25 Vote Forward letters

I've written five Vote Forward letters per day for five days now. It's meditative to give each person's name and address my full attention in turn, and it calms me about the election overall. The back of my brain is satisfied that I'm taking action. I plan to continue through this week until the Saturday mailing date.

Things I have learned, via looking them up online to make sure: Some roads/streets/alleys in Texas just have a name, no road type afterward, like Mill Oak. There's a town called McAllen, and that's how it's capitalized. There's a town called Lacy Lakeview, which brings to mind a lake seen through branches, or through lace curtains. Cv is not a typo for Ct - it stands for Cove.

I'm realizing that the exclamation points in my message make me sound about 15 years old, and maybe that's okay. And maybe it's 15-year-old me saying, please vote. Please. I worry that using flag stamps will make people less likely to open the letters. And if this election is decided one way or the other by flag stamps. Well. We have already gone so far off the rails. I just have to go back to breathing, and doing what I can do, and hoping that along with what everyone else is doing, it is enough.

Alternatives to "homophobia"?

Today I learned from Ableist words and terms to avoid by Lydia X. Z. Brown that the term "homophobia" is ableist, because a phobia is a mental illness and should not be used to mean bias or bigotry.

I did a further search for alternatives, and There Is No 'Neutral' Word for Anti-Gay Bias by Lily Rothman, Dec 2012, suggests "anti-gay bias" or "heterosexism."

I had used "homophobia" four times in my articles over the years. I went back and replaced them with "heterosexism." To me that's an unfamiliar term that doesn't carry the immediate weight and associations of "homophobia." I was usually using it in a list with sexism, racism, etc., so heterosexism does work better than anti-gay bias.

Does anyone have any other suggested terms? The Atlantic article has some interesting discussion of the change in terminology, regarding whether anti-gay bias is or isn't about fear, but it's from 2012. Has the conversation advanced since then?

Oh yeah, and since I'm posting this on National Coming Out Day, by the way I'm bi.