George Weinberg

George Weinberg (born May 17, 1929, New York, New York, U.S.—died March 20, 2017, New York) American psychotherapist who coined the term homophobia to describe the extreme aversion to being in the presence of gay men or women that he observed among some of his colleagues.

Weinberg earned (1951) a master’s degree in English from New York University. He studied mathematics and statistics but earned his doctorate in clinical psychology from Columbia University. He began using the term homophobia in the mid-1960s after noting the hostile reaction from his colleagues toward his gay friends. He discussed his ideas with the early gay rights activists Jack Nichols and Lige Clarke. They then used the term in a 1969 magazine article about fear on the part of straight men that they might be gay. That same year Time magazine introduced the term to a wide audience in a cover story, “The Homosexual in America.” Weinberg himself first used the term in print in his book Society and the Healthy Homosexual (1972), in which he posited that those who were prejudiced against gay people were irrational and that gay people themselves were not intrinsically disordered. Weinberg was also a leader in the successful campaign for homosexuality to be removed from the list of mental illnesses in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).

In addition to his work on behalf of gay men and women, Weinberg wrote several books on psychology intended for the general reader, including The Action Approach: How Your Personality Developed and How You Can Change It (1969), Invisible Masters: Compulsions and the Fear That Drives Them (1993), and Why Men Won’t Commit: Getting What You Both Want Without Playing Games (2002). He also wrote for popular magazines and appeared frequently on radio and television interview shows.