Why do gay people talk like women

Why do some gay men “sound” gay? After three years of research, linguistics professors Henry Rogers and Ron Smyth may be on the verge of answering that question. After identifying phonetic characteristics that seem to make a man’s voice sound gay, their best hunch is that some gay men may subconsciously adopt certain female speech patterns. Linguists have attempted to isolate exactly what makes gay men's English distinct from that of other demographics since the early 20th century, typically by contrasting it with straight male speech or comparing it to female speech.

[4] In older work, speech pathologists often focused on high pitch among men, in its resemblance to women, as a defect.

[5] Since the gay community consists of many. In the s, gay men and women would use slang known as Polari, which was descended from carnival speak, so they could talk to other gay people without the police knowing what they were saying (since homosexuality was illegal at the time). Potential differences between homosexual and heterosexual men have been studied on a diverse set of social and biological traits.

Regarding acoustic features of speech, researchers have hypothesized a feminization of such characteristics in. Ultimately, gender inversion theory is inseparable from the harmful and discriminatory interpretations of the gay voice, but there are nevertheless many potential differences in the way queer people speak — enough so that listeners have an above-average chance of correctly guessing sexual orientation based on stereotypes.

Linguists have long observed that people code-switch — slip into a different accent or way of speaking when they're talking to different groups of people, sometimes without even realizing it. Watch the latest news videos from Australia and across the world. In another small study at the University of Hawaii, both gay and straight listeners were equally as likely to misclassify people as gay or straight.

In Berlin and Tuscany: almost never. Interviews and feature reports from SBS News. I think that both genetics and learned behaviour contribute toward the development of gay-sounding speech patterns. We gain most information about the speaker's message by observing the use of intonation, prosody, body language, etc. The Art of the Ask Think requesting what you want will ruin the deal?

But in so doing, it invites everyone to think about what their own voice says about who they are, where they came from, and where they want to go. I was terrified of my mother finding out, so I talked in a "normal" voice around my family. As the film begins, Thorpe is disturbed because he realizes he doesn't like his voice any more.

It's how we project our personalities and our message.

What it means to 'sound gay' | SBS News

They grow up "policing" themselves for evidence that might betray them, like their voice, Savage says. And if so, why? Generally XY babies develop masculine behaviors, and YY babies develop feminine behaviors, but sometimes the nerve pathways associated with the other sex's behaviors get developed. Our History Places. NBC News Logo. However, the difference wasn't the stereotypical "gay voice," but a tendency to use a more contemporary, pan-American accent, rather than the old-fashioned Minnesota accent as in the movie "Fargo".

As Thorpe points out in the film, there have long been public entertainers or artists with stereotypically "gay voices" — Liberace or Truman Capote, for example -- but few people openly talked about their homosexuality. It wasn't until my mid-teens that I can recall my speech patterns changing depending on the circumstances. I had male and female peers as friends so it's not as if I acquired a feminized speech pattern from an exclusive exposure to one gender in my social groups.

Watch on SBS. A popular gay actor has the ability to sound "straight. Physiological aspects like pitch are bound to have a genetic basis, and it would be surprising if testosterone levels didn't influence both voice and sexual orientation. We use this information to improve website performance and enhance your experience.

They might be raised by women, or just gravitate toward female role models or friends, Smyth says. The other, which happens to be deeper by a shade, occurs when I am feeling more healthy and confident, and secure in my self-in-the-world. The learned aspect includes both conscious and subconscious processes.

I believe that gay men use a female persona to be campy. Were the "gay-voiced" men raised without fathers, or in households with only women?