Fear of being identified as gay

Excerpt from WIKIPEDIA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homophobia

Fear of being identified as gay

Theorists including Calvin Thomas and Judith Butler have suggested that homophobia can be rooted in an individual's fear of being identified as gay.[citation needed] At least one study indicates that homophobia in men is correlated with insecurity about masculinity.[30] In addition, a study in 1996 showed that some homophobic males are sexually stimulated by "homosexual stimuli."
They have argued that a person who expresses homophobic thoughts and feelings does so not only to communicate their beliefs about the class of gay people, but also to distance themself from this class and its social status. Thus, by distancing themself from gay people, they are reaffirming their role as a heterosexual in a heteronormative culture, thereby attempting to prevent themself from being labelled and treated as a gay person.
This interpretation alludes to the idea that a person may posit violent opposition to "the Other" as a means of establishing their own identity as part of the majority and thus gaining social validation. This concept is also recurrent in interpretations of racism and xenophobia.
Nancy J. Chodorow states that homophobia can be viewed as a method of protection of male masculinity.
Various psychoanalytic theories explain homophobia as a threat to an individual's own same-sex impulses, whether those impulses are imminent or merely hypothetical. This threat causes repression, denial or reaction formation.