The process of accepting yourself is long, stressful, overwhelming, and overall draining. It’s not just confusion and hatred it’s being sure that you’re not a part of this “norm” that has been created years after years. Not to mention that it’s terrifying for people who aren’t sure that they have a safe environment to come out to when they are ready. I truly believe whole-heartedly that hate is taught and not something someone is born with, so with that in mind, it is no wonder that internalized homophobia exists. 

It comes in many different forms and the first starting with the environment someone grows up around. When a child grows up hearing horrible slurs, hate comments, and a general hatred towards the lgbtq+ community they will most likely catch on and grow up with that mindset that it is “wrong” “immoral” and “not what God intended”  and will end up actively hating people for something as simple as who they are attracted to. A common example is someone who is discovering that they have a romantic/sexual attraction to the same sex and with the mindset that they were taught, they will bury it deep down and practice hate towards people who are out and confident with their sexuality. 

Another example of internalized homophobia is someone who has already come out and gone through the process of accepting themselves but will judge someone else because of how feminine or masculine they act. The extremely false stereotype that all queer men are feminine is a problem in the community as well. It usually occurs when a male states his sexuality and the other person will respond with,

 “oh wow you don’t look gay” or 

 “oh, I knew it because the way you talk and dress, it’s kind of obvious” 

It just encourages a really bad mindset that all queer men need to be feminine to own their sexuality and all queer women need to be masculine to embrace theirs when that should never be the case. Sexuality isn’t just gay, straight, lesbian, or bisexual there is so much more to it and the sooner people can accept that there isn’t one mindset when it comes to this stuff the closer we are to making it easier for people to accept themselves. A really good reminder for those who generalize things,  a queer male is not always feminine and a queer woman isn’t always masculine. I can’t fit all of the examples in just one piece but if you are truly curious about the many different forms of internalized homophobia I encourage you to do research.