Do you sound gay? What our voic tell – and what they don’t | David Shariatmadari | The Guardian

WHAT DO IT MEAN TO SOUND GAY?

* sounding gay term *

As might be expected, dockg is thought to be practiced more equently among men who are homosexual or bisexual; however, there seem to be a nsirable number of straight men who have docked wh another man. Pri, formerly known as Gay Pri, is a regnn of LGBTQ inty, affirmatn of equal rights, and celebratn of visibily, digny, and diversy the LGBTQ muny.

While the word homosexual is still ocsnally ed some ntexts, you might have noticed that don’t make an appearance any versn of the LGBTQ acronym.

As our age note on the term stat, “up until 1973, homosexualy was listed The Diagnostic and Statistil Manual of Mental Disorrs (DSM), psychiatry’s standard reference on the classifitn of mental illns.

GAY SLANG 101

Gay men, ternalized homophobia, and (re)fg the "gay voice" * sounding gay term *

And many feel that this word plac undue emphasis on sexual activy, or that sounds overly clil.” In fact, the term homosexual was liberately rejected by early gay rights activists bee, acrdg to The New York Tim, “they did not want to be intified as exclively sexual begs.”.

Gay, on the other hand, n be ed to scribe a person of any genr who experienc same-sex attractn, although is most often ed to scribe a man who is attracted to men. On June 28, 1969, the New York Cy police raid the Stonewall Inn, a bar equented by gay and genr-nonnformg people (at a time when terms like LGBTQ didn’t yet exist).

"DO I SOUND GAY?"

In Do I Sound Gay?, director David Thorpe search for the orig of the so-lled "gay voice" and documents his own attempts (wh speech pathologist San Sank) to sound "ls gay." * sounding gay term *

Partially rponse to Stonewall, 1970, queer activists New York Cy anized a march to Central Park wh the theme “Gay Pri.” A more prehensive history of the Stonewall Rt or the Stonewall Uprisg n be found our Pri Month explaer.

Queer lerally means “strange or odd om a nventnal viewpot,” and by at least by the late 1800s, queer was ployed as a rogatory term for an effemate or gay man.

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

What the way we talk says about gay pri and lgerg prejudice * sounding gay term *

Do I Sound Gay?, a documentary by filmmaker David Thorpe openg this week at IFC, prob the history, science, and cultural signifince of the gay male voice.

WHAT MEANS TO ‘SOUND GAY’

Rearchers say homosexual men who believe their voice "sounds gay" nscly make an effort to be "more vigilant" social suatns. * sounding gay term *

The film is stctured around his personal qut to get rid of his “gay voice”—recently sgle and middle-aged, David Thorpe began to fd his voice a source of anxiety, worryg turned off potential lovers—which grounds what uld otherwise have been a disparate web of amic theori and talkg heads. That spurred him to look more systematilly at the gay voice self; eventually he realized he’d found somethg signifint to say about the subject, a talogue of people reflectg about the history, prevalence, signifince, and science of the voice ’s clear om his enthiasm and breadth of knowledge that Thorpe, a wrer wh an quisive personaly and a voice I found entirely pleasant, has enough material for a whole seri on the subject. ” In the film, Thorpe nsults a speech therapist, a voice ach, several lguists and anthropologists, a film historian, gay actors, and famo queer celebri cludg David Sedaris, Dan Savage, Tim Gunn, Don Lemon, Gee Takei, and Margaret Cho.

In one sequence, he recreat a tra r full of boistero gay men bound for Fire Island: They wear lorful beach stum and talk non-stop about fashn, their mothers, chai tea, and what happened at the club last night.

“Well all the meaty gay rol go to straight actors, and I’m not buff so I n’t play the token hot gay guy, so really all that’s left is for me to play the bter queen, ” he says.

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

Rudolf P. Gd, Soundg Gay: Pch Properti the Speech of Gay and Straight Men, Amerin Speech, Vol. 69, No. 1 (Sprg, 1994), pp. 30-57 * sounding gay term *

Admtg that a roomful of gay voic n be annoyg giv space to pick apart anxieti—which parts are jt annoyance at other people’s nversatns, and which are tied to toxic the film velops, be apparent that much of what we intify as a gay voice is a characteristilly feme voice spoken by a man. The stereotypil affectatns we associate wh gay men (what lguists ll micro-variatns) are: clearer and longer vowels, long S’, clearer L’s and over-articulated P’s, T’s, and K’s. Bee masculy is so unacmodatg to difference, many of the gay men the film (cludg Thorpe) grew up closer to women than men.