A study on homophobia and its psychological effects on victims

Pages: 1198-1201
Sameera Banu and Sonakshi Ruhela (Department of Applied Psychology, Amity University, Dubai, United Arab Emirates)

The current paper was written with the purpose of exploring and understanding the attitudes people hold towards sexual and gender minority groups, which comes under the umbrella term, “Homophobia”. It looks into the various factors leading to the development of homophobia and how this attitude causes disruption in the society. The study employs review of existing literature as its methodology. Results show that homophobia stems from gender role attitudes, masculinity, authoritarian attitudes, and religious beliefs, among many others. Findings also reveal that these negative attitudes further result in aversion and aggression towards the members of LGBTQ+ as well as the community as a whole. It is a major source of discrimination, violence, verbal/physical abuse, bullying and prejudice which has detrimental effects on the mental and physical well-being of the victims. Consequences of such mistreatment are found to be depression, anxiety, suicide ideation and other psychological torments. Solutions to the issue at hand can be sought through educating people, spreading awareness, respecting individual differences as well as legal safeguarding.