Heterosexism may generally be understood as an attitude in which heterosexual relationships, social arrangements, and sexual activities are viewed as morally, culturally, religiously, biologically, and/or psychologically ideal, and are thus superior to and rightly privileged over any nonheterosexual option. Another less common usage describes heterosexism as an attitude in which the separation of sex, anatomy, gender, and gender roles into two discrete categories of male and female is assumed to be natural and required for coherent personal identity and social stability, and is influential in analyzing gendered social roles and identities (Butler 1990) and issues of transsexualism and transgendered identity.

In this first and predominant use, however, heterosexism is intended to parallel the concepts of sexism and racism and points toward characteristic prejudice and discrimination against sexual minorities, mainly by heterosexuals, but also by self-disapproving homosexuals and bisexuals who have internalized a heterosexist attitude. The ways in which...