Is There a “Gay Voice”? | The New Yorker

Contents:

• THE GAY VOICE
• IS THERE A “GAY VOICE”?
• WHAT'S THE LK BETWEEN HOMOSEXUALY AND HAVG A 'GAY VOICE'
• A DOCUMENTARIAN WONRS: 'DO I SOUND GAY?'
• MY GAY VOICE
• WHY IS THAT SOME GAY MEN EMPLOY AN EFFEMATE VOICE?
• FILMMAKER AND SPEECH PATHOLOGIST WEIGH IN ON WHAT IT MEANS TO 'SOUND GAY'
• DO YOU SOUND GAY? WHAT OUR VOIC TELL – AND WHAT THEY DON’T
• GAY VOICE: STABLE MARKER OF SEXUAL ORIENTATN OR FLEXIBLE COMMUNITN DEVICE?
• SPEECH ATIC FEATUR: A COMPARISON OF GAY MEN, HETEROSEXUAL MEN, AND HETEROSEXUAL WOMEN
• MY GAY VOICE AND YOURS

THE GAY VOICE

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. Thanks to the shownners drivg thentic stori, filmmakers buckg s-old heteronormative paradigms, actors embolned to live more hontly and platforms bankrollg so much of , beg gay, queer, transgenr or any other other has never been more wily embraced the entertament s gural Pri issue, The Hollywood Reporter homed on the talent and makers helpg boost visibily and creatg opportuni for members of the extend LGBTQ muny.

After more than a of Watch What Happens Live Wh Andy Cohen, where he beme the first openly gay host Amerin late night, Bravo's exec turned talent tackl all kds of media (SiriXM show Rad Andy, multiple books), while upliftg and advotg for the LGBTQ muny. Puttg his stamp on The Ln Kg — he played Timon to great acclaim the billn-dollar-earng Disney reboot — the out-and-proud funnyman will next play Matt Ddge  Amerin Crime Story: Impeachment while his upg Judd Apatow-produced feature at Universal is set to be the first gay rom- om a major stud.

IS THERE A “GAY VOICE”?

The queer Salvadoran edian translated the handful of breakout Saturday Night Live scen he wrote to multiple als at HBO — where he buted the edy special My Favore Shap  2019 and is readyg season two of Los Espookys, the half-Spanish, half-English, entirely absurd edy which he stars as the gay heir to a cholate fortune. Bisexual men are perceived to sound more mascule than men who are straight, acrdg to a study of Atralian subjects.Amics at the Universy of Sydney pared the voic of gay, straight and bisexual men a study volvg 160 people.In the rearch led by clil psychologist Jam Morandi, people were reced to analyse the voic of 60 men, 20 of whom were gay, 20 straight and 20 bisexual.

They were then asked to rate the men on their sexual orientatn g a sle om zero (exclively heterosexual) to 10 (exclively homosexual).Listeners were also asked to rate each man’s perceived level of femy or masculy the voic on a siar sle.The men volved the study were asked to rerd themselv on a smartphone recg the first two l of the Atralian natnal anthem.Voice sampl were then modified to remove any background noise while volume levels were ma the same to ensure nsistency.Rults om the study showed listeners uld distguish between gay and straight men’s voic wh an accuracy of 62 per cent, apparently nsistent wh prev rearch.However, the study participants uld not terme any differenc between bisexual and straight men’s voic wh any gree of accuracy. The thors said their rearch showed bisexual men’s voic were perceived as beg more exclively attracted to women pared wh both gay and straight men’s voic.Bisexual men’s voic were rated as more mascule than both gay and straight men’s voic.Rearchers claimed the abily to intify a man’s bisexual inty om his voice alone uld have cril social implitns such as helpg to rce feelgs of alienatn.‘Voice may unter visibily many bisexuals feel’An abstract of the study, tled Can listeners tect if a man is bisexual om his voice alone, reads: “The prent study examed whether bisexual men n be intified om their voic ak to how gay men n be intified on their voice alone.“If this is the se, voice may be an important target of discrimatn on the one hand but may also unter the visibily many bisexuals feel (if their bisexual inti n be apprehend by their voice alone, whout explic disclosure required).“The fdgs may also she light on whether bisexual male voic, like gay male voic, differ om straight voic terms of their genr non-nformy – a qutn that to date has not been examed.”But amics noted the rearch was limed on the grounds all men who participated the study are Atralian, which may not be reflected among wir cultur.And the thors nced the study did not ntrol for the rerdg environment or microphone-to-mouth distance, which uld have affected the qualy of the voice sampl.The thors said the fdgs suggted that while the voic of bisexual men the sample were perceived as more mascule and attracted to femal, listeners did not associate this imprsn wh bisexualy.As a rult, while bisexual men may appear to be at lower risk of facg voice-based intifitn and discrimatn than gay men, they may often be mistaken as beg straight.The study was published the Journal of Sex Rearch. The explanatn that pleas him most is that gay speech has s origs ls blogy or nro-chemistry than early female fluence: Men who grow up mostly around women tend to mimic feme speech styl — which, Thorpe argu, would expla why some straight men sound gay, and why gays who grow up wh brothers often velop basso profundos.

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

Takg his cue om the swellg ranks of gay celebri (among them Gee Takei, Margaret Cho and the effably funny and ndid David Sedaris) who are willg to speak on mera about liberatg themselv om their own fears, Thorpe realiz he's been askg the wrong qutns. 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.

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.

A DOCUMENTARIAN WONRS: 'DO I SOUND GAY?'

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.

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.

MY GAY VOICE

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. 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 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”).

WHY IS THAT SOME GAY MEN EMPLOY AN EFFEMATE VOICE?

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.

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. 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).

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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). 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.

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

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). To fill the gaps, we explored potential differenc atic featur of speech between homosexual and heterosexual native French men and vtigated whether the former showed a trend toward femizatn by parg theirs to that of heterosexual native French women.

In addn to the fact that homosexuals exhib tras that differ om those of heterosexuals, has been shown that some of them, such as specific nral procs (LeVay, 1991; Savic, Berglund, & Ldstrom, 2005) or specific childhood behavrs (Alanko et al., 2010; Bailey & Zucker, 1995), displayed valu shifted toward those of the oppose sex, i.

Although there is no clear evince that the mean fundamental equency differs between homosexual and heterosexual men (Gd, 1994; Lerman & Damsté, 1969; Munson et al., 2006b; Rendall et al., 2008; Rogers, Jabs, & Smyth, 2001; Smyth, Jabs, & Rogers, 2003; but see Baeck, Corthals, & Borsel, 2011), rults toward differenc pch modulatn patterns are more ntroversial: Some studi have found that homosexual men displayed greater variatns tonatn, wh valu shifted toward those of women (Baeck et al., 2011; Gd, 1994), while others did not fd any difference (Levon, 2006; Rogers et al., 2001). Lastly, homosexual men seem to produce a more expand vowel space than heterosexual men for some specific vowels (Rendall et al., 2008), hyper-articulatn beg monly found female speech (Pierrehumbert et al., 2004) the atic speech featur, other characteristics uld vary wh sexual orientatn, such as vol breaths and roughns that are, rpectively, ptured by the harmonics-to-noise rat (HNR) and the jter.

SPEECH ATIC FEATUR: A COMPARISON OF GAY MEN, HETEROSEXUAL MEN, AND HETEROSEXUAL WOMEN

Although evince of a difference ttosterone levels between homosexual and heterosexual men is nsistent (Meyer-Bahlburg, 1977, 1984), ttosterone may still mediate the relatnship between sexual orientatn and the aforementned vol speech featur, which has received ltle attentn so far.

MY GAY VOICE AND YOURS

Consequently, muni of homosexual men uld potentially differ their specific vol speech featur across different this ntext, the goal of the prent study was to provi further tails on the potential differenc between homosexual and heterosexual men’s speech an unrreprented populatn the lerature (i. To vtigate the effects of sexual orientatn and tt the hypothis of femizatn on the vol featur, we ed an explanatory variable lled “SexOr” that nsirs both sex and sexual orientatn wh three modali: heterosexual men, homosexual men, and heterosexual women.

Thrholds of signifince were rrected for the number of mols and post hoc parisons g the Bonferroni orr to asss the overall difference on speech atic featur between heterosexual and homosexual men and to exame whether homosexual men’s vol featur are shifted toward those of women, we nducted a lear discrimant analysis (LDA). RultsDcriptive statistics of all atic parameters and T-levels are shown Table 1Dcriptive statistics of mean F0, F0-SD, jter, HNR, speakg time, and T-levels for heterosexual men and women and homosexual menHeterosexual men(n = 48)M ± SDHomosexual men(n = 58)M ± SDHeterosexual women(n = 54)M ± SDF0 (Hz)118.

Consistent wh prev fdgs English-speakg populatns, no signifint differenc were observed mean F0 between French-speakg heterosexual and homosexual men (Gd, 1994; Lerman & Damsté, 1969; Munson et al., 2006b; Rendall et al., 2008; Rogers et al., 2001; Smyth et al., 2003). The relatnship between pch variatns and sexual orientatn was prevly found one Dutch (Baeck et al., 2011) and one Amerin-English populatn (Gd, 1994), suggtg that femized pch variatns might be characteristic of male homosexual speech across languag (but see Levon, 2006). Further vtigatns are neverthels need to nfirm if such a difference pch variatns between homosexual and heterosexual men is enough to be ed as a cue for asssg sexual our knowledge, this is the first study to report an associatn between men’s vol breaths and sexual orientatn.