D o you ever wonder where the hatred in homophobia comes from, and what motivates people to spit such venom? Two university studies have shown that many homophobes tend to be bisexual, gay, or lesbian themselves, and therefore it may be the case that the extreme right’s homophobic supporters are repressing their true selves and channelling their energy into hatred and ‘hypocritical homophobia’.
The first study, by Professor Henry E. Adams and his colleagues at the University of Georgia, which was published in the “Journal of Abnormal Psychology”, discovered that homophobic men are usually aroused by gay pornography.
A second study by Professor Richard Ryan, and his co-researchers at the University of Rochester, the University of Essex, and the University of California, Santa Barbara campus, which was published in the “Journal of Personality and Social Psychology”, argued that homophobes tend to be bisexual, lesbian, or gay themselves, and that their homophobic views develop as a result of their attempts to repress their own same sex desires.
Perhaps then, homophobic supporters of the extreme right be invited to take a gay or lesbian porn test? Perhaps the extreme right Proud Boys group – who are a banned terrorist group in Canada and New Zealand, and whose members have protested against drag queens reading books to children at libraries – should change their name to the Pride Boys, and get floats at gay pride parades.
As you would expect, many extreme right leaders and prominent activists have been hypocritically homophobic gay or bisexual men, like the late Austrian Freedom Party leader Jörg Haider, who died in a car crash after he left a Vienna gay bar, as gay journalist Johann Hari explained in “The Strange, Strange Story of the Gay Fascists“, which discusses the many prominent gay fascists of the past and present. After Haider’s death, it was revealed that he had a male partner at the time of his death.
Another example of this can be found in Professor Lothar Machtan of the University of Bremen’s book, “The Hidden Hitler“, in which he discusses the evidence that Hitler – who was of course murderously homophobic as lesbians and gay men were sent to concentration camps to be worked to death on starvation rations in Nazi Germany – had gay affairs, and had people killed to cover up the fact that he was a repressed gay (or bisexual) man.
The most infamous British neo-Nazi skinhead thug of the 1980’s and 1990’s, Nicky Crane, abandoned neo-Nazism after he came out as gay, before becoming a London Gay Pride steward. Kevin Wilshaw, who is a gay former member of the homophobic National Front, has claimed that leading members of the NF are gay. Former NF deputy leader Martin Webster is one example of a leading member from the past who definitely was gay. Webster alleges that he had a four-year affair with Nick Griffin, who later became the leader of the BNP, who were originally a splinter group from the NF.
Ray Hill, who infiltrated British fascist groups to spy on them for anti-fascist organisations, and who is cited in Johann Hari’s article about gay fascists, said that at one stage in the 1980’s, nearly half of the organisers in British fascist groups were gay.
While the world of extreme right politics is very male dominated, it will of course be the case that many female extreme right-wing leaders will be bisexual or lesbian hypocrites. Dionne Timms-Williams, who was one of three people found guilty of a 2021 vicious homophobic murder in a Cardiff Park, all of whom have been given life sentences, had been in a lesbian relationship herself.
So, if homophobia were to end completely, it is clear that the extreme right would be a far smaller movement, because so much of it is the result of angry, sexually repressed, bisexual or gay men who are turning their self-loathing into hatred.
