Why "homophobia" and not "sexualism" or similar?

Question

A phobia is an irrational fear of something. An intolerance to something is usually an -ism, not a -phobia, as in

sexism
racism
ageism

Yet people who object to homosexual practices or discriminate against homosexuals are labelled "homophobic" and their intolerance is labelled "homophobia". But homophobia should logically be an irrational fear of things that are the same (and indeed is listed with both meanings in this list of phobias) and an intolerance to a particular sexuality should surely be sexualism, sexualityism, or a similar word.

So... how did the "sexualism" meaning of "homophobia" come about? Is there another word for intolerance of / discrimination against people of a particular sexuality that doesn't imply irrationality or fear?

JoseK · Accepted Answer

From the etymology

homophobic

by 1971, from homo- (2) + -phobia. Related: Homophobe; homophobia

(which is said to date from 1969)

it points to the second meaning of homo, which is the slang version

comb. form meaning "homosexual," abstracted since early 20c. from
  homosexual

This can be read as a "phobia (fear) of homosexuals"

As @Mr Shiny's answer says, George Weinberg introduced this word "to refer to heterosexual men's fear that others might think they are gay"

Later Kenneth Smith was the first person to use homophobia as a personality profile to describe the psychological aversion to homosexuality.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇 · Answer

Wikipedia states that this word was originally coined to refer to a straight man's fear that others might think he was gay. Its scope expanded to include all anti-homosexual prejudices within a few years when activists started using it. George Weinberg, a psychologist, considered these prejudices to be a literal fear and not simply prejudice. (Perhaps another way of looking at this is why isn't racism racephobia?)

Answered by Mr. Shiny and New 安宇 on April 20, 2021

Why "homophobia" and not "sexualism" or similar?

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