Nine studies have been conducted to address the questions posed by each objective. Results have been presented to 8 academic conferences in Europe, Canada and USA. These conferences addressed different audiences of researchers in Social Psychology, Sexuality Studies, and Communication. The fellow has been invited to give 3 academic talks at well-known universities, and a keynote at the conference organized by the Italian Association of Psychology. 6 dissemination events have been organized by or involved the fellow, including his participation at the ILGA-Europe Conference.
The first objective of the project was to investigate people’s beliefs and experiences related to the voice as a cue of sexual orientation. First of all, we examined the types of beliefs individuals have about voice. We asked participants to report whether voice is an “immutable” (e.g. gay/lesbian individuals have a voice that is different from the straight one and they cannot change it), “intentional” cue (e.g. people can decide to communicate or conceal their sexual orientation through voice), and a “discrete” cue (e.g. it is possible to detect sexual orientation from vocal cues). Results showed that straight individuals believe voice is a more informative cue of men’s than women’s sexual orientation, and that discreteness beliefs were related to prejudice and stigma among heterosexual participants. However, such beliefs were not predictive of accuracy in judging sexual orientation of male and female speakers.
Second, we described targets’ experiences. 41% of the gay men in our study reported at least one episode where they had been identified as gay because of their voices. Most episodes were narrated as discriminatory experiences and elicited coping strategies among gay men such as trying to change their voices. Only 6% of the lesbian participants reported such kind of experience, and they explained that this never happened to them potentially because a “lesbian voice” stereotype does not exist.
The third objective directly examined discrimination in the hiring process. Across different studies, we found that gay- and lesbian-sounding speakers are at risk of being discriminated when applying for jobs, especially if those represent leadership positions. These discrimination was even stronger for lesbian-sounding women, indicating that voice conveying sexual orientation information highlights their double minority status (as women and as lesbians) that make them victims of stigmatisation.
In the last objective, we examined whether the perception of homophobic labels were perceived as “reclaimed language” if used by gay- and lesbian-sounding speakers. Results showed that homophobic labels referring to gay men being perceived as overall less offensive if used by gay- than straight-sounding speakers. But we did not replicate earlier effects with non-vocal stimuli showing that gay speakers who use reclaimed language were seen as more empowered. Language reclaiming is risky and partial.
