H

HATE CRIME — A crime which the victim or witnesses perceive as being motivated by the victim’s actual or perceived race, religion, disability, non-heterosexual sexual orientation, or transgender status.

Hate crimes include physical violence, verbal abuse, sexual violence, and incitement to hatred (e.g., through anti-queer leaflets, harassment, blackmail, and refusal of goods or services).

Many queer people are unable to report hate crimes to the police because the police criminalize them, if not for their queerness then in other ways. The victim of the crime becomes the accused. Naming the problem makes you the problem. In fact, hate crime legislation does less to protect vulnerable people than it does to criminalize already marginalized people and funnel them into the criminal justice prison system. Privileged people who commit hate crimes do not get convicted; oppressed people do.

HE/HIM — A third-person pronoun.

Not everyone who uses he/him is a man, and not every man uses he/him. Pronouns do not necessarily indicate gender identity.

In Old English (which was spoken c.450–1100), “he” was a genderless pronoun used for everyone. In Middle English (spoken c.1100–1500), “she” emerged c.1100 and there was a gendered difference in pronouns.

see also: BI-CURIOUS

HETERONORMATIVITY — The assumption that heterosexuality is normal and natural, and that other sexualities, or lack of sexuality, are abnormal and unnatural. The expectation that sex is exclusively defined by vaginal penetration by a penis. The assumption that everyone is heterosexual until proven otherwise. The conditions which reproduce compulsive heterosexuality.

Heteronormativity is a concept coined by Michael Warner in 1991. Compulsory heterosexuality is an adjacent concept, coined by Adrienne Rich: women are coerced into heterosexuality by being rewarded for adhering to it and punished for deviating from it. I’d take it further and suggest that everyone, not only women, is coerced into compulsive heterosexuality. Heterosexuality as an institution.

In her writing “The Straight Mind,” Monique Wittig notes that relationships between men and women are obligatory, and heterosexuality as an institution is invisible and taken as “natural” while queer people are asking themselves, “Why am I like this?” but straight people don’t. Wittig argues that “woman” as a category only makes sense in a heterosexual context, that lesbians aren’t women, that womanhood is an oppressive position defined by relationship to men.

Heteronormativity reinforces gender roles within a romantic relationship: the division of labor, different norms and “languages” and behaviors, different aesthetics, and different emotions allowed for each partner depending on their gender. This is rooted in misogyny; women are property whose primary function is to mother.

The effort which goes into reproducing heterosexuality betrays its fragility. If it was simply natural, we wouldn’t need to work so hard to buttress it, and it wouldn’t be so threatened by alternatives.

Heterosexuality deserves at least, if not more, critical scrutiny as LGB and other queer sexualities and performances of gender, given the presumption that heterosexuality is “normal,” “natural,” and “default,” which prioritizes it and makes it seem a priori. Heterosexuality is seen as the “original” term, with the additional terms “homosexuality,” “bisexuality,” “asexuality” resting upon it; but actually, “heterosexuality” depends on these “supplement” terms in order to define itself (Derrida, built upon by Diana Fuss). The supplements are seen as inferior, but without them, the original could not exist.

Heteronormativity presumes everyone is straight unless otherwise proven, especially children. It also presumes that gay and queer people wish they were straight, and are interested in performing straightness.

Heteronormativity also presumes that animals are “straight,” despite heaps of evidence that animals can be both homosocial and homosexual. Many animals masturbate, have sex when already pregnant, have same-sex sex, and engage in other non-procreative sex acts. Sex, for animals as well as people (we’re animals too), has a social function, not just a reproductive one. Over 4,000 animal species reproduce asexually, and many species change sex throughout their lifetime.

The straight white cis man is the default subject in cultural discourse: people of color, women, and queer people are deviations from this “norm,” even though they greatly outnumber him. There are bars and gay bars, hockey and women’s hockey, histories and black histories, movies and LGBT+ movies.

There is plenty of research on the social and “biological” “reasons” for why people are gay or queer, but straightness is not brought into question. What are the social and biological reasons for heterosexuality? This is even more interesting when we consider that heterosexuality is defined by its exclusion of same-sex attraction, and that queer couples are entirely capable of reproduction.

HETEROSEXISM — More insidious than homophobia, heterosexism is discrimination against queerness or same-sex attraction in favor of opposite-sex attraction. It’s the assumption that straight is the default. Heterosexism props up (produces and is produced by) heteronormativity.

see also: POZ; ACT UP; PrEP; SAFER SEX

HOMONATIONALISM — The association of gay and LGBT+ civil rights with nationalism, especially colonialism and xenophobia. The assimilation of queers into nationalist ideology. The appropriation of queer struggles into furthering an imperialistic “national interest,” allegedly to protect queers at home and defend the human rights of queers abroad.

Homonationalism is queer inclusion into colonial legacy sold as “progress.” It’s assimilation into imperialism, nationalism, white supremacy. Us gays can kill foreigners just as well as the straights! It’s the preposterous assertion that Western, white, Christian nations are queer-friendly, safe places for LGBT+ people and that we must “export” our tolerance just as we “export” democracy.

Gay civil rights movements’ discourse is being used to justify imperialism and colonialism of other allegedly “backward” homophobic countries and cultures, without recognizing the rife homophobia within the white, Western imperialist nation itself—and not acknowledging that most anti-queer legislation across the world reflects British colonial legacy. Homonationalism is often virtue signaling and performative allyship rather than any sincere attempt to welcome queer people into heteronormative society.

The UK posthumously pardoning Alan Turing and other queer men—whilst still criminalizing homelessness and denying trans people access to healthcare—is one example of this. When then-Prime Minister David Cameron suggested that “Muslims throw gays off rooftops” to justify imperialism, he ignored the issues of queers at home, did nothing to help the queers abroad, and fueled a nationalistic white savior complex. Homonationalism is using the perceived homophobia of other countries to justify anti-immigration policies, while detaining and deporting queer asylum seekers and refugees who face genuine threats of violence if deported for being queer.

Homonationalism as a term was coined by gender studies scholar Jasbir K. Puar in 2007.

HOMONORMATIVITY — The assimilation of homosexuals into heteronormativity. The hierarchy of queer lives and issues based on respectability.

Homonormativity prioritizes the “inclusion” of respectable queer people in straight society, without disrupting the homophobic status quo that mostly punishes less respectable queers. It nestles gayness into every oppressive power structure in our society, including homophobia and its misogynistic roots.

Homonormativity was was first articulated by trans activists in the 1990s in exploration of the exclusion of trans people by cis LGB activists, and the prioritization of cis gay interests over more urgent trans concerns..

HOMOPHILE — A movement to decriminalize homosexuality in the 1950s and 1960s. It used assimilationist tactics and education, with the aim if decreasing homophobia.

Notable homophiles include the Mattachine Society, Harry Hay, James Gruber, the Daughters of Bilitis, Phyllis Lyon, and Del Martin.

Homophiles tended to accept that homosexuality was a pathological condition, either genetic or a “biological accident” for which people should be pitied, not persecuted; but they also campaigned against the “cures” for homosexuality.

It is possible that the homophile movement was respectable when public facing but more radical in private.