i recently watched the documentary "Do I Sound Gay?"
i won't get too much into the premise other than that a guy, who is gay, worries that he sounds too gay. he does a bunch of interviews and visits two speech coaches.
apparently gay "sounds" like either, but apparently it's speaking with a lisp, increased nasality, enunciation, a wider pitch range, breathy voice, certain lengthened vowel sounds, and adding like an "s" sound to some non-s sounds. gay speech is also stereotyped as resembling women's speech, maybe because young gay boys hang out more with women (because straight guys make fun of them, beat them up, etc.)
so i'm curious. what about gay guys who grew up around men only? or straight guys who grew up surrounded only by women (one guy in the documentary did, and he has a very high pitched voice. i don't think his speech had the other stereotyped traits, but from pitch alone, he certainly sounded female)? and do gay russian or chinese or bolivian guys also "sound gay" the same way americans do? can people identify sexual orientation people speaking foreign languages? probably not, because we're not particularly good at correctly identifying sexual orientation from speech alone, even when it's all in english.
but i'm also curious about lesbians and everyone on the spectrum. do lesbians speak differently as well? and if there really is a "gay" characteristic of speech, how to bisexuals or asexuals, etc sound?
interesting blog post that addresses some of my questions. https://joeclark.org/soundinggay.html
