It's not an act, yet I'm not straight enough for straight men to be fully comfortable around me either like in a bro way, I'm.. a weird shade of "gay" (does gay acting really exist? I don't think it does and the term sounds somehow despective).
No, for real, is there any scientific study why things like the "gay lisp" or "gay standing" or "gay walk" exist? is it psychological or physical?
There have been studies about the "gay lisp," which are referred to on the Wikipedia page on the subject. There's also this broader page on
lavender linguistics, or speech practices associated with various gay communities.
I don't think that the gay stereotypes are accurate, really. I think there's just an element of confirmation bias, where we remember when people fit the stereotype, and don't pay as much attention to it when they don't fit in. I think the speech communities idea is persuasive, at least for my personal experiences. I noticed after coming out that I started adopting some speech patterns of the other gay people I was meeting. Part of it was that I wasn't being so inhibited and policing my speech, but I was picking up on things as well. And even online I've noticed that I've picked up on things, especially PopGAF-isms when I'm not posting seriously. So the idea that within gay communities these speech patterns become normalized does seem at least intuitively appealing.
But it doesn't really seem to explain childhood gay-stereotyped speech, or gay-stereotyped speech amongst heterosexual men who have no obvious reason to have adopted those speech patterns. I don't think it's physical, though. It wouldn't make sense for it to be, or else there would be something physically different about the speech apparatus that makes it happen - and code switching wouldn't be a thing.
