Do you think you can tell if someone is gay or straight just by looking at someone? Well, you could be right, experts say.
Two science teachers have delved into the research behind the so-called “gay face” – the theory that homosexuals share certain facial features.
And science says it really does exist – with some of us being better at noticing it than others.
The phenomenon was investigated by Mitch Moffit, a biologist, and Greg Brown, a science teacher – both of whom happen to be gay – in an attempt to get to the bottom of the facts.
And surprisingly, the couple discovered that ‘gay face’ has nothing to do with looking male or female.
Gay face is a term used by some members of the LGBT community to be able to tell that someone is not straight simply by looking at their face, and experts say it is real.
Multiple studies spanning a decade have examined the phenomenon and who is better at recognizing the features that make a face “gay.”
Gay faces have been the subject of research for more than ten years.
Early studies from 2011 found that gay men had more symmetrical faces than their heterosexual counterparts.
But as Mr Brown points out, these did not take into account the different grooming practices or cosmetic procedures that are more common among gay men.
On a YouTube clamp which aired earlier this month on their channel AsapSCIENCE – which has been viewed more than 100,000 times – he said: ‘We gay men like to pluck our eyebrows and keep our beards nicely trimmed.
‘I know many gay men who use Botox and fillers to make their faces symmetrical.’
It wasn’t until 2015, when researchers began using software to map the physical structure of faces in great detail, that more underlying patterns began to form.
Mr Moffit said this study found that ‘gay men had shorter noses and larger foreheads compared to their heterosexual counterparts’.
He added: ‘Research on lesbian faces found that the lesbians in the study had, on average, more upturned noses and smaller foreheads than their heterosexual counterparts.’
A particularly interesting aspect of this study was that these gay faces were not tied to people who perceived these faces as male or female.
“So a gay man can still have a very masculine-looking face, but it can also be considered a homosexual-looking face and vice versa for lesbians,” Mr Moffit said.
YouTube creators Mitch Moffit, an expert in biological sciences, and Greg Brown, a science teacher, recently discussed the trend, including a study that found gay men had shorter noses and larger foreheads compared to heterosexual counterparts
The same team found that lesbians had, on average, more upturned noses and smaller foreheads than heterosexuals
This suggested that the gay face itself was an independent variable and not simply linked to perceptions of masculinity or femininity.
Then the research was taken to another level in 2021 When Spanish researchers took images of people’s faces and then altered them to exaggerate, they acquired the features previously identified as gay faces, such as the shape of the nose and forehead.
These images are created on a scale that goes from the person’s original face to increasingly exaggerated gay features.
Mr Moffit explained that when these faces were assessed by volunteers, they found that ‘the more exaggerated the homosexual features, the more likely the volunteers were to think that person was gay’.
This suggested that having a ‘gay face’ was more of a spectrum with varying degrees, rather than a simple binary of having or not having.
The last study analyzed involved scientists feeding an AI 35,000 images from both gay and straight dating sites.
This AI was able to deduce whether a man was gay with an accuracy of 81 percent. The algorithm was also able to guess whether a woman was gay with an accuracy of 74 percent.
Examples of the computer-generated images used in the 2021 Spanish study. Images are increasingly modified to represent homosexual traits from left to right, with 1 being the most heterosexual and 5 the most homosexual
In volunteer research, the more exaggerated the homosexual characteristics were, the more likely people were to think the person was homosexual. This suggested that having a ‘gay face’ was more of a spectrum with varying degrees than a simple binary of having or not having.
Mr Moffit and Mr Brown, who put their own faces through some of the trends analyzed by scientists, said it was crucial to remember that the studies showed trends and found individuals who were gay but not had a ‘gay face’ and vice versa
It also found that gay men had larger foreheads and narrower jaws, while lesbians had smaller foreheads and larger jaws compared to their heterosexual counterparts.
But not all of us are equally good at detecting a homosexual face.
It may come as no surprise that gay men themselves were more proficient than their heterosexual counterparts.
But women, of all sexualities, were also better than men on average at detecting gay faces, especially when looking at gay men with an accuracy of 75 percent overall.
This is consistent with broader research showing that women are generally better at facial processing, the term scientists use for the process of gathering information based on looking at people’s faces, than men.
But another interesting aspect of the study was that people who were less prejudiced against gays were better at detecting gay faces.
In theory, this is because homophobic people may have a very limited view of what a gay person is ‘supposed’ to look like and may dismiss people who do not fit this stereotype as heterosexual.
But when it comes to why gay men have differently shaped faces in the first place, scientists aren’t sure.
One theory suggests that genetics could be a factor and that differences in hormone levels can affect both a person’s sexuality and their facial structure.
Mr Brown also wanted to highlight some of the potential limitations of this research and how it could be used against homosexuals.
“It is worth raising the genuine concerns and criticisms that this type of research may raise,” he said.
“Whether this will be a technology that is weaponized against us gays.
‘Scanning people’s faces and then classifying them as gay or straight seems like a dystopian film.
He also emphasized that while such studies highlight general trends, no exceptions exist and individuals have been found who were homosexual but did not have a “gay face” and vice versa.
According to the latest official census data, around 3.2 percent of the population of England and Wales, equivalent to 1.5 million people, do not identify as heterosexual.