Me Talk Gay One Day

Many gay men have a complicated relationship with their voice. The "gay accent" that, for some men, seems to emerge suddenly and inexplicably--like Quentin Crisp from a birthday cake--in the wake of their coming out, remains one of the most common markers of gayness. As a result, it can make some men a target for discrimination.

This past week, Graham O'Brien, a 29-year old bank customer from Leeds, England, claimed that he has become the victim of "voice discrimination." After being denied access to his bank account over the phone, he visited a branch where he was told that a suspicious "woman" had been phoning about his account. The operator, it seems, had mistaken O'Brien's gay voice for that of a woman.

Now, O'Brien is considering a lawsuit:

Despite assurances from the bank that the mix-up will not happen again and an apology, Mr O'Brien is considering his legal options.

"I feel I have been humiliated and alienated," he said.

"There's the patronising way they've spoken to me and there's the humiliation of going into the branch and dealing with it."

Mr O'Brien may have a valid claim for sexual discrimination against Halifax.

"Just because a man has a high-pitched voice, does that mean it's a woman? They're labelling it. They're saying, "You're not who you say you are.""

Of course, not all gay men are distinguished by their voice (the concept of a "gay accent" relies on generalization and stereotyping) and, given the circumstances, it seems hard to believe that O'Brien has any hope of winning a lawsuit against his bank on grounds of homophobic discrimination. While he does have a point--that we shouldn't be so quick to make assumptions on people's genders based on the way they sound or look--this seems like the wrong context (in banking, where personal information, and a great deal of money are at stake) to get worked up about it.

While research into the origins of gay speech are still inconclusive, some linguists, have managed to pin-point what makes some gay men's speech so distinctive. According to a study called "The Influence of Sexual Orientation on Vowel Production":

"Differences in the acoustic characteristics of vowels were found as a function of sexual orientation. Lesbian and bisexual women produced less fronted /u/ and /[open aye]/ vowel sounds than heterosexual women. Gay men produced a more expanded vowel space than heterosexual men."