Anyone who has been around chickens will tell you that if a chicken starts acting just a bit different, it will be killed by the others. It's nature. Sad that we humans, so highly evolved, still think like chickens. It's that reptilian part of our brains that make us react to "different" people.
I think of Rose, in the movie, AFRICAN QUEEN, when she said, "Nature, Mr. Allnut, is what we were put on earth to rise above"