My Gay Voice and Yours | Psychology Today

Contents:

• WHAT MEANS TO ‘SOUND GAY’
• WHAT DO IT MEAN TO SOUND GAY?
• THE GAY VOICE
• WHAT'S THE LK BETWEEN HOMOSEXUALY AND HAVG A 'GAY VOICE'
• IS THERE A “GAY VOICE”?
• DO YOU SOUND GAY? WHAT OUR VOIC TELL – AND WHAT THEY DON’T
• WHAT MEANS TO 'SOUND GAY'
• GAY GAY HOMOSEXUAL GAY / I CAN STILL HEAR HIS VOICE
• THE HISTORY OF THE WORD “GAY”
• FILMMAKER AND SPEECH PATHOLOGIST WEIGH IN ON WHAT IT MEANS TO 'SOUND GAY'
• GAY (HOMOSEXUAL) AND GAY (HAPPY)
• MY GAY VOICE AND YOURS
• "DO I SOUND GAY?"
• GAY
• GAY VOICE: STABLE MARKER OF SEXUAL ORIENTATN OR FLEXIBLE COMMUNITN DEVICE?

WHAT MEANS TO ‘SOUND GAY’

It rais a plited discsn about gay pri, lgerg homophobia, disguised misogyny, and the extent to which we all alter the image that we prent to the the film begs, Thorpe is disturbed bee he realiz he don’t like his voice any more. But so dog, v everyone to thk about what their own voice says about who they are, where they me om, and where they want to science of “the gay voice”To start wh, the stereotypil “gay voice” isn’t necsarily a study published 2003, Ron Smyth, a lguist at the Universy of Toronto, found that participants readily separated rerdgs of 25 diverse voic to those who “sound gay” and those who “sound straight.

In Smyth's study, people rrectly gused a man’s sexualy about 60 percent of the time, only a ltle better than another small study at the Universy of Hawaii, both gay and straight listeners were equally as likely to misclassify people as gay or straight. In fact, the straight men wh so-lled gay voic weren't aware that people thought they sound gay at turns out that what most people perceive as a stereotypil "gay voice" is jt a male voice that sounds more stereotypilly feme -- maly, higher pched and more melod.

And that often has more to do wh the voic that a person intified wh as they grew up, rather than and other rearchers say some men, both gay and straight, velop more feme voic bee they are fluenced by women when they are young. If you've ever found yourself talkg to someone wh a different accent and gradually emulatg them, you're faiar wh the gay men, adoptg what's lled "mp" -- a theatril gay accent, like an old-school starlet -- n be a way of embracg their inty. However, the difference wasn’t the stereotypil “gay voice, ” but a tenncy to e a more ntemporary, pan-Amerin accent, rather than the old-fashned Mnota accent (like  the movie “Fargo") says that the gay men he terviewed may have wanted to nvey an inty that is more stylish and cuttg edge.

WHAT DO IT MEAN TO SOUND GAY?

” shows that even men who are out and proud may still rry wh them some shame about havg a stereotypil “gay voice, ” even if those feelgs are Savage, a gay activist and thor, argu  the film that this is a natural nsequence of boys beg bullied for walkg and talkg a certa way when they are young.

As Thorpe pots out the film, there have long been public entertaers or artists wh stereotypilly “gay voic” – Liberace or Tman Capote, for example -- but few people openly talked about their when characters wh “gay” mannerisms or voic appeared popular culture, they were sometim d wh negative or sid the 1940s on, Amerin film saw the rise of a sni, supercil, and vaguely gay villa, startg wh the manipulative Clifton Webb the tective noir film “Lra. ” That tradn of the effete, aristocratic villa has lived example, film historian Richard Barrs argu  the film that many of the Disney villas have simperg voic or mannerisms that are subtly – or not so subtly – stereotypilly gay, cludg Prce John "Rob Hood, " Sr "The Ln Kg, " and many more, In an terview, Thorpe poted out what he viewed as one particularly egreg example – the bad guy the 2012 Disney animated film “Wreck-It Ralph. The film is stctured around his personal qut to get rid of his “gay voice”—recently sgle and middle-aged, David Thorpe began to fd his voice a source of anxiety, worryg turned off potential lovers—which grounds what uld otherwise have been a disparate web of amic theori and talkg heads.

THE GAY VOICE

That spurred him to look more systematilly at the gay voice self; eventually he realized he’d found somethg signifint to say about the subject, a talogue of people reflectg about the history, prevalence, signifince, and science of the voice ’s clear om his enthiasm and breadth of knowledge that Thorpe, a wrer wh an quisive personaly and a voice I found entirely pleasant, has enough material for a whole seri on the subject.

” In the film, Thorpe nsults a speech therapist, a voice ach, several lguists and anthropologists, a film historian, gay actors, and famo queer celebri cludg David Sedaris, Dan Savage, Tim Gunn, Don Lemon, Gee Takei, and Margaret Cho. Admtg that a roomful of gay voic n be annoyg giv space to pick apart anxieti—which parts are jt annoyance at other people’s nversatns, and which are tied to toxic the film velops, be apparent that much of what we intify as a gay voice is a characteristilly feme voice spoken by a man.

WHAT'S THE LK BETWEEN HOMOSEXUALY AND HAVG A 'GAY VOICE'

To prove his pot, Thorpe shows a straight man who was raised on an ashram by a group of women, who talks a voice that would tonate most people’s gaydar; but he also troduc to a gay man raised the suburbs wh five macho brothers who has the sort of voice that porn actors strive for. Knows this herage, plac the ntext of film history, and ti to the vol spiratn for well known early gay voic on TV such as Liberace and Pl what drew gay men om across the untry and enomic strata to adopt the vol signifiers?

Stay ahead of the trend fashn and beyond wh our ee weekly Liftyle Ed newsletterStay ahead of the trend fashn and beyond wh our ee weekly Liftyle Ed newsletter After a particularly bad break-up, David Thorpe, a journalist who’s his forti, cid to take his md off thgs by leavg his ts his Manhattan apartment and drowng his sorrows at a gay beach town on Fire Island. ”It was the start of a four-year journey of self-disvery durg which Thorpe tried to figure out his so-lled “gay voice”: when did he start talkg that way, what ed , how exactly did sound, and, fally, what was so wrong wh anyway? There are a few theori knockg around as to why this might be: Arnold Zwicky, his mply tled 1994 paper Two Lavenr Issu for Lguists, suggts that: “For many lbians, what is most important is intifitn wh the muny of women – while for many gay men, what is most important is distancg themselv om straight men.

IS THERE A “GAY VOICE”?

For example, film historian Richard Barrs argu the film that many of the Disney villas have simperg voic or mannerisms that are subtly — or not so subtly — stereotypilly gay, cludg Prce John "Rob Hood, " Sr "The Ln Kg, " and many more,. In the panel foreground, the character Yugi Muto remembers the character Pharaoh Atem, sayg, "I n still hear his voice…" In the eded background, Atem says, "Gay gay homosexual gay, " creatg the imprsn that the memory of Atem is mockg Yugi. On Thorpe's gay iends also stgglg to accept their voic Thorpe: One of the revelatns of makg this film was that this is somethg that had always bothered me and every time, basilly, I talk to a gay man I would fd out that he also had eher spent a lot of time thkg about his voice or ed to be self-nsc about his voice or still felt self-nsc about his voice.

Until then homosexual actors, micians, athlet or anyone the public eye had two choic life: to keep their homosexualy a secret, pecially om the media, or adopt the mannerisms and a of drs which were very mp but at the same time (ironilly) never admtg their sexual preferenc publicly. Tom Robson released a very succsful song entled (Sg if you're) Glad to be Gay, was the mid-70s, and I was still at a Catholic primary school when I remember que distctly hearg gay beg ed for the first time to unteract the BrEng rogatory terms such as: poofter, poof, queer, not normal, fairy and queen that were rife at the time.

DO YOU SOUND GAY? WHAT OUR VOIC TELL – AND WHAT THEY DON’T

I put together a short documentary about how actors--pecially men, whether they are gay or straight--are nsired by stg directors to have failed the send they “sound gay” (meang their voice do not nform to heteronormative stereotyp of masculy). As long as there is an unchecked cultural phobia of “gay voic, ” --by which we really jt mean effemate male voic--we are all nmned to a PTSD-like state of hypervigilance, too aaid to blur the l of genr, our voic or any other area of our liv.

Through a seri of terviews and teractns wh Thorpe’s iends and relativ, a few celebri, and random strangers on the streets, we hear a spectm of perspectiv about what “sounds gay” and why soundg as such is perceived as bad. Many of the gay men the film adm to beg que fortable wh the sounds of their voic, not fully unrstandg why Thorpe would feel so strongly about his voice that he would even vis a speech pathologist and a celebry vol traer to get rid of his “gay voice. As psychology profsors and rearchers, the first thg that popped to our mds while watchg the film was the ncept of ternalized opprsn, particularly ternalized homophobia* (please see note below about the term “homophobia”), which may be fed as the negative attus that LGBTQ people have about themselv bee of their sexual orientatns.

WHAT MEANS TO 'SOUND GAY'

In this regard for our LGBTQ brothers and sisters, rearch suggts that people velop ternalized homophobia bee they learned that beg different or genr nonnformg was bad (om their fai, iends, society general) and so they also learned not to love themselv. Rearch suggts that opprsn— this se homophobia or heterosexism—n be ternalized so eply that even those of who are most aware, most cril, and most “liberated” (or “lonized” as some other margalized peopl may refer to ) may still be affected by . *Note: Instead of “homophobia, ” some folks may e the term “heterosexism” – and this se “ternalized heterosexism” – which has been argued to be a more appropriate term given that anti-LGBTQ prejudice is not jt an dividual-level, clil-soundg problem (as the term “phobia” impli), but is also a wispread form of opprsn that is rooted our culture, society, and stutns.

Wh this bate, Vasilovsky (2018) cricized gaydar rearch for nceptualizg sexual orientatn cu mostly as “static” and “nate” rather than as “dynamic” munitn addrs this cricism, we foc here on a cue that may have some relatively stable featur, but that is also known to be open to modulatn, namely voice.

GAY GAY HOMOSEXUAL GAY / I CAN STILL HEAR HIS VOICE

We will exame whether voice is a fixed enty and whether gay and straight speakers modulate their voic strategilly or spontaneoly le wh their munitive tent and wh the social ntext, so as to eher emphasize or mimize their sexual orientatn.

THE HISTORY OF THE WORD “GAY”

When judged on the basis of voice alone, gay speakers are generally perceived as (relatively) ls heterosexual than straight speakers, but they still tend to be systematilly misclassified as heterosexual, suggtg that heterosexualy is the flt rponse (Smyth et al., 2003; Sulpiz et al., 2015, 2020; see Lick & Johnson, 2016, for this straight tegorizatn bias) lerature has also examed the actual atic cu that distguish gay and straight speech styl. Overall, the lerature nfirms that some voice characteristics are stereotypilly associated wh homosexualy and/or femy/masculy (see Kachel, Simpson, & Steffens, 2017; Kachel et al., 2018b) and that listeners are not only fluenced by actual atic differenc but also rely on stereotypil cu when formg an imprsn of the speaker (Munson, Crocker, Pierrehumbert, Owen-Anrson, & Zucker, 2015) few exceptns, rearch on dory gaydar has nceptualized gay and straight voice as a relatively stable characteristic of the speaker and, hence, has foced on habual ways of speakg. Rearch on sexual orientatn modulatn (Ambady & Hallahan, 2002; Sylva, Rieger, Lsenmeier, & Bailey, 2010) has shown that gay dividuals are able to exaggerate and partially nceal their sexualy, pecially if they are not a gnively mandg suatn (Sylva et al., 2010).

Th, prr rearch has foced on variatn between rather than wh speakers, although there are a few notable has been suggted that gay speakers may specifilly mimize or emphasize the stereotypil atic cu scribed above to nceal or signal their sexual orientatn (Kachel et al., 2018a; Zwicky, 1997; see also Zimman, 2013). Crist (1997) observed a systematic lengtheng of (some) onset nsonants when four gay and two straight speakers were asked to read a text a “queeny” (flamboyantly effemate), rather than an “ordary, ” voice, suggtg that both straight and gay men were able to modify their voic. The only exceptn to this is reprented by a study showg that gay men dislikg the ia of soundg gay avoid engagg gay stereotypil speech and, th, were ually perceived as heterosexual (Mann, 2012) is some evince that gay dividuals may, to some gree, be able to nceal their sexual orientatn, but only when talkg about general topics (Sylva et al., 2010).

Th, remas to be seen whether gay speakers modulate their voic pendg on ntext and terlocutor and whether such voice modulatn is succsful exprsg or ncealg sexual and Overview of RearchIn le wh the ia that voice signals social tegory membership (Posva & Callier, 2015), our voice sexual orientatn modulatn hypothis poss that speakers flexibly adopt stereotypilly gay/lbian vs. As a nsequence, speech styl signalg a gay tegory membership should maly be adopted wh people who are aware of the speaker’s sexual orientatn and who had reacted posively to their g out (Lville, 1998; Munson & Babel, 2007), but gay speakers may mimic straight speech styl wh unaware or unacceptg teractn vtigate whether gay speakers spontaneoly modulate their voic to reveal or disguise their sexual orientatn, we nducted a simulated nversatn study which gay men imaged talkg to terlocutors wh whom they had e out easily, wh difficulty, or had not me out at all.

FILMMAKER AND SPEECH PATHOLOGIST WEIGH IN ON WHAT IT MEANS TO 'SOUND GAY'

In le wh our voice modulatn hypothis, we hypothized that the voic of gay speakers will sound more gay when talkg to others wh whom they had easily e out than when talkg to people wh whom they had not e out or wh whom they have had a difficult disclosure experienc.

GAY (HOMOSEXUAL) AND GAY (HAPPY)

Gay speakers were asked to image to talk to (1) a receiver wh whom they had not e out and wh whom they would not feel fortable to e out (no g out), (2) a receiver wh whom they had e out and who had reacted a posive way (easy g out), and (3) a receiver wh whom they had e out but who had reacted a negative way (difficult g out). After listeng to each rerdg, participants were asked to rate the speaker’s voice by pletg a measure of voice genr typily (om 1 = pletely feme to 7 = pletely mascule) and of voice gayns (om 1 = pletely heterosexual to 7 = pletely homosexual), after havg listened to the three rerdgs, participants gused the speaker’s sexual orientatn (om 1 = pletely heterosexual to 7 = pletely homosexual, wh the sle midpot labeled “bisexual”). In le wh prev studi on dory gaydar (Sulpiz et al., 2015, 2020; Valentova & Havlíček, 2013) and on the straight tegorizatn bias (Lick & Johnson, 2016), sexual orientatn means were overall low and below the midpot of the sle for both gay and straight speakers (all ts < − 5.

MY GAY VOICE AND YOURS

The fdgs nfirm the well-tablished straight tegorizatn bias, namely the tenncy to tegorize both straight and gay speakers as “straight” although to different gre (Alt, Lick, & Johnson, 2020; Lick & Johnson, 2016; Sulpiz et al., 2015). The gay speakers’ voic sound more gay and more genr atypil to the ears of our listeners when speakers simulated an teractn wh an terlocutor who had reacted posively to their g out than when the teractn volved someone who was unaware of their sexualy.

"DO I SOUND GAY?"

Straight men are particularly ncerned about beg seen as gay or genr atypil bee this n trigger negative nsequenc for them and their stat (see Prewt-Freilo & Bosson, 2008; Vanllo, Bosson, Cohen, Burnaford, & Weaver, 2008). To le out this possibily, we nducted a send study that allowed to vtigate voice modulatn as a functn of g out, while holdg dience characteristics orr to exame whether voice modulatn gay men is a specific nsequence of g out, gay speakers Study 2 were teractg wh the same dience, namely the general public.

G., sentenc read out loud), this method gave the possibily to exame listeners’ perceptn based on spontaneo expected that the voic of gay speakers would sound ls genr typil and more gay after than before g out, but no differenc over time were predicted for the straight speakers (Hypothis 1). Th, this study allowed to further exame the ia that voice is not a stable marker of sexual orientatn, but a flexible inty management vice, ed by gay speakers to strategilly (although not necsarily liberately) disclose or disguise their sexual orientatn.

GAY

After listeng to each d rerdg, participants pleted the voice genr typily and voice gayns measur and gused the speaker’s sexual orientatn on the same 7-pot sl of Study, participants gused how many different speakers they had listened to (om 1 to 10) and dited whether they had regnized any of them as someone they knew. As shown Table 1, straight speakers’ voic were perceived as creasgly genr typil over time, whereas an oppose trend was observed for gay speakers, whose voic sound ls genr typil after than before g 1 Mean (SD) of voice genr atypily, voice gayns, and perceived sexual orientatn as a functn of speaker sexual orientatn and time (Study 2)Full size tableOverall, the voic of both gay and straight speakers across ndns were perceived as rather genr typil (ts > 13. 1 (top) and Table 1, and le wh Hypothis 1, the voic of gay speakers were perceived as more gay after than before g out, whereas the oppose pattern was found for straight 1Means of perceived voice gayns (top) and speaker sexual orientatn (bottom) as a functn of time (Study 2).

Note Higher valu mean greater gayns of voice (middle) and greater gayns of speaker (bottom), all asssed on sl om 1 to 7Full size imageIntertgly, the three-way teractn between speaker sexual orientatn, time, and listener sexual orientatn was signifint, F(2, 602) = 4. Regardls of time, straight speakers were always perceived as clearly straight (that is below the sle midpot), whereas gay speakers were perceived as clearly gay soundg and on the “gay” si of the ntuum (that is signifintly above the sle midpot) only after their g out. In eher se, the fact that the voic of gay speakers velop the oppose directn be even more also found that heterosexual listeners perceived a change over time how gay the speakers sound, whereas sexual mori perceived gay speakers nsistently as gay soundg.

GAY VOICE: STABLE MARKER OF SEXUAL ORIENTATN OR FLEXIBLE COMMUNITN DEVICE?

General DiscsnThe ma qutn addrsed here was whether vol cu of gay vers straight speakers reprent relatively stable markers of sexual orientatn or whether they serve inty management goals and hence vary across time and teractn partners.

It also supports the ia that gaydar has an “adaptive” functn (Shelp, 2003), allowg gay dividuals to munite their sexual different voice and listeners sampl (English and Italian), settgs, and methodologi, our studi provi evince that gay speakers adjt their speech styl flexibly as a functn of their stage of g out, speakg more typilly “gay” wh teractn partners whom they have e out wh and who have reacted posively (Study 1a and 1b) or after a public g out (Study 2). Our fdg that gay speakers flexibly adjt their speech styl pendg on their stage of g out nfirms Eckert’s (2012) claim that lguistic styl do not statilly reflect the speaker’s social inty, but that this inty is actively nstcted teractn wh others. The fact that straight speakers also modulated their voic pendg on the terlocutor (Study 1) and over time (Study 2) suggts that they e voice as a tool to munite their heterosexualy prumably to avoid misclassifitn or to safeguard their heterosexual reputatn (Bosson et al., 2006; Fasoli et al., 2018) le wh the lerature (Smyth et al., 2003; Sulpiz et al., 2015), we also found that, although listeners distguish gay and straight speakers and their voic relative terms, they have a strong tenncy to misclassify gay speakers as straight.

In that stance, listeners may feel ‘allowed’ to tegorize the speaker as gay whout nng the risk of puttg him harmful a sendary aim, we also vtigated the relative importance of genr-atypil sound producg the imprsn that the speaker was gay. The chang we observed our studi may reflect the importance for speakers to be perceived as both genr typil and heterosexual, possibly bee of ternalized homophobia gay men (see Hunt, Morandi, Dar-Nimrod, & Barlow, 2020) and stat ncerns straight men (Fasoli et al., 2018).