What means to ‘sound gay’ - The Washgton Post

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'

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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.

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.

"DO I SOUND GAY?"

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.

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

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. 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.

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

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.

WHAT DO IT MEAN TO SOUND GAY?

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.

DO I SOUND GAY?

“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.