The politics of gaydar

Joe O'Donaghue's recent parody of Gavin Newsom's sexual preferences is part of a long tradition of "gaydar" jokes. A quick google search reveals a website where you can test your overall skills, a downloadable program for your PDA, or another website to test your ability to separate your gaydar from your eurotrash sensor. People laugh at this stuff--but it reinforces some destructive gender stereotypes and can easily go too far. For example, there is a professor at Northwestern University doing "research" on people's ability to guess whether someone is gay or not based on their speech and essentially using the success of this voice-activated gaydar as evidence for the genetic basis of gender differences. Any female mathematician can tell you what's wrong with going there. As for mayors who courageously support LGBT civil rights and then experience a break-down of their marriage? Doesn't mean they're gay. So, lay off the parody, Joe--the punchline's just not worth it.