Do you sound gay? What our voic tell – and what they don’t | David Shariatmadari | The Guardian

Contents:

• HOW TO TALK WH A GAY OR LBIAN PERSON
• HOW TO TALK ABOUT BEG GAY
• THE GAY VOICE
• WANT TO GET RID OF YOUR 'GAY ACCENT'? THERE'S AN APP FOR THAT
• 9 WAYS TO REACH OUT TO A GAY-INTIFIED FRIEND
• ENGLISH PRONUNCIATN OF GAY
• DO YOU SOUND GAY? WHAT OUR VOIC TELL – AND WHAT THEY DON’T
• WHAT MEANS TO ‘SOUND GAY’
• FILMMAKER AND SPEECH PATHOLOGIST WEIGH IN ON WHAT IT MEANS TO 'SOUND GAY'
• SPEECH ATIC FEATUR: A COMPARISON OF GAY MEN, HETEROSEXUAL MEN, AND HETEROSEXUAL WOMEN

HOW TO TALK WH A GAY OR LBIAN PERSON

GLAAD prefers that we don’t e the term homosexual bee ’s “aggrsively ed by anti-gay extremists to suggt that gay people are somehow diseased or psychologilly/emotnally disorred.

Beg a gay man or lbian do not mean that they are attracted to every sgle person they meet that is of the same sex, jt like you aren't attracted to every sgle person you meet that is of the oppose sex.

In the wake of the whole Newsweek gay actors thg, Details sought out the wisdom of longtime voice ach Bob Corff, who helps actors get rid of Gay what, exactly, is the difference between a straight male voice and a gay male voice? Much of this will e through healthy same-sex mentors, unselors, enuragers and Ana Worthen and Bob Davi, Someone I Love Is Gay, ( Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsy Prs, 1996), ch.

HOW TO TALK ABOUT BEG GAY

Jeff Johnston works as an Issu Analyst for Foc on the Fay, wrg and teachg about marriage, homosexualy and genr, as well as enuragg and equippg Christians to engage the culture on the issu. In his current rearch, Leap is lookg at Harleme, the language of the Harlem Renaissance, where he c a rich and dynamic queer prence and a manner of speakg that, while beg not exclively queer, has fluenced both gay and mastream language to this day.

Around the same time, Bra, Polari, what scholars ll an anti-language, was at s peak among gay men, but the jargon would be pletely unregnizable to most English speakers today. In the early 1990s, Baker stumbled upon Polari while lookg for a this topic and soon found himself a gay-n hotel Brighton where the nkeepers relled some phraseology.

She-g appears almost universally and across centuri gay language, om Pe to the Philipp to South Ai (where gay slang is lled Gayle), to Israel (lled oxtch, rived om an Arabic word meang "my sister"), to Soviet-era Rsia. But Put's Rsia, where the environment remas extremely hostile for LGBT people, the webse, acrdg to a paper by rearcher Stephan Nance, lists a urse on how to speak prent-day Rsian gay, a slang lled goluboy -- om a word related to the bluish lor of a dove -- prumably to help gay Rsians intify one another. ") Denis Provencher, partment head of French and Italian at the Universy of Arizona, has yet to intify a siar argot as Polari or rearch to gay-specific slang French, where disurse, typil French fashn, operat as more waltz than stri.

THE GAY VOICE

" While vobulary might be the most fun part of lavenr lguistics for the layperson, scholars are ncerned wh aspects such as tone, flectn, and gturg, as well as the polil and cultural implitns of language -- how the prs wre about LGBT issu, for example, or how queer people munite wh each other privately and at work, or how gay language is learned.

WANT TO GET RID OF YOUR 'GAY ACCENT'? THERE'S AN APP FOR THAT

Wearg speedos, wearg brief unrwear, havg a lisp, havg a particular haircut, speakg a high or low voice, huggg someone of the same genr, seeg someone of the same genr naked, takg a nu shower a locker room, listeng to show tun, et cetera, are all exampl of thgs that do not make someone gay. Sometim 's actually easier to talk about homosexualy wh kids sce they haven't picked up on as many societal msag as adults have and they're not g to the nversatn wh as many prenceived notns. The "secret language" was ed heavily by gays the circ, navy, and theater, and arose out of the need to discs gay matters unr a clever guise, due to homosexual acts beg illegal Bra until the passage of the Sexual Offens Act 1967.

Here's some of the amg slang: Basket - the bulge of male genals through clothFantabulos-wonrfulEf - face (backslang) DollyEf - pretty face Chicken - a young guySome Polari words still exist morn gay slang. As gays began to fight for acceptance and rights, they ma a ncentrated effort to remove the Brish society's one-dimensnal view of all gays as beg overly mpy and effemate.

Check out Atlas Obscura pots out, Polari was a great self-performative outlet for Brish gays to not only exprs themselv but also easily intify and n wh fellow memebers of the queer muny. And y, the stretchg out of “sibilant” nsonants such as s and z (image Kenh Williams sayg “She sells sea shells on the sea shore” and you’re sort of there) what about gay women?

9 WAYS TO REACH OUT TO A GAY-INTIFIED FRIEND

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. Third: this style of speakg isn’t simply an importatn of “feme” quali to male speech, although that appears to be what a lot of people, we’re still left wh the qutn of why a gay male voice might emerge.

ENGLISH PRONUNCIATN OF GAY

Team up wh a pediatrician, a unselor at school, close fay members and even muny anizatns — for example, Parents, Fai and Friends of Lbians and Gays (PFLAG) — if you’re havg trouble gog alone. Christians n get so ught up culture wars and heated Facebook bat about homosexualy that they sometim don’t realize how much damage they e people who are wrtlg wh their fah and sexualy.

Next time you’re about to post some feisty ment about “the gays” on Facebook, or bemoan “the gay agenda” your sermon, or talk to your iends about the abomatn of “the gay liftyle, ” perhaps one of the prec people is lookg on. 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.

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

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.

“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? ” 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.

WHAT MEANS TO ‘SOUND GAY’

” 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.

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

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.

" In his new film, Do I Sound Gay?, Thorpe search for the orig of that stereotype and documents his own attempts to sound "ls gay" by workg wh speech pathologist San Sank. At the same time, I totally get that when I me out, I wanted to be regnized as gay; I wanted the world to know I was gay and I wanted to f to this existg muny, so I thk my voice really did change after I me out. 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.

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

Language may be ambiguo reference, so that the rear is uncerta about s meang or s cln and excln creria; and the term homosexualy has been associated the past wh viance, mental illns, and crimal behavr, and the negative stereotyp may be perpetuated by biased language.

The term sexual orientatn is preferred to sexual preference for psychologil wrg and refers to sexual and affectnal relatnships of lbian, gay, bisexual, and heterosexual people. The terms lbian sexual orientatn, heterosexual sexual orientatn, gay male sexual orientatn, and bisexual sexual orientatn are preferable to lbianism, heterosexualy, homosexualy, and bisexualy. Lbian and gay male are preferred to the word homosexual when ed as an adjective referrg to specific persons or groups, and the terms lbians and gay men are preferred to homosexuals ed as nouns when referrg to specific persons or groups.

Likewise, is eful that women and men not be nsired "oppos" (as "oppose sex") to avoid polarizatn, and that heterosexual women and men not be viewed as oppose to lbians and gay men. For example, scriptns of sexual behavr among animal speci should be termed male-male sexual behavr or male-female sexual behavr rather than homosexual behavr or heterosexual behavr. Maral stat per se is not a good ditor of habatn (married upl may be separated, unmarried upl may live together), sexual activy, or sexual orientatn (a person who is married may be a gay or lbian relatnship wh a partner).