Gay male speech

Uncommon card · No. 140194

Gay male speech has been the focus of numerous modern stereotypes, as well as sociolinguistic studies, particularly within North American English. Scientific research has uncovered phonetically significant features produced by many gay men and demonstrated that listeners accurately guess speakers' sexual orientation at rates greater than chance. Historically, gay male speech characteristics have been highly stigmatized, so that such features were often reduced in certain settings, such as the workplace. Research does not support the notion that gay speech entirely adopts mainstream feminine speech characteristics — rather, that it selectively adopts some of those features. There are similarities between gay male speech and the speech of other members within the LGBTQ+ community. Features of lesbian speech have also been confirmed in the 21st century, though they are far less socially noticed than features of gay male speech. Drag queen speech is a further topic of research and, while some...

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