Gay men, ternalized homophobia, and (re)fg the "gay voice"
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’
What the way we talk says about gay pri and lgerg prejudice * souding gay *
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FILMMAKER AND SPEECH PATHOLOGIST WEIGH IN ON WHAT IT MEANS TO 'SOUND GAY'
In Do I Sound Gay?, director David Thorpe search for the orig of the so-lled "gay voice" and documents his own attempts (wh speech pathologist San Sank) to sound "ls gay." * souding gay *
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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.
DO YOU SOUND GAY? WHAT OUR VOIC TELL – AND WHAT THEY DON’T
We might thk we know what a gay person sounds like. But there are veats to the cliche — and ‘voice-shamg’ tells a lot more about our culture than do about the person speakg * souding gay *
Many New Yorkers of all persuasns, and some Amerin Jews, also assibilate ways siar to Quebec French or stereotypil gay speech. 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.
"DO I SOUND GAY?"
* souding gay *
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. 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.
HOMOSEXUAL MEN WHO ‘SOUND GAY’ AL WH MORE DISCRIMATN, STUDY SAYS
Rearchers say homosexual men who believe their voice "sounds gay" nscly make an effort to be "more vigilant" social suatns. * souding gay *
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.
GAY MEN WHO 'SOUND GAY' ENUNTER MORE STIGMA AND DISCRIMATN OM HETEROSEXUAL PEERS
Rudolf P. Gd, Soundg Gay: Pch Properti the Speech of Gay and Straight Men, Amerin Speech, Vol. 69, No. 1 (Sprg, 1994), pp. 30-57 * souding gay *
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. 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.
WHAT DO IT MEAN 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. 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.
DO I 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.