthy, young adult remained infantile within us, and we instead became sophisticated in the ways of coercing acceptance from the world around us.”

At the same time, we get caught in a vicious cycle, as internalized homophobia often derives from internalized shame from being queer. This is because it’s an internalization of what we have been taught, implicitly and explicitly to despise.^[8] Most often, it’s something that manifests unconsciously in our attitudes towards activities, behaviours, attitudes, culture (music, art, dance, TV, film etc.), clothing, and appearance.

In openly gay men, it might appear as a preference for “straight-acting” men, an aversion to “fems”, transphobia, or a desire to remain “down low” or “discreet”.
For men who are still coming to terms with their sexuality, it is a singular, monolithic barrier to self-acceptance.

For many gay men, internalized homophobia simply exists as a discomfort in being open about our lives. We might not talk to family or coworkers about our relationships, even when it is safe to do so. We might try to avoid being seen on a date with another man or might avoid queer spaces and events.

When I first started going to the one gay bar in my hometown, I did not feel the liberation or queer joy that so many TV shows and films now depict – I felt absolute and overwhelming terror.

I did not explicitly think “what if someone sees me here and thinks that I’m gay?” but instead felt a deeply ingrained fear of being found out, which had replaced an adolescent fear of being gay – something that has lingered long after coming out.

I recognize now that this fear stems from my conditioning as a child and teen to conform to heteronormative standards, and the evolutionary need to remain part of a social group. Constantly being alert and on-guard was necessary to get through adolescence, but years of this kind of self-policing is mentally and physically exhausting.

Reading and hearing about the experiences of others was the first step towards my own self-healing and acceptance.

It’s still incredibly difficult to break out of old patterns and feelings of isolation, but I know now that change is possible, and that a better future lies ahead.

The most helpful thing for me was finding an LGBTQIA+ friendly therapist who understands the particular and unique struggles that queer people face. Here in Vancouver, organisations like QMunity and HIM offer low-cost and no-cost therapy for the queer community, and similar organisations exist in cities around the world. If you can’t find any groups like this where you are, have a look at our therapist directory or our tips for finding a therapist. Look for therapists who are LGBT-friendly or who practice Gay Affirmative Therapy (GAT).

If you’re unable to access therapy directly, I’ve listed some books and films below that I found immensely helpful.

When you find yourself automatically turning away from things you might like to explore, whether it’s wearing particular clothes or makeup, going to events or queer spaces, or simply letting loose on the dancefloor, try to pause and interrogate that feeling. See if you can find out where it’s coming from. There’s a good chance that it’s an echo of old conditioning that was once screaming at you to keep your head down, to stay part of the in-group, and to not risk exclusion.

Similarly, if you feel hesitant to speak out at work or a family gathering when someone says or does something offensive (whether homophobic, racist, transphobic, or otherwise), try to critically assess where that hesitation is coming from. Practicing cognitive behavioural therapy and mindfulness will better equip you to understand your thoughts and sensations, so you can start breaking old conditioning and make decisions based on your current real-world situation.

Children and teens have little to no control over the environment in which they grow up. But as adults, we do have the power – and responsibility – to shape our social and physical environment so that it facilitates growth, compassion, and inclusion.

It is difficult to break the conditioning that was imposed on us from birth, but it is necessary and important work.

Some of my most profound childhood memories of shame stem from entirely offhand comments made by adults who would undoubtedly not remember making them – and why would they? They were merely reflecting and echoing prevailing social attitudes, without thinking critically about what they were saying. Take the time to interrogate where your thoughts and attitudes come from and think about the impact your words and actions have on shaping the views of children and adolescents. Whether you are straight, queer, or undecided, be a positive role model and act in a way that encourages others to feel safe and validated.

Further Reading:

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