When you hear the phrase 10 strange attempts you might picture sci‑fi gadgets or wild conspiracy theories, but the reality is far stranger. Over the past century, governments, researchers, and even a few curious bureaucrats have tried every conceivable trick to sniff out homosexuality – often with dubious science and even more dubious ethics. Below, we rank the most outlandish schemes, from Cold‑War Senate panels to modern AI facial‑recognition experiments.
10 The Hoey Committee’s Investigative Techniques
In 1950, a group of the nation’s most polished minds were gathered into a Senate task force known as the Hoey Committee. Their explicit mission: ferret out the covert presence of gay men lurking within the United States.
The committee quickly discovered that the job was not as straightforward as they had imagined. Senator Margaret Smith, during a briefing with leading medical experts, asked in frustration, “Is there no quick test, like an X‑ray, that can reveal these individuals?”
The surgeon general, however, had to explain that homosexuality does not leave any trace on an X‑ray. While some physicians rambled about sexuality being “complicated” and “fluid,” they refused to hand over any miraculous scanning device that would cause every gay man in America to glow with a neon red aura.
After two years of painstaking research, the Hoey Committee claimed to have identified several unmistakable hallmarks of gay men: they were typically unmarried, they “seldom refuse to talk about themselves,” and they displayed what the committee described as “prissy habits.”
Armed with these criteria, the committee instituted a sprawling system for tracking, marginalizing, and ultimately destroying the lives of gay men, often driving them to tragic ends.
In their final report, they warned that homosexuality was contagious: “One homosexual can pollute a government office.”
9 The Canadian Government’s Fruit Machine
Just north of the United States, Canadian officials were busy engineering a massive contraption they believed could pinpoint any gay man. Dubbed the “Fruit Machine,” this 1960s invention was as mysterious as its name, and the government offered a $10,000 reward for anyone who could prove its efficacy.
The device was described by witnesses as looking like something ripped straight out of a science‑fiction novel: a hulking apparatus bristling with cameras, steel girders, and a screen that intermittently displayed gay pornography.
When a suspect was summoned, an official would say, “We have evidence you may be homosexual. What do you have to say about that?” If the individual denied the accusation, the Fruit Machine became the arbiter.
Subjects were strapped in and forced to watch a series of mundane pictures, interspersed now and then with explicit gay porn. Researchers recorded pulse, skin responses, breathing patterns, and pupil dilation throughout the session.
If a participant’s pupils widened at the sight of gay porn, the machine interpreted this as sexual arousal – though critics noted that the reaction could just as easily be due to darkness, surprise, or nothing at all. In practice, the Fruit Machine proved wildly ineffective.
Nevertheless, the Canadian government remained cautious. Even though the device failed to deliver reliable results, anyone who “failed” the test was compelled to resign, ostensibly protecting the nation from the imagined menace of openly gay citizens walking its streets.
8 The US Park Police’s Pervert Records
The United States Park Police were assigned a special role in the nation’s crusade against perceived homosexual infiltration. After receiving intelligence that gay men favored parks for cruising, a dedicated task force was assembled.
Officers were dramatically increased in number, tasked with monitoring park facilities and, in particular, “sex perverts.” The prevailing belief was that public parks served as popular rendezvous spots for gay men, necessitating vigilant surveillance.
One squad of Park Police spent twelve exhaustive hours, from dusk until dawn, watching the bathroom at Lafayette Park and betting on whether each visitor was gay. Their congressional report declared, “I do not believe a half‑dozen legitimate persons go in there to answer Nature’s call.”
Thanks to this relentless observation, the government concluded that anyone using a public park bathroom could be presumed homosexual. The policy was taken seriously enough that a CIA employee was dismissed after being spotted “changing around the men’s room in Lafayette Park.”
7 J. Edgar Hoover’s Sex Deviates Program
J. Edgar Hoover personally championed the FBI’s “Sex Deviates” program, shifting the bureau’s focus away from organized crime and terrorism and onto what he deemed the true threat: gay men infiltrating government.
Under Hoover’s directive, any individual accused of concealing a homosexual orientation was immediately reported to the chief of investigations. The FBI then deployed its full arsenal—surveillance of homes, monitoring of favorite bars and restaurants, and psychological profiling—to uncover patterns indicative of gayness.
Agents would sometimes intervene early, apprehending suspects while they lingered near notorious park restrooms. The most diligent operatives waited until they could capture “acts of perversion” on camera before moving in.
Hoover’s obsession was so intense that rumors suggest he occasionally turned up at gay orgies himself, a grim illustration of how the perceived contagion of homosexuality was believed to “cough” on even the most powerful figures.
6 The Gulf Cooperation Council Homosexuality Test
The hunt for a surefire gay‑detecting method did not stop with the Cold War; it traveled far beyond the West. In 2013, Kuwait’s director of public health, Yousuf Mindkar, announced a sweeping plan to bolster the nation’s gaydar.
Mindkar vowed to introduce stricter measures that would help the country spot gay individuals, stating, “We will take stricter measures that will help us detect gays.” His proposal called for a revision of visa rules, requiring doctors to certify every incoming traveler as heterosexual before granting entry.
The specifics of how physicians would conduct such a test were never clarified, but Mindkar insisted it would be a simple procedure, confident that any doctor worldwide could identify the “physical markings” of homosexuality.
International backlash forced Mindkar to retreat. FIFA expressed concerns that his policy could bar fans from attending the 2022 World Cup, and critics in the United States argued the plan would prevent anyone who simply enjoyed soccer from entering Kuwait, effectively barring a whole demographic.
5 The Malaysian Guide To Spotting A Gay
In 2018, Malaysia’s tabloid Sinar Harian published a checklist purporting to teach readers how to identify gay men. The article claimed that certain observable traits could betray a man’s sexual orientation.
According to the checklist, gay men typically sport beards, favor branded clothing, stay close to family, and frequent gyms. However, once inside the gym, the article warned, the gay male would rarely exercise; instead, he would stare longingly at other men, his eyes lighting up whenever a handsome physique appeared.
The piece also addressed lesbians, asserting that they displayed “venomous attitudes toward men” while being open and carefree around women. It claimed lesbians would hold hands and hug each other openly, yet harbored a deep disdain for men, deriving any joy they felt from belittling the opposite sex.
4 The Scientific Study Into Gay Faces
In 2008, researchers Nicholas Rule and Nalini Ambady at Tufts University tackled a long‑standing question: do gay people possess distinct facial characteristics that set them apart?
The team photographed both heterosexual and homosexual participants, meticulously stripping away variables such as hairstyle by Photoshop‑removing hair and placing every face against a uniform white backdrop. This left only cheekbones, eyebrows, and other subtle features for analysis.
When a separate group of 90 observers were shown these stripped‑down images and asked to guess each subject’s orientation, the participants reportedly identified gay faces more often than not, leading the researchers to claim that a “gay face” does indeed exist, even if observers are unaware of it.
3 Stanford University’s Gaydar Machine
In 2017, Stanford professor Michael Kosinski pushed the gay‑detecting frontier further by creating a machine he called a “gaydar.” He and co‑author Yilun Wang fed a facial‑recognition algorithm 75,000 online dating profiles, sorting them into “gay” and “straight” categories.
The AI was trained to spot recurring patterns in what the researchers termed “gay facial features.” To test its prowess, they pitted the program against human judges, asking each to identify whether a photo belonged to a gay or straight person.
Humans performed only marginally better than a coin flip, while the algorithm correctly labeled gay men 81 % of the time and lesbians 74 % of the time—though its accuracy dropped sharply when applied to non‑dating‑app photos.
Thus, Kosinski’s machine proved effective at detecting sexuality when subjects deliberately presented themselves in a way that highlighted gay cues, but it faltered with ordinary, uncurated images.
2 The Attempt To Isolate The Gay Gene
During the 2015 American Society of Human Genetics conference, UC researcher Tuck Ngun announced a breakthrough: he claimed to have isolated a “gay gene.”
Ngun’s study focused on 37 pairs of identical male twins, where one brother identified as gay and the other as straight. He reported five DNA methylation marks that he believed signaled homosexuality.
However, the broader scientific community quickly pointed out flaws. By scanning 6,000 methylation sites across only 37 twin pairs, the study was statistically destined to find spurious patterns. Moreover, the purported “gay gene” appeared in only 67 % of the gay participants, casting doubt on its reliability.
1 Penile Plethysmograph
One of the more enduring devices touted as a gaydar is the penile plethysmograph, a tool still used in certain scientific contexts today. The Czechoslovakian army once employed it to verify whether men claiming exemption from the draft on the grounds of homosexuality were being truthful.
The procedure involves affixing a slender metal strip to the penis, then exposing the subject to a series of gay pornographic clips while measuring the organ’s engorgement. The device records how erect the participant becomes in response to each image.
While there are certainly simpler ways to gauge someone’s sexual orientation—such as noting that a researcher who obsessively measures penile responses might themselves be gay—the plethysmograph has persisted in research circles.
Proponents claim it is the most accurate test available, boasting a 32 % success rate in correctly identifying a man’s sexual preferences—making it, statistically, no better than flipping a coin, but still the most “proven” method on record.
10 Strange Attempts Overview
The quest for a reliable, real‑life gaydar has produced a parade of bizarre, ethically questionable, and often downright ineffective schemes. From Senate committees consulting surgeons to AI‑driven facial analysis, each attempt reflects the era’s anxieties and the lengths to which authorities will go to police sexuality. While modern science has largely debunked the notion of a foolproof gaydar, the historical record remains a fascinating—and unsettling—chronicle of human curiosity gone awry.