What means to ‘sound gay’ - The Washgton Post

Contents:

• GAY LISP
• THE "GAY" LISP, IS REAL OR IS FORCED?
• THE PREVALENCE OF LISPG GAY MEN
• GAY PCH, LISP?
• GAYDAR—SENDG MIXED SIGNALS
• THE GAY LISP?
• VARIATN, IMPLIED PATHOLOGY, SOCIAL MEANG, AND THE 'GAY LISP': A RPONSE TO VAN BORSEL ET AL. (2009)
• GAY
• STUDY SE ROOTS OF 'GAY LISP' BOYHOOD
• WHAT MEANS TO ‘SOUND GAY’
• EMEM AND THE “GAY LISP”
• FROM "GAY LISP" TO "FIERCE QUEEN": THE SOCPHOICS OF SEXUALY'S MOST INIC VARIABLEFROM "GAY LISP" TO "FIERCE QUEEN": THE SOCPHOICS OF SEXUALY'S MOST INIC VARIABLEFROM "GAY LISP" TO "FIERCE QUEEN": THE SOCPHOICS OF SEXUALY'S MOST INIC VARIABLEFROM "GAY LISP" TO "FIERCE QUEEN": THE SOCPHOICS OF SEXUALY'S MOST INIC VARIABLEFROM "GAY LISP" TO "FIERCE QUEEN": THE SOCPHOICS OF SEXUALY'S MOST INIC VARIABLE
• WHY IS "GAY VOICE" SO PREVALENT AND YET "LBIAN VOICE" IS MORE OR LS NONEXISTENT?

GAY LISP

I am a gay man and this is drivg me crazy bee other aspects of the stereotypil "gay voice" are intifiable (even though they are still homophobic, I at least know what people are referrg to when they talk about them).

Several speech featur are stereotyped as markers of gay male inty: reful pronunciatn, wi pch range, high and rapidly changg pch, breathy tone, lengthened itive sounds, and pronunciatn of t as ts and d as dz.

Personally, I don't thk 's found a higher proportn gay men over any other group jt like pretty much any other characteristic but I ma the thread to fd out what the rt of you thk. don't thk 's found a higher proportn gay men over any other group jt like pretty much any other characteristic but I ma the thread to fd out what the rt of you thk.

THE "GAY" LISP, IS REAL OR IS FORCED?

You may be nfg wh over-enunciatg certa words and the nce which some gay men speak when they're foolg around, but general most people I know speak like a regular human beg. Only one of my gay iends universy had that lisp, and he had basilly e over om Lebanon havg watched a ton of Will & Grace and thkg that's how gay people are supposed to act. Maybe a few people naturally have , and I feel AWFUL for them, but 99% of s age is by the kd of gays who look for attentn anywhere they n get , and attract overweight femal wh guy issu like goddamn tubs of Ben & Jerry's.

The third one is a kid too so I assume he's jt mimickg what he believ gay people do an attempt to eher seem more gay or lash out at his parents who are hardre Christians who aren't very supportive of him. It's real to a gree, but 's certaly don't apply to a lot of gay boys and where do manift 's often a subtle upwards tonatn and not the exaggerated stuff you see on TV.

Every article would redirect me to an d terview where he spoke, and judgg by that and the ments, the suggtn beg the evince that he was gay was actually his own voice. Two clicians who were unaware of the specific purpose of the study and the populatns volved judged randomized d-rerdgs of 175 gay mal, 100 heterosexual mal and 100 heterosexual femal for the prence of lispg durg readg of a standardized text.

THE PREVALENCE OF LISPG GAY MEN

Learng out: The rears of this article will able (1) to discs articulatory behavur as a possible marker that may distguish gay om heterosexual men (2) to discs the prevalence of lispg gay by (0)1aspirant van het Fonds voor Wetenschappelijk Onrzoek full textCopyright © 2008 Elsevier Inc.

GAY PCH, LISP?

Meanwhile, the vowels 'bud, ' 'bo' and 'boot' all shift Trawick-Smh found that the paper nfirmed somethg he had already noticed himself about the Californian-ns of the gay accent.

However, as a gay man, I thk of gaydar not so much as a tool for intifyg one’s orientatn, but as a meang and discrimatory weapon ed to ntrast sexual and social differenc.

The key to unrstandg gaydar is the telemunitn ncept of “radar, ” which is fed as “a radtermatn system based on the parison of reference signals wh rad signals reflected or retransmted, om the posn to be termed” (ITU Rad Regulatns, 2013). Hence, the technil fn of gaydar is a “system based on the parison of reference signals wh language reflected or retransmted, om the posn to be termed, ” where the posn to be termed ultimately translat to inty. This associatn between language and behavr puts speakers g this variable a double bd: they are perceived eher to have a speech fect or to be gay—wh both perceptns rryg negative nnotatns.

GAYDAR—SENDG MIXED SIGNALS

Heteronormativy is the iology that driv many heterosexual men to be particularly aware of gay dory cu as they strive to protect their exprsns of masculy through their lguistic performanc.

This iology is what prompted me to hi my “gay accent” as a child—I was tryg to f this ialized heteronormative mold, I was tryg to appear heterosexual, I was tryg to sound normal.

Even though some semtic tras are ed markers of belongg, gaydar is merely an abstractn created by the society that is not based on trsic factors and therefore do not guarantee accuracy.

THE GAY LISP?

Explicly nceived as a haven for gay men, was known for s youthful clientele, celebry patrons, and notorly hedonistic vibe; beme even more of a draw wh the openg of “The Backlot, ” an adjacent performance venue that featured some of the biggt “A-list” acts of the era. Ally: A person who supports and rpects sexual diversy, acts acrdgly to challenge homophobic and heterosexist remarks and behavrs, and is willg to explore and unrstand the forms of bias wh themselv. An umbrella term that refers to members of a subculture the gay and bisexual male muni and is often fed as more of an attu or sense of fort wh natural masculy and bodi.

The term n also exclively refer to men who are emotnally, romantilly, sexually, affectnately, or relatnally attracted to other men, or who intify as members of the gay muny. Bee most LGBTQ people are raised the same society as heterosexuals, they learn the same beliefs and stereotyp prevalent the domant society, leadg to a phenomenon known as ternalized homophobia, whereas LGBTQ-intified dividuals feel shame, guilt or hatred towards the part of themselv intified as LGBTQ.

VARIATN, IMPLIED PATHOLOGY, SOCIAL MEANG, AND THE 'GAY LISP': A RPONSE TO VAN BORSEL ET AL. (2009)

Internalized Homophobia: The fear and self-hate of one’s own homosexualy or bisexualy dividuals who have learned negative ias about homosexualy throughout childhood. Leather culture is most visible gay muni and most often associated wh gay men (“leathermen”), but is also reflected var ways the gay, lbian, bisexual, and heterosexual worlds. Queer: Term scribg people who have a non-normative genr inty, sexual orientatn or sexual anatomy—clus lbians, gay men, bisexual people, and transgenr people and alli.

GAY

Same-Genr Lovg (SGL): A term ed by some Ain-Amerin dividuals to scribe their sexual orientatn, as a rult of the perceptn that “gay” and “lbian” are primarily whe terms. I argue aspects of that study's sign, measurement, and terpretatn lim the strength of s thors' nclns that there is a higher cince of lispg gay men than heterosexual men.

The duo also reced several members of the former AAGPBL to serve as advisers — cludg the legendary Maybelle Blair, who at age 95 me out as gay durg the prs tour for the show. The Stonewall Natnal Monument, where the vandalism took place, is across the street om the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar that was the se of a June 1969 uprisg that’s wily nsired to be a turng pot the morn gay rights movement.

Those stori and documentari, shown on three screens the exhib, clu remembranc of late LGBTQ pneers such as Bonny Benjam, a gay woman who ptaed a fishg vsel the 1970s and employed gay women for much of her crew. When to the gay voice, Medil Daily not that “as a society we associate” a lisp wh beg gay, though the lisp is actually “no way lked to a child’s future sexual preference.

STUDY SE ROOTS OF 'GAY LISP' BOYHOOD

“Now prelimary data om a Universy of Mnota study may shed some light on where our belief the so-lled "gay lisp” om: The study found that boys ag 5 to 11 diagnosed wh genr dysphoria—they don’t intify as boys—are more likely to e “th” sounds when pronouncg the letter “s” than their peers. While all boys wh genr dysphoria certaly don’t bee gay men, they are “statistilly more likely” to do so, says rearcher Benjam Munson, who prented his fdgs at the biannual Meetg of the Atil Society of Ameri.

Based on the fdgs, one of Munson’s theori on the “gay lisp” stereotype is that when we were children we regnized the lisp as the speech of “ls mascule” boys, and so we assume adult gay men will speak the same way.

)By Elizabeth Armstrong Moore(Photo: Corbis Imag)More From Newser:Judge Orrs Gay Foster Parents to Give Up BabyWhy Girls This Town Bee Boys at PubertyYour Earwax Says a Lot About You‘Gaydar’ Isn’t Real, but It Is DangeroStudy: Parents Who Do This Have Better Sex LivThis article origally appeared on Newser: Study Se Roots of ‘Gay Lisp’ Boyhood. 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.

WHAT MEANS TO ‘SOUND GAY’

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.

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.

EMEM AND THE “GAY LISP”

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.

FROM "GAY LISP" TO "FIERCE QUEEN": THE SOCPHOICS OF SEXUALY'S MOST INIC VARIABLEFROM "GAY LISP" TO "FIERCE QUEEN": THE SOCPHOICS OF SEXUALY'S MOST INIC VARIABLEFROM "GAY LISP" TO "FIERCE QUEEN": THE SOCPHOICS OF SEXUALY'S MOST INIC VARIABLEFROM "GAY LISP" TO "FIERCE QUEEN": THE SOCPHOICS OF SEXUALY'S MOST INIC VARIABLEFROM "GAY LISP" TO "FIERCE QUEEN": THE SOCPHOICS OF SEXUALY'S MOST INIC VARIABLE

“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.

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. ” 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.

WHY IS "GAY VOICE" SO PREVALENT AND YET "LBIAN VOICE" IS MORE OR LS NONEXISTENT?

"We are pneers our time changg societal perceptn of what means to be gay, ” Gee Takei, who played Sulu "Star Trek, " says the homophobia still affects Hollywood. 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. The gay character Kurt Hummel on TV’s Glee has hi-f sibilants, but to my ear they’re ls nsistently so the terview speech of Chris Colfer, the (gay) actor who plays him.