Fundamental frequency and articulation rate as acoustic correlates of sexuality and gender presentation

Abstract

The present study examines how gender presentation correlates with fundamental frequency (F0) and articulation rate in a population of 45 lesbian, bisexual and straight female and non-binary US English speakers. As speakers of all sexualities self-report more masculine gender presentation, their mean F0 lowers; however, more masculine-presenting lesbian speakers have significantly lower articulation rates than more feminine-presenting lesbian speakers, while straight speakers show 
the opposite pattern. These results support the role of gender presentation as a predictor of speech variation, add evidence to the existence of a lesbian speech style, and underscore the importance of examining intra-community variation.