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Why is Pop Science of late interested in “gaydar”? And do ovulating women have better “gaydar”?
What was once considered a myth or anecdotal knowledge is now being lauded as a scientific fact. Gaydar is real! What is “gaydar”?
If you’re reading this in a LGBTQ zine it’s likely you know what “gaydar” is. But for those who don’t, “gaydar,” a portmanteau of “gay” and “radar,” is a person’s innate ability to instinctively know from mere observation that someone’s sexual orientation is heterosexual, gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender.
How would you rate your gaydar? (Caveat: being in a gay pride parade is not the best time to assess if you have an acumen for gaydar.) Average to good. Exceptional. Overzealous. Wildly unreliable. Or spot on.
Two social scientists assert that they’re spot on when it comes to assessing gaydar. This month in the peer-reviewed science journal PLoS ONE Joshua A. Tabak and Vivian Zayas published their research findings on the validity of gaydar in a paper titled “The Roles of Featural and Configural Face Processing in Snap Judgments of Sexual Orientation.” And their findings are novel, but spurious in my opinion.
Devoid of cultural markers many of us employ in honing in on our gaydar- hairstyles, clothing, walk, body movements, talk, makeup, piercings, eyeglasses or tattoos- Tabak and Zayas state that the accuracy in detecting gaydar is driven by a sensitivity to individual facial features and the spatial relationships among facial features.
For example, viewing the facial photographs of men and women, and then categorizing each face as either heterosexual or homosexual, Tabak and Zayas subjects demonstrated an ability to identify sexual orientation with a 60 percent accuracy, which is quite impressive since change guessing would yield 50 percent accuracy.
To further prove their research thesis that sexual orientation can be discern by merely facial observation Tabak and Zayas had their subjects look at photos of men and women presented upside down. And again, the subjects were able to pinpoint sexual orientation. And to no surprise, accuracy in pinpointing sexual orientation increased when the faces were presented right side up.
Tabak and Zayas’s gaydar research is built on the work of the social psychologist Nicholas Rule.
Gaydar studies are problematic, and Rule’s research, if Tabak and Zayas’s haven’t already, might give you a hint.
Nicholas Rule, Assistant Professor of psychology at the University of Toronto and Canada Research Chair in Social Perception and Cognition, research teases out the question is your face your fate? In other words, what can you tell about someone just by looking at them? Hmm?
And therein lies the problem with “gaydar studies ” More often than not gaydar studies are predicated on LGBTQ discriminatory stereotypes, even when based on good intentions.
For example, while I couldn’t find photos of neither Tabak nor Zayas, I did find several online of Rule. And as one whose “gaydar” misses more often than it hits, I would guess that Rule’s gay. Why? Just based on my good intentions that’s meant to be a compliment but it’s a stereotype nonetheless that Rule’s just too cute and polished looking to be straight.
Another example, ovulating women are said to have the best gaydar of us all. In a study conducted with 40 Tuft University female undergraduates, the study concluded that the closer the subjects were to peak ovulation, the better their gaydar. Why? “They just gravitated to the cute ones, and then immediately tossed them into a “probably gay” discard pile — just like they do in real life,” Gawker.com wrote.
While many of us LGBTQ people use our gaydar in a tongue-and-cheek way to poke fun at each other,or to brag about our accuracy in spotting each other, we’re basing these assumptions on socially constructed signifiers that are also used to discriminate against us.
Using one’s gaydar is no longer the province of the LGBTQ community. It’s wide-spread appear is also used by heterosexuals.
How often have we heard of someone gay bashed because a heterosexual homophobe thought the person he or she targeted looked gay?
“Banking on gaydar is problematic because it lets us assume gender and sexual identity of people,” said Allison, a queer woman on Jezebel.com. “BUT it’s many of us in the queer communities who are just as guilty of buying into gaydar. As much as I could criticize someone outside of the LGBT community for bragging about having accurate gaydar, it’s probably my queer friends who are most adamant about being able to tell who’s gay.”
At Pride parades this month, but careful with your gaydar.And here’s why: Attending my very first Boston Pride Parade I spotted a sister who I thought was a lesbian, and unattached. By Brooklyn, my hometown, standards she had all the social markers. Why was she there with her gorgeous self all alone along the parade route I asked myself? When I mustered up enough courage to cross the street to where she was suddenly her husband and two children came running out of Old South Church. She was watching the parade just momentarily while they used the bathroom. My bad!
4 Comments
I think we’ve all had that Old South Church moment, Reverend Irene. You’re lucky you didn’t get any farther before you got sidelined. I used to think my gaydar was pretty well-tuned, but moving to Portland has set it on its ass: there are simply too many alterna-lads here of all persuasions to tell one from another.
Of course, Portland wins the prize for most “men or women” Craigslist ads nationally, so maybe it’s not just me.
i read the research paper; there are three giant flaws 1) the orientation of the participants was not taken into account nor mentioned in the paper; 2) there was no double-blind; & 3) the sample is much too small.
given that, i think that there are certain things that give us hints when we meet someone that makes our ‘antennae’ go up but there is no real proof until you ask!
oh, though the study that a longer ring finger than index finger indicates a man may be gay certainly has some merit!!!
[please. my tongue is in my cheek...]
but, then again, what about the one that the counterclockwise sworl of a man’s hair at the back of the head may have something to it….
Gaydar is something we’ve known about for years if not decades. We used to call it “getting vibes,” etc. It’s also pretty hard to describe to the unitiniated. Back in the day, it was the about the only way we were able to find who our brothers and sisters were, especially in areas where we lived in relative isolation. This was no small feat, so it was a matter of survival.
My own gaydar, as a gay male, is weird. It works about 20% of time for males, but about 80% of the time for women. So in other words, it does me little good when looking for prospective partners. Thankfully, I don’t live in an area where I’m isolated, at least much.
Gaydar is one of those things, like the whole issue of transgenderness, that is part of the extremely touchy area of what is nature and what is nurture when it comes to gender identity. As you have noted, everyone, straight and gay, seems to buy into the notion of “gaydar”. (Hell, I just used the term myself, in a facetious way, in another thread.)
Do little girls (or girls in boys’ bodies) really love the color pink, or is it cultural conditioning? Conversely, do little boys really dislike pink, or (again) is it cultural conditioning? (It used to be thought that no little boy past toddlerhood would be caught playing with dolls, yet the GI Joe “action figures” that tens of millions of boys grew up with — often made by both boys and girls to interact with Barbie dolls in elaborate play scenes — put paid to that notion.)