“Gay men and lesbians habitually enact behaviour that displays involvement in a shared system of meaning in order to be recognized as members of the gay and lesbian community.” [1]
I remember well the day of my oral defence of my dissertation. One of my supervisors asked me, “You wrote that you can’t tell who is gay from looking at them, yet you told me over lunch one day that you had a strong inkling that the waiter was gay. Which is correct?” Suddenly I was confronted with a contradiction: why did I suspect the waiter was gay, yet I had only just read a couple of studies suggesting that gay men could not accurately distinguish pictures of gay men from pictures of heterosexual men? I concluded I was only guessing because I did not have enough information to conclude otherwise. This month’s Queer Quest is about looking at the research that has been done concerning gaydar.
Gaydar is a slang term with unknown origins (well, unknown to me at least) that is used to denote the perceived ability that gay men and lesbians have for identifying who is homosexually inclined from who is not. Soon after I came out in 1993, I hung out with guys who thought they had this ability developed to a considerable extent. However, if I believed that they identified people correctly regarding their sexual orientation from merely looking at them as we passed them on the street, I would have needed to assume that about 50 percent of the male population is gay! I thought then that perhaps there was comfort in knowing we are not alone, that by whimsically deciding people’s sexual orientation through casual non-sexual contact, we could believe that there were more of us than actually existed. As I have matured, I have spent less time thinking about who is gay and who is not as they pass by, but I have continued to wonder if there is really any such thing as gaydar.
It appears that not a lot of research has been devoted to this topic, which surprises me actually. Nonetheless, we do have some research on which to draw some conclusions.
The study that stands out for me used 96 judges and 25 targets. The judges were 96 undergraduate students (comprised of 24 heterosexual women, 24 lesbians, 24 heterosexual men, and 24 gay men) who were randomly assigned into one of three groups that then either (a) looked at still photos, (b) watched a one second video clip without sound, or (c) watched a ten second silent video clip. [1] The photos and video clips used were made from videotaping 25 graduate students (these were the targets, comprised of five heterosexual men, five lesbians, seven heterosexual men, and eight gay men) while they responded to the question, “Please discuss how you balance your extracurricular activities and academic activities.” These graduate students did not know from the outset that the videotapes would be used by others in attempting to guess their sexual orientation (note: they were told after the videotaping that they could withdraw usage of their tape for this purpose).
The study found that sexual orientation can be detected at better than chance levels of accuracy from these brief observations of nonverbal and nonvocal behaviours. Overall, the longer the opportunity to observe the behaviour (photos -> 1 sec. video -> 10 sec. video), the better the accuracy. Furthermore, it was found that the gay men and the lesbians were collectively more accurate in this task than their heterosexual counterparts, particularly for the still photos and the one-second videotape.
The authors then went on to compare their results to two other studies, and they concluded from reviewing the three studies together that there is good “evidence that sexual orientation can be judged accurately from brief observations of behavior.” Both of these other two studies included sound clips. Additionally, gay men and lesbians appear to be better at this ability when compared to straight men and straight women. The studies further suggest that lesbians have a greater advantage in ascertaining the sexual orientation of other women than gay men have of determining the sexual orientation of other men. This is not surprising given that other research has revealed that women are generally better than men at accurately reading the nonverbal cues of others.
It is important to keep results like this in perspective, however. None of the judges in these studies accurately identified all of the targets. In the study described above, a judge was accurate approximately 55 percent of the time in rating the still photos and 70 percent of the time in the 10 second silent video. Consequently, there are many errors in people’s attempt at gaydar. Their guesses are better than chance, but they still are often wrong in determining a person’s sexual orientation through verbal and nonverbal cues.
A recurring limitation in the research is that the samples of gay men and lesbians used in the studies are visible members of the community, meaning that they are not living closeted lives. Whether closeted gay men and lesbians can remain free of detection by others has not been established.
When research cannot answer a question, I tend to rely on my own experience until more is known. I remember frequenting a leather-denim bar in Seattle a few summers ago and thinking that if I saw and/or heard most of their patrons in a different environment, I would not be able to guess that most if not all of these men were either gay or bisexual. I suspect that many of the cues we look for in others are unfortunately about paying attention to either the presence or absence of behaviour that is considered stereotypically gay or lesbian. As you probably already know, stereotypes do not apply to most people that such stereotypes are meant to either define or label.
When a gay male or lesbian wants to be identified as gay or lesbian, however, we do have evidence that they are successful in this quest. An interesting ethnography was done by a woman who did her research in both Chicago and Oklahoma City. Ethnography is the study of culture, and it relies on using direct observation and on conducting interviews with people who belong to the culture. She found that eye-gaze is an important aspect that gays and lesbians use in determining who else is gay or lesbian. Eye-gaze is also used to establish interest in one another once this is established. While interacting within the gay and lesbian communities for three years, the researcher found that two types of eye-gaze were used: (a) direct stares, which included direct and prolonged eye-contact, and (b) broken stares, which she categorized into two subtypes of the “stare-look-away-stare-again” variety and the “peek-a-boo” type.
Besides eye-gaze, both gays/lesbians and heterosexuals look for other cues such as the presence of a gay pride button or symbol on a person’s clothing, and somewhat less obvious signs such as the way the person dresses, walks, talks, and gestures. Gay men also pay attention to where a person’s eyes roam, some intangibles (e.g., “twinkle” in a person’s eye), and the topics a person discusses or avoids.
So there you have it – psychological research has shown that gaydar does exist, but that like so many other things we try and predict, it is fraught with mistakes, perhaps some of which are unconsciously motivated (e.g., wanting to see more gays and lesbians out there than actually exist). A good parallel is predicting the weather: even the most talented at doing so would be killed if their lives depended on it.]
Dr. Alderson is an assistant professor of counselling psychology at the University of Calgary who specializes in gay and lesbian studies. He also maintains a private practice. He can be contacted by confidential email at alderson@ucalgary.ca, or by confidential voice mail at 605-5234.
References:
1) Nicholas, C. L. (2004). Gaydar: Eye-gaze as identity recognition among gay men and lesbians. Sexuality & Culture, 8, 60-86.
2) Ambady, N., Hallahan, M., & Conner, B. (1999). Accuracy of judgments of sexual orientation from thin slices of behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77, 538-547.
3) Nicholas (2004).
4) Shelp, S. G. (2002). Gaydar: Visual detection of sexual orientation among gay and straight men. Journal of Homosexuality, 44, 1-14.
