In any case, relating to homophobia, I think again you're casting it that it was masculine ideals themselves that caused homosexuals to be view as less than men, and not pre-existing hatred for homosexuals (most likely instilled by religious views) that caused the other issue. Believe it or not there is a huge swath of the gay male community that is the exact opposite of feminine. Some of them probably fall out to be more stereotypically masculine than average.
The conflation of masculinity with heterosexuality was developed in the first few decades of the twentieth-century:
This book argues that in important respects the hetero-homosexual binarism, the sexual regime now hegemonic in American culture, is a stunningly recent creation. Particularly in working-class culture, homosexual behavior per se became the primary basis for the labeling and self-identification of men as "queer" only around the middle of the twentieth century; before then, most men were so labeled only if they displayed a much broader inversion of their ascribed gender status by assuming the sexual and other cultural roles ascribed to women. The abnormality (or "queerness") of the "fairy," that is, was defined as much by his "woman-like" character or "effeminacy" as his solicitations of male sexual partners; the "man" who responded to his solicitations - no matter how often - was not considered abnormal, a "homosexual," so long as he abided by masculine gender conventions. Indeed, the centrality of effeminacy to the representation of the "fairy" allowed many conventionally masculine men, especially unmarried men living in sex-segregated immigrant communities, to engage in extensive sexual activity with other men without risking stigmatization and the loss of their status as "normal men."
[...]
Heterosexuality had not become a precondition of gender normativity in early-twentieth-century working-class culture. Men had to be many things in order to achieve the status of "normal" men, but being "heterosexual" was not one of them.
[...]
In a culture in which becoming a fairy meant assuming the status of a woman or even a prostitute, many men, like the clerk, simply refused to do so. Some of them restricted themselves to the role of "trade," becoming the nominally "normal" partners of "queers" (although this did not account for most such men). Many others simply "did it," without naming it, freed from having to label themselves by the certainty that, at least, they were not fairies. But many men aware of sexual desires for other men, like the clerk, struggled to forge an alternative identity and cultural stance, one that would distinguish them from fairies and "normal" men alike. Even their efforts, however, were profoundly shaped by the cultural presumption that sexual desire for men was inherently a feminine desire. That presumption made the identity they sought to construct a queer one indeed: unwilling to become virtual women, they sought to remain men who nonetheless loved other men.
The efforts of such men marked the growing differentiation and isolation of sexuality from gender in middle-class American culture. Whereas fairies' desire for men was thought to follow inevitably from their gender persona, queers maintained that their desire for men revealed only their "sexuality" (their "homosexuality), a distinct domain of personality independent of gender. Their homosexuality, they argued, revealed nothing abnormal in their gender persona. The effort to forge a new kind of homosexual identity was predominantly a middle-class phenomenon, and the emergence of "homosexuals" in middle-class culture was inextricably linked to the emergence of "heterosexuals" in that culture as well. If many workingmen thought they demonstrated sexual virility by playing the "man's part" in sexual encounters with either women or men, normal middle-class men increasingly believed that their virility depended on their exclusive sexual interest in women. Even as queer men began to define their difference from other men on the basis of their homosexuality, "normal" men began to define their difference from queers on the basis of their renunciation of any sentiments or behavior that might be marked as homosexual. Only when they did so did "normal men" become "heterosexual men." As Jonathan Katz has suggested, heterosexuality was an invention of the late nineteenth century. The "heterosexual" and "homosexual" emerged in tandem at the turn of the century as powerful new ways of conceptualizing human sexual practices."
The redefining of masculinity as being intrinsically tied to one's heterosexuality and defining it in opposition to homosexuality was the way that heterosexual masculinity was conceived. The idea that, as the homosexuals in the book argued, sexuality is not representative of gender persona - and that gay men are just as capable of being masculine - has only very recently gained any credence in straight society, and that idea is by no means universally accepted. Even among men who do believe that, there are still holdover beliefs like men who define their masculinity in terms of sexual performance with women.
To suggest that popular conceptions of masculinity and homophobia are not related is to completely ignore the way that homophobic bullying functions as a form of
gender policing and limits the number of acceptable ways it is to be masculine. It ignores the way that male students who fail to meet certain standards of masculinity as
sexually harassed while at school:
There are myriad causes and contributing factors regarding why sexual and gender-based harassment and bullying exists, as discussed in chatper 9. The root cause is something called hegemonic masculinity, sometimes also referred to as patriarchy, a system that often unconsciously establishes a gender hierarchy with heterosexual males on top, and females and males who don't meet with traditional masculine norms, below. Patriarchy is played out in our media, clothing, movies, sports, television programs, and aggression, to name a few.
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Every day in school, GLBT youth face harassment. As well, straight youth who do not fit the stereotype of masculinity or femininity are harassed because of their style of dress, the way they walk, or their general demeanor. It is all about fitting into the patriarchal norms of the school's culture, and of society. Sadly, teachers and other staff often witness the name calling and other physical and verbabl assaults - but fail to intervene. Other times, teachers are the harassers, further jeopardizing these students' safety. GLBT youth are protected under civil rights laws in some states, but there is a lack of consistency for protection. When these youth are harassed and fear for their safety, they cannot participate fully in the learning opportunities, resulting in long-lasting consequences.
"Both teens and adults viewed the sexual harassment of teenagers as normal adolescent behavior, which challenges the impetus for teachers to intervene when it is observed. The belief that sexual harassment is typical of adolescents is evidence of how entrenched the idea is in the schools, adolescent relationships, and male dominance. Beacuse sexual harassment in the school setting is of normal, everyday life for many girls (and boys who don't fit the masculine stereotype), they have difficulty in even identifying offensive behavior as harassment. But girls who have attended school in both single sex and mixed gendered schools recognizing the sexist behavior in mixed gendered schools.
As someone who has experienced sexual harassment and bullying that was done in front of teachers on multiple occasions without rebuke or commentary, I think it exposes a great deal of ignorance about both how masculinity has historically - over the last sixty years - been constructed in opposition to heterosexuality, how those cultural ideas are still very powerful and still have advocates (even in modified forms) today, how kids are influenced by the culture around them and pick up on these behaviors, and how the implicit approval of them (by authority figures refusing to intervene) encourages homophobic, gendered harassment, to argue that masculine ideals are not directly connected to homophobia.
