Re this urban dictionary definitionthey treat it as a real physical phenomenon. Is this a goof or does “gayface” really exist as an ingrained facial characteristic for gays and lesbians?
The science seems to indicate that gayface is a real thing, and even when controlling for things like presentation, hair style, etc, people are still able to peg subjects as straight/gay with better-than-chance accuracy. I believe there was a similar study that showed only black/shadowed outlines of men walking, and people could peg which ones were gay just by the way the person walked.