Health Worker and Homophobia

Homosexuality is one of the most discussed dimensions of humans sexual life. It was accepted as a disease category, starting from the end of the 19th Century, and efforts were spent to cure it, until removed from being a disease category by the World Health Organization, in the year 1992. Nevertheless, negative attitudes and judgments, connected to various beliefs, considering homosexuality as a psychiatric disorder, a perversion, a disease or a degenerate behavior, are encountered in every segment of the society.It can be seen in many researches that homosexual individuals are discriminated and stigmatized because of negative attitudes and viewpoints. An important reason that lies behind the negative attitudes and viewpoints towards homosexuality is homophobia. Homophobia is an expression used to describe the fear or negative feelings and attitudes towards homosexuals or the concept of homosexuality. Homosexuals are subjected to humiliation in all societies in which homophobia is displayed in an open manner, or most frequently in an implicit manner. As each culture have some norms related to sexual orientation, attitudes about this issue reflect on the behaviors of individuals in Turkish society also. The outlooks of healthcare professionals on this issue affects from the viewpoint of the society. In the studies it is shown that homophobic attitudes and behaviors are also common among healthcare professionals, their knowledge about homosexuality and sex is insufficient and as a result homosexual individuals might be mistreated in the healthcare system. Homosexual individuals dont trust the principle of privacy of the healthcare system because of the negative attitudes of healthcare professionals and therefore, they hold off benefiting from healthcare services