What does it mean to sound gay?

Dan Savage and David Thorpe pictured at the Toronto Film Festival in 2014.

A new documentary tries to find out

Nearing 40 and newly single, journalist David Thorpe was anxious about his “gay" voice. So he made a documentary, Do I Sound Gay? about it. What started out as a personal project soon led to big questions about how we view what “gay” sounds like, and what that means (or doesn’t mean). You only need to hear someone pretend to do a lisping “gay voice” (ahem, comedian Louis CK) to know that “sounding gay” is tied up with a lot of stuff. 

For starters, if there is a “gay voice” then what does a “straight voice” sound like? How does the gay community view gay voices? Where did the “gay voice” come from, and is it born from stereotype, wanting to belong or societal conditioning? And is not liking a gay voice homophobic? 

Indeed a particularly interesting part of Thorpe’s project is how some men, like himself initially, don’t want to “sound gay”. Or don’t want to be defined by their voice.

As Kevin Fallon writes in The Daily Beast: “If you’re a gay man and your sexuality is not immediately discernible when you speak, you’ve somehow attained some sort of homosexual superiority. You could ‘pass for straight’, as if that's some crowning achievement of homosexual normativity. (Here’s your tiara and sash!) Your sexuality isn’t a badge you’re forced to wear on your vocal cords.”

It’s a view that a gay friend of mine, Paul, who doesn’t like the stereotypically “gay voice”, agrees with. “I think there's a big difference between being naturally a bit more feminine and doing the full-on gay voice compete with gay slang. I just don't like it – it grates on me,” he says. “Kate Bush and moisturisers aside, I'm not sure I'm that much of a stereotype. But there's obviously some kind of propensity to a gay voice among gay men, but I’m not sure whether it's through socialisation or genetic, nature or nurture. I do think that hanging around with other camp men will exaggerate it, whatever the actual cause.”

To come to grips with his own “gay voice’” and that of other men, Thorpe enlists a speech therapist, voice coach, linguists, historians and some well-known gay celebrities such as author David Sedaris, Savage Lovecast podcaster Dan Savage (best sex podcaster ever!), fashion consultant Tim Gunn and actor George Takei to analyse the “gay voice”.

Thorpe also speaks to people from all walks of life about their voices and what they think of them, with results that are thought-provoking and hilarious.

The documentary was funded by Kickstarter.

You can see the trailer below. The film will appear in select cinemas in America and will screen at the Melbourne Film Festival later this month. 


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