homophobia means irrepressible disgust, disgust, fear, hate orpreconception that some people or groups nurture against homosexuals, lesbians, bisexuals and transsexuals.
Homophobia can have cultural and religious causes and some ethnicities or religions assume more homophobic tendencies. Despite this, even among these groups there are those who defend and support the rights of homosexuals. Even today, some countries apply to death penalty as a condemnation for those who are homosexual, such as Iran, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia.
Homophobia is considered a type of intolerance, as are racism, anti-Semitism and other forms that deny humanity and dignity to people. Since 1991, Amnesty International has considered discrimination against homosexuals a human rights violation.
The United Nations (UN) recognizes May 17 as the International Day against Homophobia (International Day Against Homophobia).
The date commemorates the exclusion of homosexuality from the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) of the World Health Organization (WHO). Between 1948 and 1990, homosexuality (which was called "homosexuality") was considered a mental disorder.
Homophobia in Brazil
According to data released by research and protection bodies for the LGBT population, Brazil has a large number of reports of crimes of homophobia.
According to the Getúlio Vargas Foundation, the most reported violence against homosexuals is:
- acts of discrimination;
- Physical violence;
- psychological violence;
- sexual violence.
Death of homosexuals in Brazil
According to published figures, Brazil is one of the countries that registers the most deaths of LGBT people. São Paulo, Bahia and Pará are the states with the highest number of occurrences.
Published data Grupo Gay da Bahia, an institution that protects the rights of homosexuals, informs that Brazil has an average of 550 deaths of homosexuals per year.
Learn more about the meaning of LGBT and examples of social movements.
Is homophobia a crime?
Nowadays, homophobic acts are considered crimes in Brazil. As there is no law that criminalizes these acts, in 2019 the Federal Supreme Court judged a process that decided that homophobia should be judged as a crime.
At the trial it was proposed that homophobia and transphobia (prejudice against transgender people) be equated with the crime of racism. Now these crimes must be judged by the Racism Law (Law No. 7716/1989) and homophobia can be sentenced with up to 5 years in prison.
Furthermore, although the Federal Constitution does not specifically mention homophobia as a crime, Article 3, IV indicates that one of the fundamental objectives of the Federative Republic of Brazil is:
"promote the good of all, without prejudices of origin, race, sex, color, age and any other forms of discrimination".
Rights guaranteed in Brazil
In Brazil, a common-law marriage between two people of the same sex was legally recognized by the Supreme Court in May 2011. In 2013, the National Council of Justice (CNJ) approved and regulated gay civil marriage in Brazil.
Currently, homosexual couples have the same rights and duties as a heterosexual couple in the country. get married in any Brazilian registry office, change the surname, adopt children and participate in the inheritance of the spouse. A registry office that refuses to carry out a marriage between people of the same sex may be punished.
Couples who already had a stable union can also change the status to civil marriage.
Origin of the word homophobia
Etymologically, the word "homophobia" is composed of two terms of Greek origin: homo, the homosexual prefix; and phobos, which means "fear", "disgust" or "phobia". Therefore, homophobia means aversion or phobia of homosexuals.
The individual who practices homophobia is called homophobic.
See too:
- What is homoaffective?
- What is misogyny?