Foci of categorism

A focus of categorism is the categorization or category which the prejudice, bigotry and discrimination is based on or is targeting. A categorization may be either clear or fuzzy. Thus there is in total three different kinds of foci. These are...

• Categorization focus: The categorism is based on a categorization which is at least somewhat clearly defined. (Example: Racism is categorism based on categorization by skin color, ethnic background or similar.)
• Targeting focus: The categorism is targeting a specific category. (Example: Afrophobia is categorism/racism targeting black people / people of African ancestry.)
• Fuzzy focus: The categorization is based on a categorization and/or target category which isn't clearly defined. (Example: Xenophobia is categorism/racism against “those other people” who are allegedly “not like us”.)

A categorization focus can contain several different more specific categorization foci. (Example: The categorization focus racism contains more specific foci such as colorism (racism/categorism based on skin color) and cultural racism (racism/categorism based on ethnic background).

A category focus can be contained in more than one categorization, since the same category can be perceived in different ways. (Example: Antisemitism is on one hand a form of racism when Jews are being viewed as a race or as an ethnic group, but is on the other hand a form of religism when Jews are being viewed as having a religion.)

A categorization focus may be based either on a single categorization, or on the combination of two or more categorizations. To distinguish them, the former can be called a “plain focus of categorism” while the latter can be called an “intersectional focus of categorism”. Below follows three lists. First a list of plain foci, both the more general ones and their more specific sub-foci. Second a list of intersectional foci. Third a list of fuzzy foci.

Plain foci of categorism

The list is in alphabetical order by primary categorization focus: Sub-foci includeing more specific categorization foci as well as targeting foci are listed under the foci they are a part of. Note that in some cases the same focus appear several times on the list, based on being viewed in different ways and thus being a sub-focus of more than one categorization focus.

• Ableism: Based on functionality, often targeting people who have a specific disability.
• Ageism: Based on age, often in the form of needlessly and arbitrarily judging people to be “to young” or “too old”.
  • Ephebiphobia: Against teenagers.
  • Gerontophobia: Against elderly people.
• Alterophobia: Based on a distinction between mainstream and alternative lifestyles, targeting the later. Counts as a plain focus when targeting a specific subculture, but counts as a fuzzy focus when targeting a general sense of “not mainstream”.
• Apartweltism: Based on citizenship or geographical background.
• Classism: Based on direct or indirect perception of social class.
• Heightism: Targeting people who are longer or shorter than those doing the categorism consider normal.
• LGBTQ+-phobia/DMRSG-phobia: Targeting sexual minorities and gender minorities.
  • Acephobia: Targeting people who are asexual and/or aromantic, or who otherwise gets percieved as such.
  • Homophobia: Targeting people who are homosexual/bisexual or who are otherwise being perceived as homosexual.
  • Kinkophobia: Targeting people who are sadomasochists, BDSM practitionersm fetischists or otherwise kinky, or who are otherwise being perceived as such.
  • Pedoparanoia: Targeting innocent people through frivolously accusing them of being pedophiles, child-molesters or some kind of unspecified-yet-serious danger to children. Compare with witchparanoia. Often an intersectional focus where a specific category of people is falsely accused of pedophilia.
  • Transphobia: Targeting trans people, or anyone who is not a cis-person.
• Linguicism: Targeting people who speak a certain language or people who have limited or no skill in a certain language.
• Racism: Based on race, skin-color, ethnicity or similar.
  • Antiromanism: Targeting people who are self-identified Romani, or are seen as Romani/Gypsies by others. Also known as Antiziganism, although this version of the word is more problematic.
  • Orientalism: Targeting “Orientals” - People living in countries categorized as “eastern”, such as Egypt and Japan, defining these very different populations as if they were one unified category.
  • Occidentalism: Targeting “Occidentals” - People who live in cities, people who are secular and highly educated, as well as people who are born in western countries, defining these three categories as being one unified category.
  • Gingerism: Targeting people with red hair.
  • Afrophobia: Targeting Afro-Americans, Afro-Europeans and other people of African ancestry living in other parts of the world.
• Sexism: Based on gender. Targeting women to a larger extent than targeting men, as many cultures has traditionally regarded women as being “the second sex”.
  • Misogyny: Targeting women.
  • Misandry: Targeting men. Often combined with something else into an intersectional focus such as transmisogyny where demonization against “men” is used against transwomen.
  • Transphobia: Targeting trans people, or anyone who is not a cis-person.
• Sizeism: Targeting people based on their physical size, especially targeting people who are obese or anorectic.
• Paraphobia: Targeting sexual minorities, such as fetishists and sadomasochists.
  • Acephobia: Targeting people who are asexual and/or aromantic, or who otherwise gets percieved as such.
  • Homophobia: Targeting people who are homosexual/bisexual or who are otherwise being perceived as homosexual.
  • Kinkophobia: Targeting people who are sadomasochists, BDSM practitionersm fetischists or otherwise kinky, or who are otherwise being perceived as such.
  • Pedoparanoia: Targeting innocent people through frivolously accusing them of being pedophiles, child-molesters or some kind of unspecified-yet-serious danger to children. Compare with witchparanoia. Often an intersectional focus where a specific category of people is falsely accused of pedophilia.
• Religism: Based on religion, faith or other belief.
  • Antisemitism: Targeting people who are self-identified Jews or are seen as Jewish by others.
  • Antimuslimism: Targeting people who are self-identified Muslims, or are seen as Muslims by others. Also known as Islamophobia, although this version of the word is more problematic.
  • Christianophobia: Targeting people who are self-identified Christians, or are seen as Christians by others.
  • Atheophobia: Targeting people who are self-identified Atheists, or are seen as Atheists by others.
  • Witchparanoia: Targeting people by accusing them of being evil witches with dangerous and destructive supernatural powers. Although this may target anyone, including self-identified witches, the most common targets seem to be African children.

Intersectional foci of categorism

An intersectional focus combines two target categories. This can be done in three very different ways, depending on whether targeted persons belong to both categories, one of them, or it doesn't matter because the categories are getting conflated. When it's against people who belong to both categories, it's simply a matter of targeting people who belong to both categories together.(Example, using racist sexism against persons who are both Asian and women.) When it's against people who belong to one of the categories, it is often a matter of guilt by association, implying that since you belong to one of the categories you probably belong to the other one as well. (Example: The Homophobic Pedoparanoia of implying that homosexuals would be pedophiles.) When the categories are conflated, the distincition between the categories gets removed. (Example: homophobic pedoparanoia using a term such as "deviants" to construct mutual relationshops between consenting adults as if it were equal to child molestation.)

• Racist Sexism: Targeting a combination of race & gender, for example Asian Men or Caucasian women. Racist sexism against black women is sometimes called misogynoir, a word derived from “misogyny” and “noir”.
• Whorephobia or Slut-Shaming: A combination of sexism and paraphobia, targeting women with accusations of being sex-workers or other supposed sexual transgressions.
• Transmisogyny: Targeting trans-women with mixed misogyny and misandry.
• Paraphobic Misandry/Misogyny: Categorism against based on sexuality and gender, Constructing sexuality in men/women as perverted and dirty.
• Homophobic Pedoparanoia: Constructing consensual sexual relations between adults of the same sex as if it would somehow be the same thing as molesting a child, or claiming/implying that being attracted to people of the same sex would mean to also be attracted to children.
• Kinkophobic Pedoparanoia: Constructing consensual sexual relations between adults who are into kink as if it would somehow be the same thing as molesting a child, or claiming/implying that being attracted to people in for example a sadomasochistic dynamic would mean to also be attracted to children.
• Heterosexism & cis-sexism: Sexist and homophobic/transphobic notions of what a “real man” or “real woman is”.

Fuzzy foci of categorism

• Alterophobia: Based on a distinction between mainstream and alternative lifestyles, targeting the later. Counts as a plain focus when targeting a specific subculture, but counts as a fuzzy focus when targeting a general sense of “not mainstream”.
• Conspiracism: The belief that an evil conspiracy is controlling everything from the shadows becomes a fuzzy focus of categorism when anyone can get accused of being a part of the conspiracy. If a specific category of real people (such as Jews or Muslims) is being targeted, then the conspiracism is instead an expression of categorism.
• Moralism: A loosely defined target of allegedly “immoral” people.
• Normopathy: A general division into normal and abnormal people.
• Puritanism: A loosely defined target of allegedly “impure” people.
• Queerphobia: Targeting anyone who deviates from one arbitrary standard or another in regards to gender and sexuality.
• Xenophobia: A general division into a familiar “us” and an unknowable “them”.