pick of the twitter

These empowering “gay voice” tweets have us cheering in every octave

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Excited man talking on phone

If people can clock your sexuality from the lilt of your voice and the enunciation of your words, you may have what comedian Guy Branum calls “a truly, magnificently gay voice.”

The Washington Post broke down the stereotypical “gay voice” in 2015, when the documentary Do I Sound Gay? came out: “A man speaks at a higher pitch, and in a more melodious fashion. The man might pronounce his p’s, t’s and k’s very crisply, or have what’s sometimes (incorrectly) described as a ‘lisp.’”

As the Post noted, researchers have gleaned that gay voice “has more to do with the voices that a person identified with as they grew up, rather than sexuality” and that gay men and straight men alike develop more feminine voices “because they are influenced by women when they are young.” But other influences include one’s peers and one’s self identity.

Related: Let’s hear it for this “gay voice” appreciation post

University of Minnesota researcher Benjamin Munson found in a study that gay men’s pronunciation differed than that of straight men, and Munson speculated that gay men in the study wanted to convey a stylish and cutting-edge identity. “As speakers of a language, we have lots of freedom in how we pronounce sounds,” he told the Post. “People exploit that variation to create different social meanings.”

The aforementioned Branum wrote an opinion piece about his gay voice for The New York Times in 2018. As he explained, when he realized in his youth that his voice made him different, he was “quiet, very quiet, for a long time.”

As an adult, however, Branum understood that forming a community means speaking up and being visible. He wrote:

Heterosexual society wants to keep us weak, apart and uneducated, so it strips us of the tools we need to find one another and learn from one another. I was trained to be quiet, and to hope other people like me would stay quiet to keep us safe. But many gay voices ignored that teaching and became grand and loud. That’s why I love my voice and the voices of other gay men. From Edwardian novels to pop music, from Broadway to comic books, they’ve erupted with beauty, culture, cooperation, music, opinions about Alfre Woodard and sex. Gay art isn’t just works from an underrepresented community; it’s voices that were trained to hide and be silent but were resolute enough to make noise despite the danger. They didn’t know me, but they did it for me.

Related: Ross Mathews has perfect response to critic of his “fake” “gay voice”

Twitter users, meanwhile, have found the humor — and the power and the glory — in the gay voice. Behold their observations:

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