My Gay Voice and Yours | Psychology Today

Contents:

• WORDS THAT RHYME WH GAY
• MY GAY VOICE AND YOURS
• RHYME WH GAY
• "DO I SOUND GAY?"
• WORDS THAT START WH GAY
• WHAT WORD SOUNDS LIKE GAY?
• WORDS NTAG GAY
• SYNONYMS OF GAY
• SLANG FOR GAY
• WHAT MEANS TO ‘SOUND GAY’

WORDS THAT RHYME WH GAY

The words at the top of the list are the on most associated wh homosexual, and as you go down the relatedns be more slight. By flt, the words are sorted by relevance/relatedns, but you n also get the most mon homosexual terms by g the menu below, and there's also the optn to sort the words alphabetilly so you n get homosexual words startg wh a particular letter. So for example, you uld enter "gay" and click "filter", and 'd give you words that are related to homosexual and gay.

If you jt re about the words' direct semantic siary to homosexual, then there's probably no need for this. So although you might see some synonyms of homosexual the list below, many of the words below will have other relatnships wh homosexual - you uld see a word wh the exact oppose meang the word list, for example.

So 's the sort of list that would be eful for helpg you build a homosexual vobulary list, or jt a general homosexual word list for whatever purpose, but 's not necsarily gog to be eful if you're lookg for words that mean the same thg as homosexual (though still might be handy for that).

MY GAY VOICE AND YOURS

Has somethg to do wh homosexual, then 's obvly a good ia to e ncepts or words to do wh homosexual. If you don't fd what you're lookg for the list below, or if there's some sort of bug and 's not displayg homosexual related words, please send me feedback g this page.

The words down here at the bottom of the list will be some way associated wh homosexual, but perhaps tenuoly (if you've currenly got sorted by relevance, that is). No one r if you ARE gay but you n’t ACT gay…” Sce then I have ponred what even means to “act gay”-- or to “act straight, ” for that matter. But at the time I knew exactly what meant: I had a “gay voice” and was therefore cursed to live a life of mute daydreamg.

) But 99% of the time the magic would fa once I was st, revealg me to be a guy who uld ocsnally hi behd a ep voice, but who generally prented as “gay.

RHYME WH GAY

And I uld no longer take the sult of watchg lleagu wh “tough guy” personas get st gay and/or effemate male rol.

For stance, a classmate om nservatory--who ed to tease me about my effemate mannerisms, BTW--was eventually st as a gay activist a big award-wng movie, based on a big award-wng play, about gay liv. As stg director Brette Goldste told me 2008, the thg about the gay rol on televisn and film is that “You’ll often have straight men playg them.

"DO I SOUND GAY?"

Though some gay actors are effectively creatg their own opportuni to play a variety of rol (gay, straight, mascule, feme, and everythg between), such as the makers of the entertag seri East Sirs.

But even though I chose not to ntue swimmg upstream toward a full time actg reer, I also somehow knew not to dismiss myself for beg “too gay” or too genr nonnformg.

WORDS THAT START WH GAY

I put together a short documentary about how actors--pecially men, whether they are gay or straight--are nsired by stg directors to have failed the send they “sound gay” (meang their voice do not nform to heteronormative stereotyp of masculy). I tell you this bee sharg our journeys wh honty is an effective way to shatter stigmas--like the one known as “gay voice.

And this is exactly what filmmaker David Thorpe has done his tly great documentary, Do I Sound Gay? ” Thorpe asks everyone he knows--cludg queer celebri, like Savage, as well as iends, fay, and profsnal speech ach--where they thk “gay voice” om and how he n change his own.

Thorpe provis myriad hypothis for where this hatred riv om and asks to qutn why any one of (gay or straight) reflexively police genr nonnformy one another’s voic. We get a strong sense of how gay men--and all mori really--at tim emulate our opprsors by punishg each other for havg quali we spise ourselv. As long as there is an unchecked cultural phobia of “gay voic, ” --by which we really jt mean effemate male voic--we are all nmned to a PTSD-like state of hypervigilance, too aaid to blur the l of genr, our voic or any other area of our liv.

WHAT WORD SOUNDS LIKE GAY?

Which brgs to the pot that our fear of soundg what we ll “gay” or “effemate” is not only about genr exprsn, but more signifintly about our cultural ias about weakns and power. The ach, who both have a succsful track rerd of helpg actors sound like “leadg men, ” do not seem homophobic per se. Their tips are ls about genr and more about how people n create sounds their bodi that nnote thory, whether they are female, male, or trans, straight or gay.

WORDS NTAG GAY

By havg women, as well as men, leadg rol that exhib facets of power, weakns, toughns and vulnerabily, we n unrstand the human ndn beyond male or female, mascule or feme, gay or straight. ”—one of summer 2015’s mt see documentari acrdg to Entertament Weekly—is a new film by David Thorpe, a gay Whe Amerin wrer based Brooklyn, New York.

Through a seri of terviews and teractns wh Thorpe’s iends and relativ, a few celebri, and random strangers on the streets, we hear a spectm of perspectiv about what “sounds gay” and why soundg as such is perceived as bad. Many of the gay men the film adm to beg que fortable wh the sounds of their voic, not fully unrstandg why Thorpe would feel so strongly about his voice that he would even vis a speech pathologist and a celebry vol traer to get rid of his “gay voice. ” However, most of the gay men the film were able to relate to the secury of havg a more feme voice and some even relled tim that their “gay soundg” voic (and general gay inti) had led to gettg bullied or worse.

Overall, the film do a nice job of explorg a very real but largely unseen, unheard, and perhaps unspoken psychologil stggle that many gay men may have. As psychology profsors and rearchers, the first thg that popped to our mds while watchg the film was the ncept of ternalized opprsn, particularly ternalized homophobia* (please see note below about the term “homophobia”), which may be fed as the negative attus that LGBTQ people have about themselv bee of their sexual orientatns.

SYNONYMS OF GAY

” We believe ternalized homophobia is why “soundg ls like a man” would make a gay man view himself as ferr and unsirable, even to the ey (or ears) of other gay men. In this regard for our LGBTQ brothers and sisters, rearch suggts that people velop ternalized homophobia bee they learned that beg different or genr nonnformg was bad (om their fai, iends, society general) and so they also learned not to love themselv.

In other words, people have ternalized, accepted, or believed the homophobic msag that society has imposed upon them. So beg strsed out and psychologilly bothered by “soundg gay"—to the pot that one’s self-teem and other aspects of one’s life are negatively affected—is a very tellg “symptom” of ternalized homophobia. Several other terviewe the movie also shared other mon ncepts that are related to, if not signs of, ternalized homophobia, cludg “passg” (i.

For example, thor David Sedaris talked about stanc which others may have prumed that he was heterosexual and he retrospectively ponrs what many gay men may also wonr: “Why do passg as straight make me feel good? In addn, as a gay man, the first thor (Kev) also knows what ’s like to be ostracized for his high-pched, loud, and flamboyant voice.

SLANG FOR GAY

This wispread societal margalizatn of the “gay voice” and pretty much everythg that is “gay” is very real, as most if not all of are socialized or tght to associate negativy, ferry, and “otherns” wh beg gay. ) n attt to this wispread homophobia as he has wnsed – and even participated – many such stanc of otherg, teasg, and bullyg gay men, pecially those who speak wh high-pched, highly-feme, and flamboyantly “gay voic. We believe, however, that two of the other celebry terviewe—Dan Savage and Tim Gunn—more profoundly sum up the perfect batn of what many gay men stggle wh when to their voic.

Author Dan Savage stat that their voic are the “last chunk of ternalized homophobia” that gay men stggle wh.

WHAT MEANS TO ‘SOUND GAY’

Rearch suggts that opprsn— this se homophobia or heterosexism—n be ternalized so eply that even those of who are most aware, most cril, and most “liberated” (or “lonized” as some other margalized peopl may refer to ) may still be affected by .

So for our LGBTQ brothers and sisters, they n love themselv and be proud of their inti, but that ltle piece of ternalized homophobia might always exist. Dpe this, we’d like to thk that we uld at least beg to bat ternalized homophobia simply by changg the fn of “normal.

D., is an Associate Profsor of Psychology at the Cy Universy of New York, the Executive Director of CLAGS: The Center for LGBTQ Studi, and the thor of That’s So Gay! *Note: Instead of “homophobia, ” some folks may e the term “heterosexism” – and this se “ternalized heterosexism” – which has been argued to be a more appropriate term given that anti-LGBTQ prejudice is not jt an dividual-level, clil-soundg problem (as the term “phobia” impli), but is also a wispread form of opprsn that is rooted our culture, society, and stutns.