heterosexism
/ˌhɛ.tə.ɹəʊˈsɛk.sɪ.zəm/
heterosexism noun: the assumption made when relating to others that everyone is heterosexual.
Noun
heterosexism (countable and uncountable, plural heterosexisms)
- The assumption made when relating to others that everyone is heterosexual.
- One of the driving forces behind slash and femslash is the pervading heterosexism of commercial media – if television will not give us the due proportion of same-sex eroticism we are entitled to expect, then we will make it for ourselves.2010, Stacey Abbott, The Cult TV Book, page 245
- Discrimination or prejudice in favor of heterosexuals.
Forms of heterosexism
| plural | heterosexisms |
|---|
Origin of heterosexism
From heterosex(ual) + -ism; modelled on sexism.
Questions about heterosexism
- What does heterosexism mean?
- Heterosexism means the assumption made when relating to others that everyone is heterosexual.
- What part of speech is heterosexism?
- Heterosexism is a noun.
- How do you pronounce heterosexism?
- Heterosexism is pronounced /ˌhɛ.tə.ɹəʊˈsɛk.sɪ.zəm/.
- What is the plural of heterosexism?
- The plural of heterosexism is heterosexisms.
Words near heterosexism in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: heterosexism (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-heterosexism.wav.
Cite this entry: “heterosexism.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/heterosexism. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.