![to gay men kissing to gay men kissing](https://dazedimg-dazedgroup.netdna-ssl.com/480/azure/dazed-prod/1280/4/1284121.jpg)
Hurting another human being is a conscious choice, regardless of whether or not you grew up in a town where homophobia was hammered home so much since birth that it feels justifiable. Homophobic actions/words/violence are conscious choices. And in no way shape or form did this research connect homophobia with being a genetic or uncontrollable thing. It's really unreasonable for a homophobe to commit a violent act against a same sex couple and deduce from this research that "it's not my fault, it's a reflex response" a) it's a learned response (like stranger offering you candy = danger = fear), and more the reason to need to consciously work to fix your own prejudices despite believing you're a totally fair personī) the research itself says that this physiological response is too small to ever justify any outwardly harmful act. These prejudices directly hurt minorities, and it's up to people to recognize their own instinctive prejudices and then correct them over time. Many facets of prejudices are unconsciously taught, learned, and socialized, to the point where it bypasses any conscious, rational thought and manifests as a split second emotional or stress response. Homophobia, like many other prejudices such as racism or sexism deeply rampant in society, is not excusable just because it seems automatic. None of this is an excuse for homophobia. It's a certain type of societal conditioning the same way Pavlov could condition a dog to salivate at the ring of a bell, except in society it's far more complex. The researchers themselves even mentioned that the stress response is not because it's normal and therefore justified to be disgusted by same sex kissing the stress response is most likely due to how homophobia and prejudice is still so prevalent in society and heavily socialized to kids from a young age, that it results in a dangerous almost automatic correlation of "same sex attraction = disgusting" in the brains of people who don't even realize that they've internalized society's generally homophobic attitudes. It's kind of concerning how studies like these taken on surface level can easily be used to "rationalize" homophobia when the actual point and conclusion of it is not about that at all.