Reply to I thought I knew what homophobic meant...but now its changed?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Homophobic to me means: an intense fear or distaste for all persons and topics homosexual, possibly due (but not necessarily due) to repressed same sex attraction.

I know homophobes exist. I have not yet had the misfortune of meeting one.

What I see a lot, though,  is the term being used immediately without any such burden of proof whatsoever. So, when a parent merely said that perhaps their child was confused about being gay or bi, the use of the word "confused" was enough for another poster to speculate they were homophobic, despite the posters explanation, and then someone else jumped in to confirm that the post was "definitely" homophobic.

I am not the OP of that thread, but seeing it reminded me of other similar things Ive seen elsewhere, so I wanted to ask

Has the term homophobic come to encompass something like, say, a parent assuming their child is straight (from observation/missing other cues, whatever the reason) and then expressing uncertainty the child is accurate in saying they are gay or bi?

Would it be ok for a person who is gay with a child they assumed to be gay (based on observation/missing other cues, whatever the reason) to express uncertainty their child is accurate in saying they are straight?

Because for some reason it seems that parental observation and bias are being equated, and I feel or at least I hope any actual parent would understand  these things are always the same. They CAN be, but they must not always be.

[/quote]
You miss a third scenario: straight parents who question if their straight child is actually gay. Here is the thing. This rarely happens. We only think kids are confused or unsure if they are saying they are gay, not hetero. Parental observation can and is often conflated with parental bias.

We use confirmation bias to seek out the things we already believe...the time our son blushed when a girl talked to him, or the crush our daughter had when she was 9 on the neighbor boy. We miss other signs because we don't want to see them, then question our kids when they express themselves.

It is homophobic to a degree to question only when they are outside the norm, and THEN, as in other threads, claim the kid os confused because being gay is trendy. Can you see  that while that may not be openly bigoted and hateful, it is offensive?[/quote]

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