Saturday, June 25, 2011

Ableism, Language Policing, and Expectations

Recently on a blog I read regularly , a commenter posited that the word homophobia is ableist to those who have bona fide phobias, and that bigotry shouldn't be compared to fear.

I have zero tolerance when it comes to bigotry, and a fairly draconian commenting policy to boot, but I think I have to personally draw the line here for the sake of clarity. Homophobia, and transphobia, are recognizable terms to most people, and to erase them from my vocabulary in lieu of an umbrella term like "bigotry" (or something else) lessens the impact of well, actually talking about homophobia or transphobia. This is my personal philosophy, and I take responsibility for it. It might not be yours, and that's okay too. This comment does a great job of breaking it down:
The term homophobia is not really about a person having a disabling fear of gay people, it is about how gay people are objectified into objects TO fear...in other words- homophobia is part of a process of manipulating the public to feel fear and animosity towards gay people by painting our lifestyle as harmful and dangerous, or posing us as criminals and predators (among many other, equally horrible things). It is about a social construction of fear guided by bigotry. What I mean to say is, the homophobic person is not one who the LGBTQI community chastises for a phobia, but for a promoting of phobias- not one who necessarily feels fear but sells fear, profits from fear- one who actively engages in behavior and language that demeans and degrades us all while posing my community as the offensive party.
Truth is, I'm not the strongest writer. I know this. And rather than churn out another screed on how the internet has made me a worse one, this  is what I said earlier this year about language policing, and most of it still rings true for me now even though I've "been in the game" a bit longer and have learned quite a lot :
I don't have an academic background in feminism. Many of us don't, but coupled with being a painfully slow writer often at a loss for a suitable word, well, you have a recipe for disastrous blog commenting. Most of the time I simply don't have the vocabulary for what I want to say; ergo, I usually refrain from participating at all unless I'm 110% sure of it. I don't think this is a terrible thing, but there have been times when I've literally walked away from the computer so my fingers wouldn't write something they'd regret in the morning. Language policing makes me extremely uncomfortable, and although I have a fairly draconian commenting system here, I rarely call anyone out on their words.
It's a fine line trying not to erase anyone's voice, while still allowing them to use the words they're comfortable using to describe their experiences. I'm curious what other people think, because this is the first time I've seen it brought up anywhere. Is the suffix "phobia" inherently ableist?

4 comments:

  1. I've really only seen the "homophobia as ableist" discussion happening on tumblr (and even then, have been on the very, very periphery of it) and, for me, as a heterosexual cis girl with no documented phobias, it doesn't come across as being an ableist term... Some of the arguments I've seen put forth on tumblr have advocated using heterosexism and cissexism in place of homophobia and tansphobia and I have found that I've begun to use those terms more frequently, but it's honestly hard for me to figure out if I'm subbing them in because they're more accurate words for the concepts that I mean to refer to or because I'm so intimidated by some of the language policing that goes on in the social justice sphere of tumblr... I do think that the comment you excerpt here does a nice job of constructing how homophobia and transphobia function as important terms w/r/t the ways in which certain people/systems profit over perpetuating a culture of fear around the other... Sorry my thoughts on this aren't more well formed, it's still a very new discussion for me.

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  2. Exactly. I hate sounding so entitled, because I surely don't own any part of how someone chooses to label their own experience, but it's getting incredibly hard just to write without picking over each word. I know that's not a valid argument for not checking one's language, but it leaves so many people out who, frankly, benefit from activist or feminist blogs, but don't have the vocabulary yet.

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  3. I don't consider myself qualified to have an opinion whether "homophobia" is an intrinsically ableist term. However, if one did want to eschew the term, yet didn't want to have to lose its specificity, "homobigotry" seems like a perfectly good alternative.

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  4. I think the terms are inaccurate and connecting the suffix phobia with violent and irrational hatred and oppression of another human being is... it does seem possibly ableist to me.

    I've been looking for better alternatives to use, since I have no personal reason not to switch terms, and came across homonegativism, which is what I may begin using instead, since bigotry or heterosexism seem inaccurate or generalized in many cases.

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