Who wants to sound straight? Sexual majority and minority stereotypes, beliefs and desires about auditory gaydar

Abstract

Research on the accuracy of 'gaydar' judgments has burgeoned but rarely considered targets' perspectives on cues that signal a person's sexual orientation to others. We examined sexual majority and minority speakers (N = 241) beliefs about the extent to which their voices act as a 'gaydar' clue to others, and speakers' desire to be so disclosed. Men believed their voices were more revealing of their sexual orientation than women did. Moreover, sexual majority participants, particularly masculine-sounding heterosexual men, desired to be disclosed the most of all. Sexual majority participants perceived their voices as gender typical and sexual minority participants perceived their voices as gender atypical, and participants whose beliefs were most consistent with this pattern also believed most that their voices acted as gaydar cues. The findings suggested that group differences in beliefs about gaydar may complicate individuals' attempts to judge each other's sexual orientations from minimal cues.

Gender identity is indexed and perceived in speech

“…Both differences in the correlation between GEPAQ and TMF and in the correlations between self-rated gender identity and acoustic cues can be taken as an indication of the importance for males to index their sexuality, gender typicality, masculinity/femininity [48, 50–52, 77].…”

“…The question arises why gender identity may be indexed in speech at all? The motivation behind expressing gender identity in speech has been studied mostly with respect to transgender individuals or sexual orientation [47,48,49]. [47], for example, found that an important factor for gay men to index their sexual orientation in their speech (and as a result be perceived as gay) is their—positive or negative—attitude towards “sounding gay”.…”

“…[47], for example, found that an important factor for gay men to index their sexual orientation in their speech (and as a result be perceived as gay) is their—positive or negative—attitude towards “sounding gay”. [48] is especially relevant in the context of the present study since they also included heterosexual speakers. In general, men believed their voices were more revealing than women did.…”

AuditoryGaydar: Perception of Sexual Orientation Based on Female Voice

“…This difference may reflect the fact that individuals have a clear idea of how gay men, but not of how lesbians sound like. Research has indeed shown that men, but not women, believe their SO to be easily detected although this varies depending on whether their voices are perceived as sounding gender typical or atypical (Fasoli et al, 2018). Mass media has possibly created or reinforced such "gay voice" stereotypes.…”

“…However, research on visual gaydar indicates that individuals are more accurate in judging women’s than men’s SO (Brewer & Lyons, 2017; Lyons, Lynch, Brewer, & Bruno, 2014; Tabak & Zayas, 2012). At the same time, it is commonly believed that people are better at recognizing gay men than lesbian women using voice cues (Fasoli, Hegarty, Maass, & Antonio, 2018) and, when judging SO, they are more prone to label a man as gay than to label a woman as lesbian (Lyons et al, 2014).…”