It should come as no surprise that one gay person can spot another in a crowd, but recently a new witchcraft has been discovered that allows heterosexual people to distinguish between a gay person and a straight person on sight!

Just kidding, there’s no witchcraft. However, a new study by American researchers suggests that the intuitive sense to recognise someone’s homosexuality, aka ‘gaydar’ has become common in straight people too.

A study undertaken at the University of Washington displayed 96 different faces of many men and women for 50 milliseconds to a group of 129 volunteers who chose ‘gay’ or ‘straight’. The success rate, which was statistically above chance, was achieved despite faces being flashed in greyscale, without hairstyles/makeup/piercings and other clues, and some photographs were even upside down. Results saw 65% of participants could correctly identify gay women and 57% could spot gay men correctly.

Lead author of the study, psychology graduate student Joshua Tabak believes the new ingrained ‘gaydar’ is a result of evolution and adapting to cultural change.

"It may be similar to how we don't have to think about whether someone is a man or a woman or black or white,” he said. “This information confronts us in everyday life."

Perhaps more notable, however, is how Tabak believes the ability to assess sexual orientation based on observation/ instinct conflicts with the assertion that if people kept their sexual orientation private, discrimination wouldn't exist - an argument frequently used by opponents of anti-discrimination policies for lesbian, gay and bisexual people.