How Do Gay Men Perceive Their Speech and Overall Communication Rosalee Christiansen, B'A', Ken Bleil

1
How Do Gay Men Perceive Their Speech and Overall
Communication?Rosalee Christiansen, B.A., Ken
Bleile, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, Angela Burda, Ph.D.,
CCC-SLP University of Northern Iowa, Department
of Communication Sciences and Disorders

• Methods
• Subjects
• Nine self-identified gay men
• Students at a four-year university in Iowa
• Members of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual,
  Transsexual/Transgendered Alliance Union on
  campus
• Mean age 20 years (standard deviation 1.94
  years)
• Data Collection
• 30-question survey
• Rating scale to describe speech and voice
  characteristics with anchors of 1 Never to 6
  Always
• Questions regarding experience of coming out
• Questions regarding perception of communication
  differences

• Discussion
• Findings of the study are considered preliminary
  owing to the small number of subjects
• Because all subjects were relatively the same
  age, similar level of educational experience, and
  live within only one geographic location, the
  results are not necessarily representative of a
  broader sample of gay men
• Earlier studies have recognized the limitations
  of similar findings, because not all gay men
  speak in a manner which can be construed as
  effeminate and some heterosexual men do
  (DeVito, 1981)
• A central finding of the current study is that
  the subjects reported that they generally did not
  experience voice symptoms indicative of
  pathologies
• The ever-present stereotypes regarding the speech
  and voices of gay men seem to indicate what
  earlier studies suggested the general public
  perceived gay men as speaking differently than
  heterosexual men because effeminate-sounding
  gay men were most visible within society (Harry
  DeVall, 1978)
• The subjects perceptions on voice and speech
  changes after coming out were of particular
  interest in the current study
• An earlier study by Harry and DeVall in 1978
  described the coming out process as being one of
  acceptance on behalf of the individual. Three
  years later in 1981, Jandt and Darsey identified
  three stages of the socialization and
  developmental process of coming out
  self-identification, coming out to family and
  friends, and being identified as gay in the media
• The average age of a gay mans coming out was
  said to be 19 years old (Harry DeVall, 1978)
• The average age of coming out for this studys
  participants was 17 years old
• Subjects perceived changes in voice and speech
  characteristics after coming out may indicate a
  conscious decision on behalf of the speakers
• Because subjects generally described the changes
  as sounding more effeminate and feeling less
  restricted in their communication efforts, a
  consequence of those speech characteristics may
  have further linked them to the gay community
• It could be hypothesized that prior to coming
  out, the subjects communicative restriction
  could have been employed as a way to maintain
  secrecy regarding their sexual orientation

• Acknowledgement
• Thank you to the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual,
  Transgendered/Transsexual Alliance Union
• Abstract
• Nine self-identified gay men volunteered to
  participate in this study. Participants
  completed a 30-question survey investigating gay
  mens perceptions of their speech and voice
  characteristics. Results indicated that gay men
  perceived some differences in their speech and
  voice characteristics. Three subjects perceived
  changes in their overall communication after
  coming out, reporting they could speak without
  restricting their natural speech and voice.
• Introduction
• Background
• Unfamiliar listeners were accurately able to
  judge a mans sexual orientation through acoustic
  measures (Gaudio, 1994 Pierrehumbert, Bent,
  Munson, Bradlow, Bailey, 2004)
• The idea of a lisp as an inadequate description
  of gay mens sound production
• Fricatives produced by gay-sounding men were
  not less clear or less accurate than those
  produced by heterosexual-sounding men (Munson
  Zimmerman, 2006)
• Duration of fricative /s/ prolonged in the speech
  of gay men, not an articulation disorder
  (Linville, 1998)
• Previous studies have negated the idea that
  fundamental frequency is different in gay men
• F0 in gay men was not statistically higher than
  heterosexual men (Lerman Damsté, 1969 Gaudio,
  1994)
• Suggested that more effeminate-sounding men use
  higher rates of upward and downward inflection,
  wider pitch ranges, and more
  complex tones (Avery Liss, 1996 Gaudio, 1994)

• Results
• Subjects generally perceived their voices as
  being in the range of somewhat female-sounding
  to gender neutral
• Nine subjects thought their ideal voices would be
  somewhat male-sounding
• Subjects did not perceive difficulty in voice
  production and did not experience behaviors
  indicative of vocal pathologies
• Two subjects frequently acknowledged their
  voice as reflective of their physical
  appearances, whereas another two subjects felt
  that their voices never reflected their physical
  appearances
• In general, subjects perceived their voices as
  almost never reflective of their true
  identities
• Three subjects reported changes in their voices
  after coming out
• The same subjects also reported supportive or
  neutral reactions by friends and family during
  their coming out experiences
• Subjects who perceived changes in their voices
  after coming out generally said they felt less
  restricted in their speech and their voices
  sounded more effeminate
• Only one subject reported making a conscious
  effort to modify his speech and voice
  characteristics after coming out, and in doing
  so, he felt that the conscious effort was to
  speak in a voice that was authentic to him,
  rather than concealing it
• Another subject felt that changes in his voice
  and speech characteristics were due to immersion
  into the gay community, as he modeled gay friends
  to gain an identity within that community
• Subjects discussed the code switching of gay men
• Some gay men change their voices depending on
  who they are around
• I can mimic the voice when playing up
  stereotypes, and it can sound genuine, but it
  isnt
• Thus, there are several discrepancies in
  individual perceptions of the speech of gay men

• Selected References
• Avery, J.D. and Liss, J.M. (1996). Acoustic
  characteristics of less-masculine-sounding male
  speech. Journal of the Acoustical Society of
  America, 99, 3738-3747.
• DeVito, J.A. (1981). Educational responsibilities
  to gay male and lesbian students. In J.W.
  Chesebro (Ed.), Gayspeak (pp. 200-207). New
  York The Pilgrim Press.
• Gaudio, R.P. (1994). Sounding gay Pitch
  properties in the speech of gay and straight men.
  American Speech, 69, 30- 57.
• Harry, J. and DeVall, W.B. (1978). The social
  organization of gay males. Praeger Publishers,
  New York NY.
• Jandt, F.E. and Darsey, J. (1981). Coming out as
  a communicative process. In J.W. Chesebro (Ed.),
  Gayspeak (pp. 12- 17). New York The Pilgrim
  Press.
• Lerman, J.W. and Damsté, P.H. (1969). Voice pitch
  of homosexuals. Folia Phoniatrica et.
  Logopaedia, 21, 340-346.
• Linville, S.E. (1998). Acoustic correlates of
  perceived versus actual sexual orientation in
  mens speech. Folia Phoniatrica et. Logopaedia,
  50, 35-48.
• Munson, B. and Zimmerman, L.J. (2006). Perceptual
  bias and the myth of the gay lisp. ASHA Handout,
  Miami Beach, FL.
• Pierrehumbert, J.B., Bent, T., Munson, B.,
  Bradlow, A.R., Bailey, J.M. (2004). The
  influence of sexual orientation on vowel
  production. Journal of the Acoustical Society of
  America, 116, 1905-1908.