Gay men who 'sound gay' enunter more stigma | EurekAlert!

Contents:

• WHAT MEANS TO ‘SOUND GAY’
• 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
• "DO I SOUND GAY?"
• HOMOSEXUAL MEN WHO ‘SOUND GAY’ AL WH MORE DISCRIMATN, STUDY SAYS
• GAY MEN WHO 'SOUND GAY' ENUNTER MORE STIGMA AND DISCRIMATN OM HETEROSEXUAL PEERS
• WHAT DO IT MEAN TO SOUND GAY?
• DO I SOUND GAY?

WHAT MEANS TO ‘SOUND GAY’

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

At first blh, schoolyard tnts might not seem a uful source of tisms about the human ndn, but the ephet “ tak one to know one” do have some basis realy, at least for gays and lbians, who are often attuned to the special somethgs that subtly and vertly distguish gay om straight. Though popular stereotype holds that gay men lisp, lispg is que rare and is often evince of a diagnosable speech impediment. But the lispg stereotype is not altogether removed om realy: In fact, some North Amerin gay mal do pronounce sibilants (s, z, sh, and the like) a distctive way – by addg more sibilatn, hissg, or strincy, a phenomenon phonologists ll assibilatn.

Many New Yorkers of all persuasns, and some Amerin Jews, also assibilate ways siar to Quebec French or stereotypil gay speech.

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

Moreover, gay men who speak wh what a North Amerin newsrear would nsir an “accent” – such as Brish, Atralian, or even Texan gays – rarely assibilate at all. In one experiment, Rudolf Gd, an openly-gay lguistics stunt at Stanford Universy, asked four gay and four straight men to read two passag to a tape rerr. The first text was a dry excerpt om an acuntg volume, the send a dramatic passage om Harvey Fierste’s play about gay life, Torch Song Trilogy.

E., on a seven-posn sle between oppose terms: straight and gay, effemate and mascule, rerved and emotnal, affected and ordary. As Gd noted, “listeners’ gus about speakers’ sexual orientatn were largely accurate: wh ‘straight’ at the left pole of the ntuum and ‘gay’ at the right pole, all the straight speakers rated on the ‘straight’ si, and all the gay speakers were to their right (i.

"DO I SOUND GAY?"

Oddly, though, a range of pch measurements taken om the actual sound wav of the four gay and four straight men’s voic, there was no signifint rrelatn wh the listeners’ judgements.

The experiment, then, uld provi no quantifiable reason why the listeners’ perceptns about gay and straight speakers were rrect. Gd explas this anomaly by notg that his experiment nsired only a narrow range of measurements; gay and straight men’s speech might well differ acrdg to creria Gd did not measure. A leadg openly-gay lguist, Arnold Zwicky of Oh State Universy, echo that terpretatn and adds that gay men’s speech n differ om straight a number of ways; listeners might pick up on only one or some batn of those factors – and not necsarily the on Gd measured.

HOMOSEXUAL MEN WHO ‘SOUND GAY’ AL WH MORE DISCRIMATN, STUDY SAYS

Still, the likelihood of further rearch this area, acrdg to Gd and Zwicky, is remote due to the polil touchs of studyg gay speech. ” It’s a fascatg and nuanced film, which the filmmaker, David Thorpe,  his feelgs about his voice to look at attus toward homosexualy. 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.

He rri out thoughtful nversatns wh his iends and proment gay and lbian figur – cludg Gee Takei, David Sedaris, Dan Savage, Margaret Cho and Don Lemon – about what means to “sound gay. 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.

GAY MEN WHO 'SOUND GAY' ENUNTER MORE STIGMA AND DISCRIMATN OM HETEROSEXUAL PEERS

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. “As a hly mted gay man, I learned how mpg up uld be liberatg, ” Thorpe says the there may be more subtle ways that sexualy and our sense of self fluence our voic.

Benjam Munson, who studi language and speech at the Universy of Mnota, found one study that gay men did e a slightly different pronunciatn than straight men. 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.

“As speakers of a language, we have lots of eedom how we pronounce sounds … People explo that variatn to create different social meangs, " he those who are proud n still feel stigma“Do I Sound Gay?

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. “[B]ee we do still live a misogynist and sexist culture, people cricize men who are effemate, whether or not they are gay, " says Thorpse. "“This is really an issue of genr that then be an issue of sexual orientatn that then be an issue of homophobia, " Thorpe said.

DO I SOUND GAY?

He grew up the Bible Belt the 1980s, when homosexualy was often nsired evil and the e of a new plague lled AIDS, Thorpe says. 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.

He pots to Hollywood's proment “gaylebri, ” like Jse Tyler Fergon and Neil Patrick Harris, and young gay YouTube stars like Tyler Oakley, Kgsley and Lohanthony. "We are pneers our time changg societal perceptn of what means to be gay, ” Gee Takei, who played Sulu "Star Trek, " says the homophobia still affects Hollywood. Many actors work to make their voic sound mascule: In the film, Bob Corff, a Hollywood voice ach who Thorpe viss, says 20 to 50 people a year e to him to sound "ls gay.