Heterosexism

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Heterosexism denotes a sexist psychological attitude and ideology that advocates heterosexuality (against-sex love) as a superior or only “natural” orientation of human sexuality and devalues and rejects sexual orientations of homosexual, bisexual, pansexual or asexual persons as “not normal”. The devaluation also partially includes persons who are not male or female (intersex, see “diverse”) or whose gender identity does not coincide with their birth sex (transgender and nonbinary persons). Heterosexism can also contain cissexism: the increase in the match of male or female gender identity with the corresponding birth sex (compare transphobia). Heterosexism is understood as a defensive form of heteronormativity and is significantly influenced by the change in sexual ethics (see also homosexuality and religion).

Delimitation
Heterosexism is a defensive form that denies, denigrates and stigmatizes any non-heterosexual form of identity, behavior, relationship or community. It is to be understood as a social setting based on heteronormativity and not questioned as sexual “normality” and superior to other forms of sexual orientation, which, for example, treats gay and lesbian existences as a marginal phenomenon or less natural phenomenon, as mere “sexual preference”.

Homophobia means, on the one hand, an irrational fear of homosexuality and, on the other hand, the hatred, disgust and prejudice which in turn produce fear and, consequently, aggression and violence. The term “homophobia” was coined by psychologist George Weinberg (1972).

Lesbians and gays organized in civil rights movements soon supplemented the term homophobia with the term heterosexism, in parallel with terms such as racism and sexism, to point to an exclusionary social and cultural ideology and to the institutional oppression of non-heterosexual people. The term heterosexism refers rather to arrogance or chauvinism as the cause of the rejective behavior.

Regardless of whether referred to as heterosexism or homophobia, the various forms of heterosexist and homophobic violence (on the part of society, groups or individuals, etc.) must be referred to as disturbed behaviors which in turn massively impair the development of lesbians, gays, and all people who do not conform to the heteronormative scheme, and among which mental disorders can develop secondarily.

Gender roles are closely related to this, since any deviant behavior is perceived as gender role inconsistent and this plays a decisive role in the following terms: