According to Iain R. Williamson, Internalized homophobia is “the negative and distressing thoughts and feelings experienced by lesbians and gay men about their sexuality, and which are attributed to experiences of cultural heterosexism and victimization

In my clinical work i see that internalized homophobia effects every gay mans life to a greater or lesser degree. we all experience this simply by growing up in a Heterosexual world. Even as a openly gay therapist i find my self on occasion becoming aware of how some subtle form of Internalized homophobia has limited my life and the need to work on resolving it. This posting does a great job of describing internalized homophobia and gives some good examples from the movie Brokeback Mountain and how one man has worked through some of these issues.