What is Homophobia, Again?

(S)

Recently (and pretty hilariously, to me) Wilfrid Fox Napier, a South African Catholic cardinal told the Mail and the Guardian that “I can’t be accused of homophobia, because I don’t know any homosexuals.” Well, it was hilarious, and then it wasn't, because really? But damn, I didn’t know there were rules and regulations to homophobia. If you don’t know any QUILTBAGs, then you can’t be bigoted – silly me, I thought it was whether anything bigoted is said. It does seem that I need to reevaluate what homophobia actually is, because my definition is very different.

This post includes references to certain derogatory terms, references to casual homophobia and people excusing homophobia - if these topics make you feel uncomfortable then I advise you don't read this post.

It does seem to me that, if you can't be homophobic if you know no gay people, then surely I have been wrong all my life, and in fact the phrase "I'm not homophobic, but" actually does excuse someone from being labelled homophobic. Maybe, but I am leaning very far towards maybe not.

On the topic of strange excuses for homophobia, there is a Tumblr site called "I'm not homophobic, but..." (found here, with corresponding Twitter here), which specialises in posting tweets that involve that phrase. It's strange, usually when people say "I'm not homophobic, but", they follow it with something mindlessly homophobic (but obviously, they've just told us they're not homophobic, so how silly of us to think that what they said was wrong!).

If you think I'm overreacting a little, then let me tell you about a little site called nohomophobes.com. It does this interesting little trick - it has four keywords (faggot, no homo, so gay, and dyke) and counts each tweet on Twitter that includes one of those words. As of my writing (that would be 14:45. GMT), these are the statistics:

That's the numbers for today. Just today. Assuming it's running on UK time (I hope it is - the site is run by the University of Alberta, and if it runs by their time then it's not yet eight in the morning and the rate of tweets is horrendously high), that means that nearly fifty thousand tweets have been posted that include homophobic language.

My favourite (and when I say favourite I mean it in the same way that biting my foot off is my favourite extracurricular activity) part of this site is the immediate reactions I get from people. In my mind, fifty thousand tweets that use homophobic language (even while not directly intending to be homophobic) is about fifty thousand too many, but what I've found is the latest example of people moving the figurative goalposts about.

The response that type of people usually have is "but how many people are on Twitter - you have to use the percentages not the values themselves". Yes, I admit, with an average tweeting load of 340 million (statistics taken from Wikipedia and are to be taken with a pinch of salt), fifty thousand isn't likely to tip the balance. But we're not talking statistics right now; we're talking about real, actual people. I'm assuming each tweet was posted by a separate Twitter account, which may be a great assumption on the surface but goes some way to account for the few thousand tweets that explore the various intricacies of spelling and syntax (you'd be amazed at the amount of homophobes who can't spell, dear reader, honestly you would).

If that is the case, then fifty thousand is a pretty great number. It's a greater population that twenty eight established and recognised countries. In politics, if fifty thousand people spoke up and said "I have a problem with this policy you're making", then at the very least you'd have a second look at the policy. Fifty thousand people is a monumental amount to be just dismissing straight off.

Ultimately no, I don't agree with the idea that because it's a small proportion of people on Twitter then that makes it ok. Homophobia doesn't get a pass at any level - whether it's fifty thousand people or five people doesn't make much of a difference. We expect all celebrities and politicians (in fact, anyone in the public eye) to not use derogatory words. Why let anyone else get away with it?

So, apparently I have been confused about homophobia for a while now. It's clear to me that it's actually only homophobia (or transphobia) if you know QUILTBAGs, if you don't say "I'm not homophobic, but..." before whatever you say, and there has to be more than fifty thousand people saying it before it can be considered a problem. Of course nothing else is problematic, that would involve having to address the fact that fifty thousand tweets with homophobic language were made in just over half a day.

Whatever helps bigoted people sleep at night, I suppose. I think we need to stop messing about with the "intent" get out of jail free card and the "but I have gay friends, I can't be homophobic" mentality and try to actually stop this sort of casual usage of homophobic language and slurs.