I think, you picked a single sentence out of context, kind of dismissing the point of the article. > The fact that being creeped out is a relatively visceral r

I think, you picked a single sentence out of context, kind of dismissing the point of the article. > The fact that being creeped out is a relatively visceral reaction that appears to require little cultural scaffolding suggests that it is a response with origins, at least in part, deep in our evolutionary history: and we might predict that there would be a suite of relatively old emotional responses with the function of avoiding threats in our environment, including by drawing attention to those threats. Calling someone a 'creep', does not necessarily require the experience of being creeped out by the person, which the articles points out as distinction several times. I think prejudices, racism, etc. and induced emotions like anger, fear, hatred and resentment, usually come from a place of fiction, simplification and overfitting - somewhat the opposite of perceived unpredictability and uncertain danger in innate actuality, required for being creeped out. That said, I think people, hate groups, do deliberately invoke the feeling of being creeped out for propaganda purposes, to associate these feelings remotely and to induce fear, or a sense of threat. By projecting common, genuinely creepy experiences or situations onto uncreepy scenarios. For example, the archetype of the 'creepy pervert man' is projected onto the "bathroom confrontation with a trans woman" scenario. That only works as abstract fiction in media, as actual confrontations would not induce the feeling of being creeped out - missing the innate perception and response to an uncanny, unpredictable behavior and uncertain threat - because trans women, and most people assigned 'trans woman' are not, in fact, creepy pervert men. However, meeting a trans woman may induce a sense of threat, now. If you meet a bear in the woods you may feel fear, you have a clear threat model. If a wolf howls close-by at night, you may feel creeped out, as you are uncertain about a concrete threat. If a racist meets a black person on the street they may feel fear, since "all black people are criminals". If a man follows you at night, you may feel creeped out, because you are uncertain about his motives. I'd argue, being creeped out has a bias towards in-group threats, as it increases the ambiguity of situational safety.