Is There a “Gay Voice”? | The New Yorker

Contents:

• THE GAY VOICE
• IS THERE A “GAY VOICE”?
• SPEECH ATIC FEATUR: A COMPARISON OF GAY MEN, HETEROSEXUAL MEN, AND HETEROSEXUAL WOMEN
• DO I SOUND GAY? EXPLOR THE MYTH OF HOMOSEXUAL SPEECH PATTERNS
• REARCHG GAY SPEECH PATTERNS AT THE UNIVERSY OF ILLOIS
• GAY MALE SPEECH PATTERNS
• AEE 436: WHAT YOU CAN LEARN ABOUT SPEECH PATTERNS OM A GAY MAN OM NEW YORK

THE GAY VOICE

After intifyg phoic characteristics that seem to make a man’s voice sound gay, their bt hunch is that some gay men may subnscly adopt certa female speech patterns. They want to know how men acquire this manner of speakg, and why – pecially when society so often stigmatiz those wh gay-soundg voic.

IS THERE A “GAY VOICE”?

Not long after Thorpe broke up wh his boyiend, he began thkg about the way he speaks, and the way other gay men speak, and why both sudnly bothered him so much. He terviews gay public figur, cludg David Sedaris, Tim Gunn, Don Lemon, and Gee Takei, who have had to listen to themselv for a livg. Gay adolcents, Thorpe pots out, often learn that the “tell” of their sexualy is their voic, even more so than physily—a limp wrist is easier to straighten out than an flectn.

Thorpe talks to a straight iend who sounds “gay” (he grew up on an ashram, surround by women), and a gay iend who sounds “straight” (he has jock brothers). “For many gay men, that’s the last vtige, that’s the last chunk of ternalized homophobia, is this hatred of how they sound, ” Dan Savage tells Thorpe.

One of the ways gay people tend to pensate, the film suggts, is to adopt the supercil speech patterns of the leisure class, i. As gays and lbians ga cultural pal, helped along by equaly victori like the one jt hand down by the Supreme Court, “gay voice” will surely evolve, too. AbstractPotential differenc between homosexual and heterosexual men have been studied on a diverse set of social and blogil tras.

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

Regardg atic featur of speech, rearchers have hypothized a femizatn of such characteristics homosexual men, but prev vtigatns have so far produced mixed rults.

To fill the gaps, we explored potential differenc atic featur of speech between homosexual and heterosexual native French men and vtigated whether the former showed a trend toward femizatn by parg theirs to that of heterosexual native French women. Rults showed that homosexual men displayed signifintly higher pch modulatn patterns and ls breathy voic pared to heterosexual men, wh valu shifted toward those of heterosexual women.

DO I SOUND GAY? EXPLOR THE MYTH OF HOMOSEXUAL SPEECH PATTERNS

Keywords: Speech, Voice, Atics, Sexual orientatn, Ttosterone levels, Genr atypilyIntroductnThe genr atypily hypothis suggts that genr atypil tras homosexuals uld be ed as cu to dite sexual orientatn. In addn to the fact that homosexuals exhib tras that differ om those of heterosexuals, has been shown that some of them, such as specific nral procs (LeVay, 1991; Savic, Berglund, & Ldstrom, 2005) or specific childhood behavrs (Alanko et al., 2010; Bailey & Zucker, 1995), displayed valu shifted toward those of the oppose sex, i. ) For example, popular stereotyp regardg the speech of homosexual men generally attribute speech patterns characteristic of the oppose sex, i.

Although there is no clear evince that the mean fundamental equency differs between homosexual and heterosexual men (Gd, 1994; Lerman & Damsté, 1969; Munson et al., 2006b; Rendall et al., 2008; Rogers, Jabs, & Smyth, 2001; Smyth, Jabs, & Rogers, 2003; but see Baeck, Corthals, & Borsel, 2011), rults toward differenc pch modulatn patterns are more ntroversial: Some studi have found that homosexual men displayed greater variatns tonatn, wh valu shifted toward those of women (Baeck et al., 2011; Gd, 1994), while others did not fd any difference (Levon, 2006; Rogers et al., 2001). For stance, homosexual men produce higher peak equency and longer duratn valu for /s/ (Lville, 1998) and the speech characteristics are associated wh “gayer-soundg” voic by listeners (Mack & Munson, 2012). Lastly, homosexual men seem to produce a more expand vowel space than heterosexual men for some specific vowels (Rendall et al., 2008), hyper-articulatn beg monly found female speech (Pierrehumbert et al., 2004) the atic speech featur, other characteristics uld vary wh sexual orientatn, such as vol breaths and roughns that are, rpectively, ptured by the harmonics-to-noise rat (HNR) and the jter.

Such rults suggt that vol breaths and roughns may play a role the qualifitn of mascule vers feme soundg voic, th qutng homosexuals’ vol breaths and roughns wh this ntuum. In le wh the speech femizatn hypothis, homosexual men uld ed potentially exhib higher valu of HNR and lower valu of jter, but, so far, no studi have tackled this issue. Rearch have tried to asss if the femized tras homosexual men n be attributable to proximate mechanisms such as the differenc sex hormone levels.

REARCHG GAY SPEECH PATTERNS AT THE UNIVERSY OF ILLOIS

Although evince of a difference ttosterone levels between homosexual and heterosexual men is nsistent (Meyer-Bahlburg, 1977, 1984), ttosterone may still mediate the relatnship between sexual orientatn and the aforementned vol speech featur, which has received ltle attentn so far.

GAY MALE SPEECH PATTERNS

Consequently, muni of homosexual men uld potentially differ their specific vol speech featur across different this ntext, the goal of the prent study was to provi further tails on the potential differenc between homosexual and heterosexual men’s speech an unrreprented populatn the lerature (i. We vtigated the effect of sexual orientatn on four sexually dimorphic atic parameters (F0, F0-SD, jter, and HNR) and examed whether homosexual men’s vol characteristics showed a femizatn by parg theirs wh that of heterosexual women.

In orr to rec as much as possible homosexual mal, we ntacted the lol LGBTQ muny to help advertise the study as well as directly advertisg known lol gay bars. E., they had to state whether they nsired themselv as beg homosexual, heterosexual, bisexual, or other), their natnaly, age, relatnship stat (sgle vs.

AEE 436: WHAT YOU CAN LEARN ABOUT SPEECH PATTERNS OM A GAY MAN OM NEW YORK

We also only foced on participants who clared themselv as homosexual and heterosexual (we exclud those who clared to be bisexual or other). Pch floors were set to 75 Hz wh a ceilg of 300 Hz for both heterosexual and homosexual men and 85–400 Hz for heterosexual women.

To vtigate the effects of sexual orientatn and tt the hypothis of femizatn on the vol featur, we ed an explanatory variable lled “SexOr” that nsirs both sex and sexual orientatn wh three modali: heterosexual men, homosexual men, and heterosexual women. Then, to asss if homosexual men displayed vol featur wh valu shifted toward those of heterosexual women, post hoc analys (Tey HSD tts) were performed to pare which tegory (i.