Is ‘Gaydar’ Really a Thg? | Psychology Today

Contents:

• GAYDAR RAD
• THE TTH ABOUT ‘GAYDAR’
• KEN HAS ALWAYS BEEN BARBIE’S GAY BT FRIEND—NOT HER BOYIEND
• MEANG OF GAYDAR ENGLISH
• IS ‘GAYDAR’ REALLY A THG?
• GAYDAR
• THE FAMO AI GAYDAR STUDY WAS REPEATED – AND, NO, N'T TELL IF YOU'RE STRAIGHT OR NOT JT OM YOUR FACE
• GAYDAR: DO YOU HAVE IT?

GAYDAR RAD

GaydarRad was based Twickenham South Wt London, a buildg lled Queen's Hoe, a name that provid a equent source of amement for the prenters. In October 2007 the statn relnched s webse as part of GaydarNatn and the followg month lnched GaydarRad Jebox offerg mic downloads of s most popular tracks and exclive mix.

In the tumn of 2011, GaydarRad pletely re-brand s onle offerg, removg the GaydarNatn brand and mergg the liftyle portal wh the ma rad webse. Regular ntributors shared the latt news and events om their rner of Gay UK, wh Andre Harmsworth, om natnal newspaper 'Metro' givg a showbiz round up every Thursday and John Kennedy O'Connor reportg om the USA on live events such as The Goln Globe Awards, The Osrs and The Grammy Awards. Weekend shows started wh Rob Crowley, then Neil and Debbie, wh Simon Le Vans, Tony English, Phil Marrtt, Andrei Harmsworth and Matt Crabb also prentg their own shows along wh through-the-night broadsts om live London gay clubs.

Ovenn was at the time workg at the Mistry of Sound Rad and set up a meetg Sprg 2000 between the owners of Gaydar and his boss Jam Bethel. Instead GaydarRad was started 2001 as an ter-only statn, beg an d offshoot of the datg webse and pletely pennt of outsi assistance.

THE TTH ABOUT ‘GAYDAR’

Acrdg to the first statn director Jamie Crick, the entire statn was origally played off a sgle PC on a table propped up wh a gay clubbg directory.

[7] Meanwhile another gay rad statn lled Purple Rad, which lnched a few months before than Gaydar Rad[8] wh the backg of Kelv Mackenzie (former eidtor of The Sun) and Lord Waheed Alli, was broadstg as part of a bouquet of servic provid by the Digal Rad Group (then part of the GWR Group). Purple was n om the Hanover Grand nightclub and tried a number of pneerg nightly broadsts om gay bars and clubs but this proved far too stly and the statn took the cisn to merge wh Gaydar Rad. [9] Gaydar Rad took the cisn not to ntue wh Purple Rad as a separate output and put a succsful submissn to the Rad Authory to take over Purple's equency, and gaed a DAB outlet on the London 3 Digal multiplex 2004.

In 2003 while Bethel was workg at Capal Rad group, Gaydar Rad was part of a succsful applitn to be on the Ssex Coast DAB multiplex - part of this al was an unrealised provisnal agreement for the Capal group to fd space to add the GaydarRad service to s bouquet available on the Greater Manchter multiplex. On 3 January 2013 QSoft announced that the DAB licenc for London and the Ssex Coast would be transferred to Gayd om 7 AM on 7 January 2013.

KEN HAS ALWAYS BEEN BARBIE’S GAY BT FRIEND—NOT HER BOYIEND

On 4 January 2013, durg Gaydar Rad's live broadstg hours between 7 AM and 10 PM, the prenters and fans celebrated an emotnal goodbye. In the fal breakfast show, Gayd's John Ryan assured listeners that they n expect a siar playlist om Gayd and that due to the licence requirements for the statn's FM equency Manchter, there will be lol opt outs. Stereotyp often fluence the imprsns, whether ’s that a black man is dangero, a woman won’t be a good lear or a fashnable man is gay.

MEANG OF GAYDAR ENGLISH

“Gaydar” (a portmante of “gay” and “radar”) is a term that first appeared the 1980s and refers to a “sixth sense” for intifyg who is gay. While many people believe stereotypg is wrong, llg “gaydar” merely provis a ver for g stereotypil tras – like someone’s fashn sense, profsn or hairstyle – to jump to nclns about someone beg gay.

IS ‘GAYDAR’ REALLY A THG?

In some recent work, my lleagu and I have been able to monstrate how the perpetuatn of the gaydar myth has untend negative nsequenc.

GAYDAR

My lleagu and I spected that even people who would normally try to rea om stereotypg might be more likely to e gay stereotyp if they are led to believe they have gaydar.

THE FAMO AI GAYDAR STUDY WAS REPEATED – AND, NO, N'T TELL IF YOU'RE STRAIGHT OR NOT JT OM YOUR FACE

We told some participants that scientific evince says gaydar was a real abily, led others to believe that gaydar is jt another term for stereotypg and said nothg about gaydar to a third group (the ntrol). Those who were told gaydar is real stereotyped much more than the ntrol group, and participants stereotyped much ls when they had been told that gaydar is jt another term for stereotypg. The patterns provid strong support for the ia that belief gaydar enurag stereotypg by simply disguisg unr a different label.

Usg gaydar as a way to talk nocuoly or jokgly about stereotypg – “Oh, that guy sets off my gaydar” – trivializ stereotypg and mak seem like no big al. Participants learned only one thg about this other person, eher that he was gay or simply liked shoppg (people tend to assume men who like shoppg are gay).

GAYDAR: DO YOU HAVE IT?

In one ndn, therefore, the participants knew that the man was gay and the other they might have privately ferred that he was gay though wasn’t nfirmed, but that wasn’t known to anyone else (who might have acced them of beg prejudiced). As we predicted, the vertly prejudiced people tend to rea om shockg the man who was nfirmed as gay, but livered extremely high levels of shocks to the man who liked shoppg. Some rearchers say that stereotyp about gay people posss a gra of tth, which uld lend crence to the ia of havg accurate gaydar.

In the studi, rearchers prented pictur, sound clips and vios of real gay and straight people to the participants, who then tegorized them as gay or straight. Half of the people the pictur, clips and vios were gay and half were straight, which meant that the participants would monstrate an accurate gaydar if their accuracy rate were signifintly higher than 50 percent.

Ined, participants tend to have about 60 percent accuracy, and the rearchers nclud that people really do posss an accurate gaydar.