'Gaydar' Is Just Harmful Stereotyping And Does Not Exist, Say Scientists

The 'gaydar' is a myth. Such a touchstone does not exist, and it only spreads "a harmful stereotype", concluded a research team from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

A study published in the Journal of Sex Research said that it is difficult to identify a person's sexual orientation just based on "stereotypes and pre-conceived notions".

"Imagine that 100 percent of gay men wear pink shirts all the time, and 10 percent of straight men wear pink shirts all the time. Even though all gay men wear pink shirts, there would still be twice as many straight men wearing pink shirts. So, even in this extreme example, people who rely on pink shirts as a stereotypic cue to assume men are gay will be wrong two-thirds of the time," said William Cox, a psychologist and one of the study authors, via a press release.

Moreover, Cox and his team explained that while the gaydar concept may be "fun", it is spreading a fake stereotype, according to hngn.

His team was looking into two types of experiments, firstly involving the manipulation of photographs to show study participants. While Cox noted that most photos depicting gay and lesbians are of higher quality than those with straight people, manipulating the quality of photos, controlling the quality could not finally determine which pictures were about gay and which about straight people.

In yet another experiment, researchers made three separate groups. The first group was told that the gaydar concept is accurate, the second that it is a stereotype and the third one got no information about it. The scientists found that the group that was told that it exists are more than likely to uphold the stereotype.

"If you're not calling it 'stereotyping,' if you're giving it this other label and camouflaging it as 'gaydar,' it appears to be more socially and personally acceptable," Cox said.

He also added that such a concept tends to forward "prejudice and discrimination - even aggression."

The new study challenges a previous study that said that about 80 per cent of gaydars are accurate, according to hngn.