ABSTRACT
The legal and cultural context for gender and sexual diversity in the United States and Canada has shifted dramatically. Weinberg suggested the term homophobia to describe the irrational fear of being near a homosexual. The term is applied broadly to all negative attitudes and acts of discrimination or violence against lesbians and gay men. The original intent was to frame stigmatizing attitudes as a kind of personal pathology, similar to agoraphobia or claustrophobia. Heterosexism is a related construct that refers to the ideological system that rewards and privileges heterosexuality while devaluing and punishing non-heterosexuality. Like other forms of oppression, heterosexism is enacted throughout society in various ways: interpersonal processes, such as bullying, harassment, physical violence, microaggressions, and intentional acts of discrimination; cultural processes, such as social customs and negative representations in popular media; and institutional processes, such as discrimination by governments, businesses, and churches.
