I was raised in a conservative Christian family that belonged to a church denomination branching off of Mormonism - It took (is taking?) years to deconstruct and understand the hate that I participated in and supported.

I strongly recommend watching the movie Jesus Camp to get a better understanding how Christian youth groups/camps can brainwash kids so they grow up to become adults who are so ignorant of the world outside their small Christian community that they know little more than what church authorities tell them. In my case I hated the LGBTQ+ community because hating you was my identity. I was taught to be one of “god’s chosen people” preserving the correct way to live. It was often preached that natural disasters were god’s way of punishing non-believers and those whose faith was not strong enough. The congregation I attended literally believed that all the natural disasters, pollution, and systemic failings around the world were god’s vengeance against gays, liberals, and socialists. - e.g. I attended a sermon where the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill was literally and explicitly blamed on Obama’s support for gay marriage.

If you were raised in such an insular, dependent, and ignorant community it is most likely you would learn the hate too. When you believe you and your religion are literally the center of the universe (you are the “chosen people” in a supernatural power struggle between good and evil) you too would feel anxious, threatened, pressured and quick to resort to violence.

The conservative Christians I grew up around who hated the LGTBQ+ community were generally emotionally immature. Their personal development, like mine, stunted by the church from an early age. It takes years to unlearn the judgemental conformity, moral superiority, and cognitive dissonance that is so integral to many congregations and denominations today. Faced with the prospect of questioning your core-beliefs, leaving your friends and family behind, and abandoning so much of your identity it’s totally understandable, yet horrible, that people will choose to double down on the only beliefs they really understand.

That’s why I hated the LGBTQ+ community - Because I was taught that you were the root of so much supernatural evil in the world, but if I were asked “why do you hate gay people” I would have told you “I don’t hate gay people, I hate their actions. I just don’t like them, it’s unnatural”. Eventually I realized that people are their actions and you can’t hate one without hating the other.

Only one of many reasons of course, but when I was living in a conservative part of the US, I ran into a lot of people whose perception of equality/inequality was very sensitive to “the rules are changing” as opposed to how people are affected by those rules. Since they or people they know have made a lot of sacrifices to conform to societal expectations, it strikes them as deeply unfair when such expectations are not enforced on others. It’s the sort kind of reaction you might have when playing a game, and midway through your opponent suddenly invokes a house rule they never told you about. Not only would you be upset about the surprise, but you might worry about getting caught off-guard again in the future or be suspicious that the house rule was made up on the spot to disadvantage you. But life isn’t just a game, and we don’t get any chances to play again, so, understandably, these people take actual societal changes much more seriously. What they don’t seem to focus on as much is whether the original societal expectations are beneficial or not—they may well be aware that society treats some groups badly, but see that as either an ineradicable problem or a necessary evil to avoid pulling the rug out mid-game. As someone with a pretty consequentialist outlook, that meant that these people and I were talking past each other a lot, not only on LGBTQA+ acceptance and rights, but on any issue where society is changing.

Interestingly, for those who have being Christian as an important part of their identity, Jesus actually preaches against this kind of thinking in the parable of the laborers in the vineyard at the start of Matthew 20. I also happen to be Christian (though the kind that wonders how anyone could see the gospels as anything but pro-LGBTQA+), and I have had mild success bringing up this story and just finding some common ground on what “fair” means before getting into more specific topics.

They’re brought up with constructed ideas of what masculinity and femininity are. Those ideas become ingrained in their identity. If something challenges that on any level they react negatively. Nearly all people are not 100% heterosexual or homosexual but instead exist on a spectrum. However if you don’t want your constructed identity challenged by feelings you might be having that aren’t heteronormative you’re going to push those feelings away and anybody associated with them. Most of these homophobes probably have at least some non-heteronormative desires or fantasies and so work extra hard to fight against them so society doesn’t perceive them as less masculine or less feminine. They would probably be so much happier if they just gave in and explored a bit.

I think that the people who are most vocal in their hate are opening a window into their own internal judgement. They are filled with toxicity that is designed to keep people in line, to serve specific roles (man, especially). It spills outward, but it works inward too.

If you believe in the importance of your Masculine Role™️, in the rigidity of it - and it’s the most important part of these people’s identity, everything revolves around it; trucks, guns, gettin’ er done, etc. - when you see people who reject your entire concept, its a personal attack. It calls into question the validity of their own identity, which they didn’t get to choose anyway - that was the point. Their minds are forced to contend with the reality of a diversity of gender/sexual expression - it either softens or hardens their hearts.

Imagine being a manly man in manly ville who has defined their entire life around manliness. But hating it the entire time. The burden of a role you didn’t make for yourself. Accepting that you could have done different, been different, is hard, and their community makes it impossible.

Obviously the right thing to do is to soften on traditional roles, for their own sake and others, and to reject pressure from everyone they know even if it means being alone. It’s hard to do.