Readers continue the thread:
I thought you or your readers might be interested to know that there has been a sizable amount of academic research done on this topic. You might want to check out J. Michael Bailey’s work out of Northwestern University, specifically “‘Gaydar’: Accuracy and the Role of Masculinity–Femininity,” which ran in Archives of Sexual Behavior in February 2010. From my understanding of this particular study, “sex-atypical speech” is actually the most correlative predictor (among speech, appearance, interests, movements) of observer positive identification of male homosexuals. Although, of course, not all self-identified male homosexuals exhibited sex-atypical speech.
In contrast, while “speech” also positively correlated for lesbian identification, it was the lowest correlate. For lesbians it was the “appearance” of the target that correlated best with positive identification.
Another reader illustrates how “sounding gay” can vary across cultures:
I’m Filipino, whose first language was Tagalog.
To me, sounding gay in Tagalog means not lisping but nasality of vowels. Tagalog itself does not have perceptibly nasalized vowels in its phonology. Furthermore, to my ears, gay Tagalog intonation patterns are closer to women’s than men’s (or, at least, mine mirrors my mom’s intonation, not my dad’s).
Another points us to David Sedaris’ classic story about being pulled out of fifth grade for speech therapy. Another urges gay men not to take it too personally:
I’ve enjoyed the discussion so far, but I think one thing we forget is that pretty much everyone hates the sound of his or her speaking voice when they hear it in a recording, especially the first time they hear it. Video causes even more distress. I think this is basic human insecurity, and, although it makes sense that gay men feel this insecurity in the context of masculinity and societal attitudes towards it, we should not try to make it a gay issue. Being a little unsure of oneself is much preferable to being cocksure.
Another opens up:
I was interested to read how you felt that you acted more stereotypically gay before you came out, and how you adopted more stereotypically dude-like affectations and pursuits after you left the closet. It reminded me of the feeling I got almost immediately after I came out: I finally felt that I was a man.
In my youngest years, before puberty, I was often mistaken for a girl. It was embarrassing. And when I got older, but before high school, the bullies made me feel like a girl. I wasn’t badly bullied, though I had a few incidents. But the bullies taunting was usually to make other boys feel like girls, to make them feel that the bullies were the real boys and the bullied were the same as girls.
It was only after I came out that I finally felt like a man. I am not quite sure why, although I finally felt authentic and realized that there were other men who were authentically just like me, and they, just like me, could be authentically attracted to and authentically love other men. I was also then able to accept whatever effeminacies I have as part of the man I am.
I don’t know if I sound gay. I have heard recordings of my voice, and it does sound completely different than I hear it in my own head, which is so odd. I suppose it sounds more gay than I would like. I guess that’s a last vestige of my own internalized homophobia, which is so hard to kill when you’re a 50-ish gay man. But I am so grateful for the feeling of being authentically male that I never had before I came out. I remember trying to explain that to my mother when she was so upset at my being gay.
Catch up with the whole thread on sounding gay (or British) here.
The Dish 