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

Contents:

• HOMOSEXUAL MEN WHO ‘SOUND GAY’ AL WH MORE DISCRIMATN, STUDY SAYS
• WHY DO GAY MEN SOUND LIKE ~THAT~?
• FILMMAKER AND SPEECH PATHOLOGIST WEIGH IN ON WHAT IT MEANS TO 'SOUND GAY'
• IS THERE A “GAY VOICE”?
• ‘WHO SOUNDS GAY?’
• "DO I SOUND GAY?"
• GAY MEN WHO 'SOUND GAY' ENUNTER MORE STIGMA AND DISCRIMATN OM HETEROSEXUAL PEERS

HOMOSEXUAL MEN WHO ‘SOUND GAY’ AL WH MORE DISCRIMATN, STUDY SAYS

Internatnal samplg was achieved by distributn of a survey vatn to lol, natnal and ternatnal Lbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgenr muny centr, anizatns terg to MSM, and advertisements on Facebook® (, Palo Alto, CA, USA) aimed at self-intified MSM.

CMV: Many straight men would sound like the stereotypil "gay voice" if they didn't force their voice the be eper.

Now pretty much everyone says I have a "gay voice" which I agree, I do thk I sound "gay" bee stereotypilly the pch of my voice sounds like the other gay people (<average). However I do feel like some straight men purposely make their voice eper jt to NOT sound "gay" even though naturally their pch wouldn't be as low. Obvly some straight people and gay people have ep voic, voic e high and lows, but how many of the ep voiced men actually would sound like that whout purposely "puttg some bass their voice"?

WHY DO GAY MEN SOUND LIKE ~THAT~?

Rearchers om the Universy of Surrey say gay men are more likely to enunter discrimatn and prejudice than lbian women; particularly over the way they “sound.

Homosexual men who believe their voice “sounds gay” anticipate facg bigotry on a regular basis, the report fds. Specifilly, study thors vtigated if sentialist beliefs toward gay and lbian dividuals actually lead to tangible discrimatn.

To start, rearchers asked 363 heterosexual volunteers a seri of qutns about their beliefs and thoughts on homosexualy.

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

For example, study thors probed to whether people believe “when listeng to a person is possible to tect his/her sexual orientatn om his/her voice very quickly” or “gay/lbian people sound gay/lbian and there is not much they n do to really change that. The team also analyzed the participants to see if they hold any blatant discrimatory views of homosexuals.

This clud ggg their rpons to statements like “I thk male/female homosexuals are disgtg” and “I would not teract wh a man/woman who sounds gay/lbian if I uld avoid .

IS THERE A “GAY VOICE”?

Addnally, the participants’ views on “gay-soundg” voic has a ep nnectn to “avoidant discrimatn towards gay-soundg men. Rearchers asked this group about their beliefs regardg the sound of their voic and worri over beg perceived as gay.

This led to the ncln that far more gay men than lbian women believe that people n tect their sexual orientatn based on their voice.

“What we have found is that people have stronger beliefs about the voic of gay men than lbian women. In particular, beliefs that gay men and straight men have different voic that allow people to tect their sexual orientatn was lked to stigmatizatn, possibly explag why some heterosexual dividuals stigmatize gay-soundg men regardls of their sexualy.

‘WHO SOUNDS GAY?’

Unrstandg more about sentialist beliefs helps expla both the perpetratn of stigma by heterosexuals and the experience of stigma by lbians and gay men, ” says Dr. So growg up a lot of people ed to say I sound gay/female, 's somethg I've never really noticed but jt wonred what you guys thk?

"DO I SOUND GAY?"

People ocsnally mentn to me now but I always wonred what is about my voice that would make me 'sound gay'. Ed: thanks everyone for the msag, I thk 's jt somethg that I've always been secure about, not that there is anythg wrong wh 'soundg gay' though! An exploratn of the gay accent and how beme popularized ( @jvn / Instagram)As most people are acctomed to believe, gay men have a very “gay” sound when they speak.

*DisclaimerFor one, this phenomenon is referred to as “gay speak” to avoid unnecsary stereotypg.

Acrdg to Radice, lguists often viate away om the popular assumptn that gay men sound more effemate bee not everyone falls to the “box. One of the most valuable lsons I learned this terview is that gay speak don’t have an exact formula.

GAY MEN WHO 'SOUND GAY' ENUNTER MORE STIGMA AND DISCRIMATN OM HETEROSEXUAL PEERS

Radice emphasized that when analyzg gay speak, ’s more important to foc on an dividual se rather than a populatn as a whole.

For example, a gay man whose first language is Spanish and who grew up New York is gog to speak drastilly different than a gay man whose first language is English and who grew up Texas. He explaed that the filmmakers disvered that uptalk (when you end a sentence on a higher pch), a vol y (when you kda end your sentenc wh a very low pch croak-like sooooounnnndd), and even a lisp are the most stereotypilly proment featur of gay speak. As mentned before, while this rmatn is eful, n also be harmful and rerce unwanted stereotypAnother aspect of gay speak are the actual words or phras ed by members of the LGBTQ+ muny.

While the words n be stereotypilly seen as “gay speak” they often tend to origate om another dialect: Ain Amerin Vernacular English (AAVE) do exist? Nurture nversatn, most lguists agree that gay speak, and all speak, is more of a nurture matter. One of the explanatns for why some men speak wh gay speak is bee, Radice said, some gay boys gravate toward women and girls more.