What Is Gaydar? Does It Exist? Or Is It Stereotypes? Reader’s Comments

• Pattern recognition, intuition, gaydar… same thing.. What do you imagine gaydar is but intuition?
• It’s not just biases. There’s concrete behaviors that we treat as indicators of interest. It’s largely independent of gay/straight in terms of overall interpretations.
• As an example, when you meet another man’s gaze, he will either look away, give you a mean mug, or you will get the liquid eyes. The last one is gaydar-positive.

• Straight men don’t check other men out. If you are a gay or bisexual man and you check a man out, and you catch him checking you out back…
• … well, that is strong evidence to suggest he also likes dudes.
• Also, especially in dense urban areas, there are gay neighborhoods where a high proportion of men are gay men. So if you are in such a neighborhood, there is just a higher chance that any given man you see on the street is also going to be gay.
• And where gay men live together as a community and get to know each other, they begin to emulate each other in terms of fashions and styles, mannerisms, slangs, and sub-cultural references — all the little details and subtle signs that members of a community would recognize in each other but that outsiders might overlook.
• And if you engage in that community as well, then you too will come to recognize these fashions and styles, these mannerisms, slangs, and sub-cultural references

• Straight men don’t check other men out. If you are a gay or bisexual man and you check a man out, and you catch him checking you out back…

• this. its all in the eyes

• I’ll say it is. Queer people have a certain vibe to them that other queer people pick up on. It should be noted that most queer peoples gaydar is more fine tuned to their own flavour of queer – so mine is more tuned to trans people and people who are into women. I’m sad to say that I cannot tell if you are a gay man unless you are very camp – as evidenced by the fact that I thought my gay friend was straight when I first met him.
• Just saying you may not know this but camp is also kinda derogatory. And straight people can be feminine as well. The only way you can tell ish is by vibes not the way they act. Presuming someone is gay because they like stereotypical feminine things or act that way is homophobic(it’s gonna be internalised for most people) Although people can pick up on different things through vibes. I met this person in a school thing and by the end I had pretty nb vibes from them. It turns out I was right.
• I read once that we can recognize the way we supress ourslelves in others. Kinda made sense to me. Butni bet there is more to it.
• I would like gaydar to exist
• As far as I remember there were even some studies that proved it. Many people (but not all) can recognizes a gay person in audios and on pictures. That being said some people claim that they are good at it and only look after these stereotypes.
• I feel like it’s more instinct than anything else. Sometimes you just get an intuition about people and you should def always trust ur gut. Definitely can be influenced by culture, but that’s just because people can sometimes develop behaviours that they associate with themselves based on any stereotypes they’ve been exposed to, if that makes sense.
• To a certain extent, yes. Queer folks have always had a bit of a subculture and different ways of communicating that they are part of the queer community. I work at a bar and have definitely noticed patterns for how queer folks dress and speak. But I’ve also met many who don’t fit the stereotypes.

Most of the time, it’s a vibe where you can tell they’re flirting with you or at least looking at you as a potential partner even if they never intend on it. For example, I was at work the other day and a guy came up and had a single dangly earring, a high, affected tone of voice, and short shorts on. He looked me up and down a couple times and my gaydar was definitely going off. But a customer I slept with before I met my husband drives a truck, wears cargo shorts and polos, and talks sports most of the time when he comes in. He still looks me up and down like the more obviously gay guy did. It’s not like we all speak, dress, and present ourselves in the same way, but there is still tells

It’s a thing, not everyone has it. I have reverse gaydar: if I think you’re queer you’re probably not, and if I think you’re not you probably are. My teen years were rough. Incidentally I also have aphantasia and poor facial recognition, which may be related to this kind of subtle processing that goes on when we try to understand someone just by looking at them.