Aesthetic as genetic: The epistemological violence of gaydar research

Abstract

In recent years, "gaydar" has come under increasing scientific scrutiny. Gaydar researchers have found that we can accurately judge sexual orientation at better than chance levels from various nonverbal cues. Why they could find what they did is typically chalked up to gender inverted phenotypic variations in craniofacial structure that distinguish homosexuals. This interpretation of gaydar data (the "hegemonic interpretation") maintains a construction of homosexuality as both a "natural kind" and an "entitative" category. As a result, culturally and historically contingent markers of homosexuality are naturalized under the guise of gaydar. Of significant relevance to this article's critique of gaydar research is that the hegemonic interpretation is presented as politically advantageous for LGB people by its authors, an undertheorized assumption that risks sanctioning an epistemological violence with unfortunate, demobilizing sociopolitical consequences. This critique is contextualized within current debates regarding intimate/sexual citizenship and advocates, instead, for a queer political ethic that considers such cultural erasure to be politically untenable.

Stigmatization of ‘gay‐sounding’ voices: The role of heterosexual, lesbian, and gay individuals’ essentialist beliefs

“…Essentialist thinking about the association of a category with a trait is particularly relevant to the research on gaydar, the process by which people use different SO-traits to guess others' SO (Rule, 2017). Belief in gaydar seems to presume essentialist belief in real differences between gay and straight people in regard to some discernible traits (Vasilovsky, 2018). In the SO domain, the relationship between such essentialist thinking about categorytrait associations and stigma has received far less attention than the relationship between stigma and essentialist thinking about the SO-category itself.…”

Theoretical proposal for the relationship between epistemology and ethics in psychology

“…According to the hegemonic interpretations of the data obtained through empirical research, there are natural aspects—physiognomic and morphologic—associated with homosexual and bisexual orientation. Variations in the craniofacial structure are a determinant of the phenotypical expressions of the inverted gender (Vasilovsky, 2018). Consequently, sexuality would be a natural entity whose orientation is innate (Rule et al, 2009).…”

“…In this sense, the analysis of the same data from a different theoretical approach generates different interpretations regarding the sexual orientation of corporal and facial expressions. According to Vasilovsky (2018), there are interpretations that are less proneto reduce the variability and fluidity of queer identifications to a single, stable orientation, or to normalize queer cultural practices, or characterize queer agency as an automatic product of inner propulsions; or to neglect homosexual subjection; or to pathologize gender variance; or to conflate queer expressions of masculinity and femininity with straight masculinity and femininity, such that queer bodies are rendered intelligible only within a framework that has established heterosexuality as its ontological ground. (p. 307)…”

Mainstream Psychology And The Gender Binary: Toward An Account Of Becoming "Non-Binary"

“…Biological essentialism is drawn on in attempts to secure certain legal rights -as Hirschfeld had been doing about a century agothough such explanations, ultimately, "appeal to the sympathies of the majority" (Johnson, 2007, p. 60) and "serve to reinstate the naturalized status of a binary gender system" (p. 60). Indeed, much the same has been attempted with homosexuality -"gay gene" and "gay brain" research abound -though the political advantageousness of this legal strategy is suspect: the belief that identity groups are fundamentally distinct from each other is positively correlated with prejudice against gay men and lesbians, and biological theories have been mobilized to support the view of gay men and lesbians as genetically defective, much like some have argued that immutability does not necessarily warrant civil rights protections for homosexuals (see Vasilovsky, 2018).…”