George Weinberg

George Weinberg, an American psychologist who has long been a friend of the lesbian and gay community, regularly attended meetings of a group in New York City called the Gay Activists Alliance (GAA). Watching their struggle for appropriate, arresting soundbites and the media responses, he came up with the word that the GAA had been struggling for: "homophobia," derived from Greek words meaning "the same" and "fear," and meaning the irrational fear of loving someone of the same sex. This new word first appeared in book form in 1972 in his work "Society and the Healthy Homosexual."