The Existence of Gaydar
I’m super-happy to introduce today’s guest author / illustrator! Premee is an environmental specialist currently living in Calgary. She says her degree in molecular genetics has given her no noticeable edge in telling whether or not she’s hitting on a hot gay waiter, but it does make for interesting party conversation.
Gaydar exists, apparently, which is a bit of a shock to someone who’s spent years arguing that it doesn’t. (My arguments were based on the fact that I don’t have it. I just don’t. Elton John and his husband could come sit on my lap wearing WE’RE GAY t-shirts and I still wouldn’t know.)
Secondly, I had always thought it was an innate thing, like… well, like gayness itself. It turns out new research is showing that it can be traced to some very specific and definable physical characteristics—and I don’t mean the tired old stereotypes of mesh shirts or an iPod full of showtunes. This kind of basic research really provides more weapons in the arsenal against people who continue to insist that homosexuality is either learned or a choice. It’s becoming more and more obvious that it is innate, biological, and immutable.
So, without further ado, I summarize Lippa et al’s research as follows:
- A gay man’s index finger will tend to be about as long as his ring finger, similar to straight women; lesbians tend to have shorter index than ring fingers, similar to straight men.
- There exists a recognizable ‘accent’ in about 75% of gay men (sidenote: Rufus Wainwright is gay? I didn’t know th… now, see, this is what I was talking about.)
- More gay men than straight men have counterclockwise hair whorls.
- Gay men tend to have bigger… good heavens. You’ll have to read the article for that one.
- The gay man’s hypothalamus cell cluster INAH3 is similar to the size of a straight woman’s.
There you have it! Now go forth in comfort, dear readers, secure in the knowledge that talented scientists are working night and day to decode the signals behind what most of you do without even thinking twice.
