Non-binary speech, race, and non-normative gender: Sociolinguistic style beyond the binary

Thesis

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts in the

Graduate School of The Ohio State University

By

Ariana June Steele, B.A.

Linguistics Graduate Program

The Ohio State University

2019

Thesis Committee:

Kathryn Campbell-Kibler, Adviser

Cynthia Clopper

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Copyright by

Ariana June Steele

2019

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Abstract

Non-binary speech is understudied in the realm of sociolinguistics. Previous studies on non- binary speech (Kirtley 2015; Gratton 2016; Jas 2018) suggest that non-binary speakers are able to make use of linguistic variables that have been tied to binary gender in novel ways, often dependent on social context and goals, though these studies are limited in scope, considering eight or fewer non-binary talkers in their studies. Research into sociolinguistic style (Eckert

2008; Campbell-Kibler 2011) emphasizes the ways that multiple linguistic and extralinguistic variables can be employed simultaneously to construct coherent styles, leaving room for speaker race to be included in the stylistic context (Pharao et al. 2014). Zimman’s (2017) study on transmasculine speakers showed that speakers can employ binary gendered linguistic variables in speech styles to position themselves towards or against normative binary gender. The current study considers how twenty non-binary speakers, stratified by sex assigned at birth and race, use

/s/ and f0, variables which tied to gender in previous research, alongside clothing to construct non-binary gendered styles. Results further support that race is an important construct in understanding gendered speech, as Black non-binary speakers produce /s/ differently with respect to self-identified masculinity than do white non-binary speakers. Overall, non-binary speakers align with other speakers who position themselves with non-normative gender expressions through their use of /s/ and f0.

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Acknowledgements

I’d like to thank my adviser, Kathryn Campbell-Kibler, who not only has given me invaluable advice on my research and writing of this project, but has helped me look beyond my worries to the greatness in the work that I’m doing. I’d also like to thank Cynthia Clopper and Jian Chen, my QP1 committee members, for their feedback and support on the research and writing herein.

The discussion group SoMean has been integral to my conceptualizing of this research – I thank you all immensely for your comments. Last, but certainly not least, I’d like to thank my friends and family who have been there throughout this journey: Mom, Dad, Jayleen, Josh, and Javi.

You have all given me the strength to make this happen, and I’m forever greatful.

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Vita

2012 ...... Thomas Jefferson High School

2016 ...... B.A. Linguistics & Cognitive Science, Northwestern

University

2016 to 2017 ...... Graduate Enrichment Fellow, Department of Linguistics,

The Ohio State University

2017 to 2018 ...... Graduate Teaching Associate, Department of Linguistics,

The Ohio State University

2018 to present ...... Fellow, National Science Foundation Graduate Research

Fellowship Program

Fields of Study

Major Field: Linguistics

Specialization: Sociophonetics

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Table of Contents

Abstract ...... i

Acknowledgements ...... ii

Vita ...... iii

List of Tables ...... vi

List of Figures ...... vii

Introduction ...... 1

Literature Review ...... 3

Methods ...... 16

Population & Participants ...... 16

Gender Questionnaire ...... 17

Ethnographic Interview ...... 18

Reading Passage ...... 19

Analysis ...... 20

Phonetic Analysis ...... 20

Analysis of Styles ...... 21

Statistical Analysis ...... 25

Results & Discussion ...... 27

f0 Results ...... 27

/s/ Results ...... 30

Conclusion ...... 34

iv References ...... 38

Appendix A: Gender Questionnaire ...... 41

Appendix B: Interview Guide ...... 43

Appendix C: /s/ and f0 Word Lists ...... 46

Appendix D: Participants’ Visibility Scores and Self-Descriptions of Their Clothing on the

Day of Their Interview ...... 48

v List of Tables

Table 1. Participant information ...... 17

Table 2. Indexical markers from participant descriptions of clothing styles noted in Phase I of style coding ...... 22

Table 3. Indexical markers of visibility levels with number of participants in each style...... 24

Table 4. Linear mixed effects regression model results of demographic predictors for CoG in Hertz ...... 27

Table 5. Linear mixed effects regression model results of visibility predictor for

CoG in Hertz...... 28

Table 6. Linear mixed effects regression model results of demographic predictors for f0 in Hertz...... 30

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List of Figures

Figure 1. Femininity ratings by masculinity ratings for all speakers...... 26

Figure 2. CoG by masculinity for Black and white speakers...... 28

Figure 3. CoG by visibility level...... 29

Figure 4. Boxplot of f0 by sex assigned at birth...... 31

Figure 5. f0 by femininity...... 32

Figure 6. f0 by femininity ratings with sex assigned at birth...... 33

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Introduction

In linguistics, the speech of people who align themselves against normative gender and race is severely understudied, and especially so in sociolinguistics/sociophonetics. As Gaudio

(1994) said on cisgender gay men’s speech before it had been thoroughly studied, “in linguistics… we have barely left the earlier days of enforced invisibility and negative stereotypes” (pp. 30). In the current study, I aim to lessen the gap in understanding of and garner greater visibility for speakers who fit in neither normative genders nor majority racial identities.

Through focusing on non-binary speakers and equally centering Black and white non-binary speakers, this study adds to growing sociolinguistic research that suggests that gender is not expressed in line with dominant social gendered expectations by those who identify with non- normative gender and racialized identities (Zimman 2017; Calder forthcoming).

In this study, I consider how both Black and white non-binary speakers use /s/ and f0, two sociophonetic variables that have been tied to binary expressions of gender, to construct non-binary gendered styles. Considering style from a perspective that centers intersectionality

(Crenshaw 1989), the fact that people experience multiple identities simultaneously, will allow for a broader understanding of gender as it relates to race and vice versa in sociolinguistics.

Likewise, taking into account participants’ demographics in their production of phonetic variables provides a greater depth to our understanding of gendered speech.

Results show that Black non-binary speakers use high frequency /s/ productions to perform a non-normative masculinity, distancing themselves from negative stereotypes put upon them. Participants describe an opposition between two non-binary clothing styles, genderless and genderfuck, which, upon inspection, appear to be primarily distinguished by their level of

1 visibility in public settings. Non-binary speakers, as other speakers who associate with non- normative gender (e.g., Calder forthcoming), are able to selectively use binary gendered linguistic variables to push against normative gendered speech.

2 Literature review

In 1989, Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term intersectionality, which was originally created to refer to the structural, political, and representational ways through which Black women uniquely face oppression by both white supremacy and patriarchy. Crenshaw explained that the experience of Black women cannot be distilled to simply their womanhood or their Blackness, but is rather a constant interaction between these identities. In most sociophonetic studies of language and gender, the intersections of identities have not been considered (see Levon 2015 for a discussion of intersectionality in sociolinguistics). By leaving out large populations of speakers with multiple intersecting identities, we make conclusions about language and gender that do not necessarily hold beyond the white populations studied. As a corollary to how Black women’s experiences correspond to the unique intersection of their Blackness and their womanhood, cisgender white gay men’s experiences are unique to their intersection of identities and cannot necessarily be generalized to speakers who do not fit this specific intersection. I consider both Black and white non-binary speakers in the current study in order to begin to enhance our understandings of how gender and race interplay in the sociophonetic study of language and gender. As I situate the study of non-binary speech within the history of language and gender research especially in sociophonetics, we must take note of whose speech has been prioritized and whose has been overlooked within this course of study.

Early sociolinguistic inquiry into language and gender emerged from attempts by feminist linguists to describe the speech of cisgender women and compare their speech patterns to those of cisgender men (e.g., Lakoff 1975, Cameron 1992). This early study referred to differences in power and social upbringing as motivating differences in speech patterns between

3 cisgender women and men and did not delve deeply into the speech of cisgender women and men who are not heterosexual.

As sociophonetics started gaining traction in sociolinguistics after Labov (1966), research on language and sexuality came to the forefront in the sociophonetic study of language and gender (see Podesva & Kajino 2014 for a summary of sociophonetics and sexuality). This line of research observed the speech of white cisgender gay men and asked what characterizes “gay speech” and how sets of phonetic variables influence the perception of masculinity in their speech. Some early research considered f0, the acoustic correlate of pitch, for the answers.

Terango (1966) and Avery & Liss (1996) found that men that researchers thought were less masculine and more effeminate produced higher f0 than more masculine men. Munson (2007) found that lower f0 correlated with greater perceived masculinity in cisgender men’s speech and higher f0 with greater perceived femininity in cisgender women’s speech. However, Gaudio

(1994) and Smyth, Jacobs, and Rogers (2003) found no effect of f0 on listener perceptions of sexuality or gender. These studies suggest that people perceive f0 as reflecting the femininity and/or masculinity of the speaker.

Other researchers have looked to the “gay lisp,” a popular stereotype about gay men’s production of /s/, to explain what distinguishes gay men’s speech from that of heterosexual men, to varying results (see Zimman 2012 for a summary of this feature). Rogers, Smyth, and Jacobs

(2000) and Linville (1998) found that sibilant duration and high peak frequency of sibilants correlated with voices that were identified as gay by listeners. Similarly, Smyth and Rogers

(2008) found that gayer-sounding men had higher peak frequencies of /s/ than straighter- sounding men. In a perceptual study, Levon (2007) found that only a combination of a longer /s/

4 duration and broader pitch range resulted in higher gayness ratings in the speech of a cisgender straight man.

While many of these sociophonetic studies consider speakers’ perceived gender and/or sexuality as they relate to their production of certain phonetic variables, none of these studies consider the relationship between speakers’ self-identified femininity and masculinity and their production of these variables. This has key implications for transgender (hereafter trans) speakers, who identify with a gender other than the one they were assigned at birth. Just as trans people show that we cannot tell a person’s gender from the appearance of their body, neither can we tell how feminine or masculine a person is from their appearance. The focus on perceived gender and sexuality over the internal identity of the speaker does not leave room for an analysis including trans people, whose outward performance may not reflect their internal identity in standard ways. In order to close the gap and allow more room for trans—and especially non- binary—speakers in sociolinguistics research, speakers in the current study were asked to self- identify their femininity and masculinity, and these ratings were considered as potential predictors of their productions of phonetic variables.

Looking to how trans speakers use gendered sociophonetic variables can lead to a greater understanding of how speakers’ self-identified gender relates to their speech patterns. In his study of /s/ and the discourse marker so comparing productions by binary trans, queer cisgender, and heterosexual cisgender speakers, Hazenberg (2016) found that speakers who identify as women produce uniformly higher /s/ than speakers who identify as men regardless of the sex they were assigned at birth (hereafter SAB). Speakers also using so in accordance with the gender they identify with. That is to say, one’s use of variables reflects their self-identified gender more than it does the physiology of their body. Considering multiple phonetic variables at once can

5 allow us to better explain the context under which speakers produce different realizations of each variable.

Zimman (2017) studied how transmasculine speakers, trans people who self-identify as masculine, use both /s/ and f0 to construct gendered identities. He found that when transmasculine speakers take testosterone, which lowers their f0 overall, speakers tend to use a higher frequency /s/, which can be attributed to their stance towards binary gender. Some speakers mentioned feeling more comfortable expressing their femininity with their lower f0; being perceived as men allowed them to use more feminine features, such as higher frequency

/s/, in order to position themselves against normative masculinity. When they were seen as women, high frequency /s/ indexed normative femininity, but high frequency /s/ was able index non-normative masculinity in the context of a lower, masculine f0. This recontextualization shows that speakers can employ varying combinations of phonetic variable realizations in order to position themselves towards or against dominant notions of femininity and/or masculinity, and these features do not necessarily pattern in normative, expected ways. Studying /s/ in combination with f0 can shed light on the complex interplay of gendered speech styles. Though more comprehensive of self-identified gender identity than previous studies, Zimman’s study does not include speakers’ non-normative gender identities or race in his analysis.

Non-binary is an umbrella term for gender identities that do not strictly align with

“woman” or “man”. Gender identities that tend to fall under the non-binary umbrella include genderfluid, agender, demigender, trans-masculine, trans-feminine, and more. The term non- binary can be used on its own to describe one’s gender; instead, some people identify as simply non-binary, some as an identity under the non-binary umbrella (e.g., agender), and some as both

(e.g., non-binary agender). We can look to non-binary speakers to understand how style can be

6 used to perform gender beyond the feminine-masculine binary. Non-binary people in the United

States navigate a society that perceives their gender as within the binary while they identify outside of it. This suggests that non-binary speakers understand how their gender expression is viewed through the lens of femininity and masculinity and may adjust their expression to influence how they are perceived publicly.

Gratton (2016) looked at two non-binary speakers’ use of (ING) and found that their production patterns reflected a distancing of oneself from the sex they were assigned at birth

(SAB). The non-binary person who was assigned female at birth (AFAB) used the more stereotypically masculine variant of (ING), [ɪn], in non-queer public spaces to distance themselves from femininity, while the non-binary person who was assigned male at birth

(AMAB) used the more stereotypically feminine variant [ɪŋ] to distance themselves from masculinity. The two speakers use their respective (ING) variants to differentiate themselves from the gender that would be assumed of them, though this does not characterize a full picture of the forces at play in gendering oneself. The methodological weaknesses of a small sample size

(two non-binary speakers) and inconsistencies in who was present during the interviews (both non-binary speakers, assorted additional friends, etc.) make the results unclear. Theoretically, as

Gratton notes, the use of a single phonetic variant does not necessarily index femininity or masculinity on its own; rather, multiple phonetic variables are employed alongside other social resources to construct holistic gendered styles. Without data from a larger number of non-binary speakers, balancing who is present during interviews, or a concern with more phonetic variables, it is unclear the extent to which Gratton’s results are applicable beyond the speakers and interviews in her study.

7 Kirtley (2015) studied the speech patterns of three speakers who identify with non- normative genders in Hawai’i in different social situations, two of whom were ethnically

Hawaiian and one Jewish. Through both discourse and phonetic analyses of phonetic variables such as f0, /s/, creaky voice, pauses, and more, Kirtley found that these speakers exhibited different usage of variables depending on their interactional goals, which can change between and within each interaction. For example, Jody, who describes himself as “’someone who was born in the wrong body’ but who is now a guy, a guy ‘with both a cock and a pussy’” (pp. 122), uses low frequency /s/, low f0, and a slower speech rate when he is acting tough or knowledgeable around people he does not know, but he does not try to act more masculine in these ways when around his family. Kirtley’s speakers’ use of phonetic variables differs greatly from one another due to their varying identities and social goals-in-interaction. Though again a small sample size of three, with only one of the three speakers in the study self-identifying as non-binary, this in-depth study into the interactional habits of three speakers who identify with non-normative genders suggests that non-binary speakers’ production of phonetic variables will differ based on their social goals.

More recently, Jas (2018) looked at f0 mean, range, and slope amongst eight non-binary speakers in the UK, also taking into account SAB, age, gender presentation, sexuality, and affect in order to determine how physiological and social influence f0 for non-binary speakers. Though nothing significantly predicted mean f0, SAB did significantly predict f0 range. Sexuality and age were significant predictors of f0 slope (i.e., the steepness of difference in speakers’ high vs. low f0 range), with queer-identifying and older non-binary speakers producing a greater f0 range than other speakers, which shows that queer speakers and older speakers have a greater difference between their minimum and maximum f0 than others. With the incorporation of affect

8 (positive, negative, or neutral), Jas found that masculine-presenting non-binary speakers produced lower mean f0 and a narrow f0 range in neutral affective contexts relative to negative/positive contexts. Jas’ results further support the theory suggested by Kirtley (2015) and

Zimman (2017) that the speech styles of non-binary and non-normative gender speakers can provide insight into how speakers employ certain sets of variables in order to construct styles that run counter to dominant social norms.

There are two primary methodological concerns regarding the aforementioned sociophonetic studies on non-binary speech. First, the total sample of all speakers amongst these three studies is only twelve speakers, and small sample size can exaggerate individual variation and make it appear more representative than it is. Also, in all of the studies except for Kirtley

(2015), speakers are primarily white, an issue endemic in sociophonetic language and gender research at large. Gratton (2016) and Jas (2018) make no analytical reference to the speakers’ race, which suggests that their analyses of non-binary speech are limited to white speakers. In the current study, I aim to create a better representation of non-binary speech by gathering a larger sample of non-binary speakers and building race into my sampling. By expanding upon both of these crucial shortcomings, the current study extends the applicability of its results to represent a greater variety of non-binary speakers.

Another looming theoretical concern with most of the sociophonetic research on non- binary speech thus far is the focus on one phonetic variable representing one’s stances towards gender. Jas’ analysis of only the phonetic variable f0 leaves questions about what speakers are doing in the larger context of their speech beyond f0. As rightly noted by Gratton (2016), single variables are used alongside a host of other linguistic and non-linguistic variables to construct

9 stances towards/against femininity or masculinity. In order to better account for the myriad ways that linguistic and non-linguistic variables work together, a useful theoretical framework is style.

When people speak, they do so in the context of their social environment and additional ways that they are presenting themselves in that moment. Interaction does not exist in a vacuum—each resource we use to construct identity in any given moment can call back to other ways that that resource has been used to construct related or unrelated identities. Sociolinguistic style is the contextual clustering of resources, both linguistic (such as phonetic or lexical features) and extralinguistic (such as clothing and hair styles), whose sum produces a recognizable whole (Eckert 2008; Campbell-Kibler 2011). For clarity, I will be referring to this as simply style. Speakers extract and combine features from existing styles to form new ones, often with the intent and/or effect of indexing aspects of the original styles through the process of bricolage (Eckert 2008). We can consider the modern American punk style for example. A punk may wear a black rock band t-shirt, ripped jeans, and combat boots, which band together to index a punk style. The incorporation of combat boots into this punk style visually references the combat boots worn by those in the military. Thus, by wearing combat boots, the punk indexes the toughness of those in the military. This instance of bricolage brings along the social meaning of toughness from the militaristic style to the punk style, but it noticeably leaves behind other potential social meanings, such as support for the military and nationalist attitudes.

The ability of styles to take certain features and certain social meanings associated with them from other styles without bringing along all associated social meanings is useful for considering how non-binary speakers, who have limited, binary socially accepted gendered features to choose from in their gender toolkit, may attempt to incorporate features that are commonly linked to femininity and/or masculinity along with some but not all of their social

10 meanings to construct gendered styles beyond the binary. Clothing remains a site of innovation for non-binary speakers who seek to repurpose clothing styles or articles of clothing that dominant social expectations associate with cisgender women or men. Clothing is one type of resource available in constructing style (e.g., Mendoza-Denton 2008). We can look to speakers’ clothing styles, or sets of clothing items, for hints at the styles that they may comprise. I thus use speakers’ clothing styles on the day of their participation to determine what style they may be aligning themselves with, which likely works alongside their speech style.

Style is crucial for sociolinguistic inquiry because it allows for connections to be drawn between linguistic and extralinguistic variables with social characteristics including both gender/sexuality and race. Style has not been studied much with a focus on racialized speakers, though one study incorporates racial context into its analysis of style. Pharao, Maegaard, and

Kristiansen (2014) question how speakers in Copenhagen perceive fronted /s/ under the context of two different Danish speech styles delineated by differences in prosody: modern Copenhagen speech, which is primarily spoken by white Copenhageners and associated with coolness and pleasantness, and Copenhagen street language, which is primarily spoken by Turkish immigrants and associated with toughness and gangsterness. Pharao et al. find that, in the context of modern

Copenhagen, the fronted realization of /s/ is linked to femininity and gayness, but, in the street style, the fronted /s/ guise is linked to immigrantness and gangsterness. In the context of racialized speech styles like the Copenhagen street style, race is part of the picture that makes up a holistic style. We can thus use theories of style to consider how speakers of different races make use of linguistic and extralinguistic variables in the context of their racial identities, which can provide needed insight into how speaker race affects stylistic alignment. By including both

Black and white speakers in the present study of non-binary speech, we can form a more holistic

11 understanding of how race interacts with gender for non-binary speakers and add to sociolinguistics’ understanding of gender and race as always relevant to each other, as pointed out by Crenshaw (1989).

A complex constellation of linguistic variables works together to produce rich, elaborated speech styles. For example, Campbell-Kibler (2011) used a matched guise paradigm where she manipulated three variables, /s/ frontness, f0, and (ING), to investigate how listeners tie multiple variables into coherent styles. Listeners heard guises with different combinations of variable realizations and rated them on social scales, such as masculinity, gayness, and smartness. For guises that were rated as gay and included fronted /s/ and -ing, listeners’ ratings revealed a style that Campbell-Kibler called the “smart, effeminate gay man,” who was rated low on masculinity but high on smartness, while guises that were rated as straight and included backed /s/ were perceived as the stylized “masculine, unintelligent straight man” who was rated high on masculinity and relatively low on smartness. By considering the relationships between a series of social and linguistic variables, we can form better pictures of styles that account for the multiplex interplay between social and linguistic variables.

Non-binary speakers mix-and-match gendered linguistic and social resources that are available to them to construct non-binary styles that reflect the ways they wish to be seen by others (Gratton 2016, Kirtley 2015). Through looking into how non-binary speakers use sociophonetic variables that have been shown to be tied to binary gender and style in previous research, we can determine how non-binary speakers use these gendered resources available to them to construct non-binary styles. Studying the speech of non-binary speakers allows us to further question notions of gender that rely simply on femininity and/or masculinity, as non- binary speakers—people who distance themselves from these normative notions of gender—

12 must make use of the variables that they understand as being useful for constructing gendered styles. /s/ and f0 are two variables whose relationship to femininity and masculinity that have been studied heavily. By considering how non-binary speakers use these two variables that have been shown as tied to expressions of binary gender, we can better understand how non-binary speakers construct non-binary gendered styles.

Amongst cisgender speakers, fronted /s/ has been associated with heightened femininity.

Though women’s mean /s/ frequency is higher on average than men’s (about 6,500 to 8,100 Hz vs. 4,000 to 7,100 Hz, respectively) (Flipsen, Shriberg, Weismer, Karlsson, & McSweeny 1999), these gendered phonetic differences do not simply mirror anatomical differences. Strand (1999) notes that differences in vocal tract size occur behind the area constricted in /s/ production, so differences in /s/ production are due to differences in articulation as opposed to vocal tract size.

Fuchs & Toda (2010) found no difference in palatal size between women and men in both

Germany and the U.S., but they did find differences in place of articulation of /s/ between genders. In other words, the acoustic realization of /s/ differs between women and men regardless of their palatal size differences, which suggests that social elements affect /s/ production. In perceptual research involving style, fronted /s/ has been found to index femininity and gayness in the speech of cisgender gay men (e.g., Campbell-Kibler 2011; Podesva & Van

Hofwegen 2016). Notably, Calder (forthcoming) found that San Francisco drag queens (people who were assigned male at birth and dress femininely for show/performance) who subvert normative gender presentation produce even higher /s/ than drag queens who perform gender more normatively. In tandem with Zimman (2017), Calder shows that /s/ can be used to position oneself against or toward normative femininity and/or masculinity and with non-normative gender. Social characteristics such as socioeconomic class also play a role in /s/ production as

13 shown by Glaswegian working-class girls’ low frequency /s/ production more closely mirroring that of Glaswegian working-class men than that of middle-class girls their age (Stuart-Smith

2007). With respect to race, there are no studies with information on how Black speakers produce /s/. The varying ways that speakers can employ /s/ for social functions both related and unrelated to gender make it useful for inquiry into non-binary style since it gives non-binary speakers a large repertoire of social meanings to pull from in their usage of /s/, which may allow for a more expansive use of /s/ for gendered purposes for non-binary speakers.

f0 is another variable that has been tied to binary notions of gender in previous research.

On average, women have higher f0 than men (about 215 Hz vs. 115 Hz, respectively) (see Fitch

& Holbrook 1970 for a summary of f0 and sex assigned at birth). Differences in f0 frequency are attributed to the relative sizes of speakers’ larynxes, which are said to diverge during early puberty (Lee, Potamianos, & Narayanan 1999). Due to higher f0 being associated with cisgender women’s speech, f0 can also be used socially to index femininity (known as fractal recursivity, see Irvine & Gal 2000). Wolfe, Ratusnik, Smith, & Northrop (1990) found that higher average f0 correlated significantly with higher femininity ratings. Munson (2007) found f0 to affect perceived masculinity in men’s speech and perceived femininity in women’s speech. Regarding race, studies have found that Black speakers have a wider f0 range than white speakers (Tarone

1973; Loman 1975; Hudson & Holbrook 1973), and Hudson & Holbrook (1973) found that

Black speakers had a lower average f0 than white speakers. Looking at f0 production among non-binary speakers will help us better understand how it can be employed as a resource for gendered styles that go beyond the speech of cisgender and binary women and men.

Though previous research has shown that speakers can use /s/ and f0 to position themselves towards or against femininity or masculinity (Zimman 2017), speakers can indeed

14 construct gendered identities beyond the binary, as suggested by Zimman (2017), Calder (in press), and non-binary speakers’ inhabiting of identities beyond the binary. Through considering how non-binary speakers employ these variables, we can better understand how speakers create personalized and collectivized social meaning from these limited binary gendered resources. The gap in the study of /s/ and f0 amongst Black speakers especially with respect to gender opens up possibilities for how speakers may employ these variables in the context of their racialized identity.

15 Methods

Population & participants

Participants were 20 non-binary speakers living in Columbus, Ohio who were recruited using the snowball method, beginning with friends of the author. Most speakers in the current study know each other through their involvement in the heavily overlapping underground queer art and radical queer activism scenes, where non-binary people of various racial backgrounds often interact. The author is also part of these scenes and knew most of the speakers through social justice organizing, queer art/music events, and generally hanging out around Columbus.

The high degree of interconnectedness amongst non-binary speakers in this study suggests that speakers will be likely to have shared linguistic practices (Hazenberg 2016; Bucholtz 1999), as well as shared understandings of local non-binary styles.

Half of the speakers were Black and half were white; within each of these groups, half were assigned female at birth (AFAB) and half were assigned male at birth (AFAB). There were thus five participants of each race and sex assigned at birth demographic group. The mean participant age was 24.7 years of age with a range of 19-30 years. AFAB speakers who had taken testosterone were excluded from the participant pool, as testosterone increases the size of the larynx, lowering f0, which would skew the AFAB speakers’ f0 measurements. Participants were compensated $15 for their time. See Table 1 for demographic information about the participants.

16 Pseudonym Pronouns SAB Race Age Alexis she/they AMAB Black 22 Desi they/she AMAB Black 27 Apollo they AMAB Black 23 Brock any AMAB Black 28 Kali they/he AMAB Black 29 Ruth they/she AFAB Black 27 Jake they AFAB Black 26 Wilson they AFAB Black 22 Mike they/he AFAB Black 19 J they AFAB Black 20 Saoirse they AMAB White 24 Bradie they AMAB White 30 Suze she/they AMAB White 20 Jacky they AMAB White 30 Christy they AMAB White 26 Jame he AFAB White 22 Louise they AFAB White 21 K they AFAB White 23 Sawyer they AFAB White 27 Hannelore they AFAB White 27 Table 1. Participant information.

Gender questionnaire

After consenting to the study, participants filled out a paper questionnaire. The primary purpose of this questionnaire was to quantify participants’ personal identifications with femininity and masculinity. It also asked participants what sex they were assigned at birth, the pronouns that should be used for refer to them, and a pseudonym that they would like to be referred to for research purposes. When a participant did not choose a pseudonym for themselves, I chose a pseudonym for them. For many non-binary people, how one feels about 17 their gender is not static and can change based on any combination of personal, social, political, or other contexts. Non-binary people’s experience of gender does not necessarily lie on a single continuum with femininity on one end and masculinity on the other, as some non-binary people identify as both highly feminine and highly masculine, some neither, and some in-between.

Participants were thus given two scales from 0-100 to indicate femininity and masculinity for both their gender in general and their gender that day, resulting in a total of four gender scales per participant. Only gender ratings based on responses for the day of their participation were considered in the current analysis. See Appendix A for the full questionnaire.

Ethnographic interview

In order to determine what clothing styles exist within the non-binary community in

Columbus, what attributes make up each clothing style, and where each participant fits within this local stylistic landscape, I conducted an ethnographic interview with each participant. The interview began with background questions about growing up and coming out as non-binary, followed by questions about speakers’ conceptions of their gender, non-binary clothing styles they have noticed, and their characterizations of non-binary speech. See Appendix B for full interview guide. Questions were posed in an open-ended style so that participants could provide details in the ways they pleased. Question order differed between some interviews as I followed the flow of conversation by the topics that each interviewee took interest in, and no interview touched upon every question. Each interview lasted between 45 minutes to two hours and was recorded in a comfortably furnished sound-attenuated room on separate channels of a Handy

H4n recorder and with the interviewee wearing a BETA54 Shure headset mic and the interviewer wearing a SM10A Shure headset mic. Speakers were recorded at 44.1 kHz sampling rate.

18 Reading passage

The Rainbow Passage (Fairbanks 1960) was used to gather data for phonetic analysis.

After the interview, participants were given a printed version of the full Rainbow Passage and instructed to read it aloud. This was recorded with the same headset microphone and Handy H4n recorder in the same sound-attenuated room as the interview.

19 Analysis

Phonetic Analysis

Since no participants read the reading passage perfectly word for word, I listened to each

Rainbow Passage recording and added, rearranged, or removed any words or vocalisms in the transcript that differed from the original passage so that the transcript contained only the words said by each participant. I then used Penn FAVE-Align (Rosenfelder, Fruehwald, Evanini, &

Yuan 2011) to time-align words and. Automatic alignments were then hand-corrected to follow the following alignment guidelines. /s/ tokens were delineated as beginning at the onset of frication as characterized by noisy aperiodicity in the waveform and noisy greyness and a lack of dark band structure in the spectrogram. The offset of /s/ tokens was considered the onset of periodicity in the waveform and dark bands in the spectrogram if followed by a vowel or liquid or lack of frication in the waveform and spectrogram if followed by a stop. Vowels tokens were characterized by periodicity in the waveform and dark bands in the spectrogram.

Phonetic analysis was done using Praat (Boersma & Weenink 2019). Each /s/ token was band-pass filtered to retain frequencies between 1000-22050 Hz. /s/ was measured using center of gravity (CoG), a measure of the mean frequency of the fricative, as this is the measure used by previous studies on /s/ production by trans and queer speakers (e.g., Zimman 2017; Hazenberg

2016; Podesva & Van Hofwegen 2016). CoG was measured in a 40 ms Hamming window at the midpoint of each token. /s/ tokens preceded or followed by voiceless fricatives and /z/ were excluded from analysis. Function words such as this and its and words where /s/ was often mispronounced by speakers (e.g., physicists) were also excluded from analysis. Since some speakers omitted or added words in the reading passage, the number of words containing /s/ was not equal for all speakers. Upon checking for outliers beyond three standard deviations from the

20 grand mean, no /s/ measurements were omitted due to measurement error because the distribution of measurements was not affected by removing the single measurement beyond this window. There was an average of 34 /s/ tokens per speaker.

Only vowels with primary stress were included in the f0 analysis. The mean f0 of each token was measured using Praat with time step of 0.01. In order to account for differences in larynx size between speakers based on sex assigned at birth, the f0 range in Praat was set to 50-

300 Hz for AMAB speakers and 125-350 Hz for AFAB speakers. Similar to checking for /s/ outliers, f0 measurements were checked for those beyond two standard deviations from the mean for AFAB and AMAB speakers separately, but no outliers were removed because the distribution remained fairly normal including these outliers. There was an average of 127 f0 tokens per speaker.

See Appendix C for complete list of f0 and /s/ words used for analysis.

Analysis of Styles

In order to consider the relationship between phonetic variable measurements and participant clothing style using statistical models, clothing styles that were described in the interviews were translated into a four-point continuum that took three analytical phases to arrive at.

In Phase I, I noted preliminary clothing styles and characteristics of each as they were articulated by participants in their interviews. See Appendix D for participants’ clothing self- descriptions. The primary dimensions that emerged from this process were the dichotomies of genderless vs. flashy (also called genderfuck) and dressing like vs. opposite of one’s sex assigned at birth. Table 2 shows characteristics of these four styles from Phase I of style coding.

Due to the lack of agreement amongst participants on what constitutes them and the need to

21 account for sex assigned at birth for each of these clothing styles (e.g., presenting “like” one’s sex assigned at birth is different for AFAB and AMAB participants), I did not include the like vs. opposite of one’s sex assigned at birth clothing styles beyond Phase I of the analysis.

presenting like their presenting opposite of coverup/genderless flashy/genderfuck SAB their SAB AFAB present in muted, subdued in cis-passing but not cis stereotypical masc way public eye-catching normal intent to confuse sweatpants makeup not flashy intent to be comfortable avoid statement glittery jeans comfortable loud speech hoodies AFAB: cozy AMAB t shirts clean cut reserved goth femme dress shirts rugged and punky ordinary looking bright colors not "notice me" dull, plain colors minimal colors heels not revealing chill extra not tight pants flannels, hoodies goth no makeup or all makeup AMAB: patterns makeup or lipstick leggings revealing clothing crop tops femme-associated colors Table 2. Indexical markers from participant descriptions of clothing styles noted in Phase I of style coding.

In Phase II, I referred to participants’ descriptions of the clothing they were wearing the day of their interview in order to fit each participant into either the genderless or flashy category.

I found that most participants did not fit perfectly into each reported clothing style; in fact, very 22 few participants’ clothing fit the specific combinations of indexical markers for these clothing styles determined in Phase I of coding. Rather, reported clothing styles are idealized, simplified versions of variable, to-each-their-own patterns of dress. Many participants prefaced their characterization of non-binary styles by saying that non-binary people can look like anything, making it clear that they are not restricting non-binary dress by noting potential clothing styls, showing their resistance to naming patterns that are not common amongst all non-binary people. Since the clothing styles described by participants did not encompass the clothing styles worn by participants, I used them as endpoints on a continuum from genderless to flashy/genderfuck in Phase III.

In Phase III, I abstracted away from the idealized clothing style descriptions given by participants to determine the root of difference amongst the genderless vs. flashy clothing style dichotomy. To do so, I first coded participants that clearly fit within genderless or flashy clothing style and compared them to each other. For example, Desi wore a pink camouflage Ford trucker hat along with a fur coat on the day of their interview, which clearly fit into the flashy style due to the bright colors, patterns, and overall eye-catchingness of their outfit. I compared Desi to

Jacky, who clearly fit in the genderless style because she wore a black long underwear shirt and black sweatpants on the day of her interview and even called her clothing style “genderless.”

Considering the differences between Desi and Jacky’s clothing styles along with participants’ comments on “flashy” non-binary people standing out while “genderless” non-binary people being more subdued, the primary difference between these styles seemed to be about relative visibility as queer, non-binary, and/or eccentric in public. With this new abstracted metric to evaluate participants’ fit in genderless or flashy, I reconsidered how visible participants whose clothing descriptions did not clearly fit within these styles might be in public, non-queer spaces. I

23 made a four-point scale based on visibility, with 1 as low visibility (i.e., genderless) and 4 as high visibility (i.e., flashy/genderfuck) and placed participants on the scale based on the extent to which I saw their clothing as making them stand out as queer, non-binary, and/or eccentric in public. This process included comparing those who were clearly at ends of the spectrum to those who were not. Relative to one another, participants whose styles were unclear in Phase I/II became more understandable when compared to participants whose styles clearly fit within a polar style based on visibility. Some participants mentioned wanted to be “highly visible” or “not

‘look at me,’” and using visibility as a framework for gendered style encompasses speakers whose outward style fit these or in somewhere between to fit into this model of clothing style.

Table 3 details indexical markers that were used to determine inclusion for each score on the visibility scale along with the number of participants in each style.

Visibility Black Black White White Total Indexical markers score AMAB AFAB AMAB AFAB Dark/muted colors; plain clothes 1 (e.g., t-shirt and jeans, button-up and 2 3 2 3 10 jeans); sweatpants and/or sweatshirt Clothes that would be ‘unexpected’ on their body (e.g., a dress or tight 2 top on an AMAB person) but duller 1 1 0 1 3 colors; noted not attempting to stand out; no jewelry or other accessories Combination of feminine and 3 masculine clothing; multiple 0 2 2 1 5 patterns; use of accessories Many different patterns and/or 4 2 0 0 0 2 colors; much jewelry and accessories Table 3. Indexical markers of visibility levels with number of participants in each style.

24 Statistical analysis

Four linear mixed effects models were constructed for analysis: two predicting f0 and two CoG. Since visibility was not evenly distributed amongst each SAB by race demographic cell and there are empty cells, one model included demographics and one visibility to model each linguistic variable. The models that included demographics as predictors began with the three- way interactions between SAB, race, and masculinity, and SAB, race, and femininity. The models that included visibility as a predictor began with the two-way interactions between visibility and femininity and visibility and masculinity. To verify that femininity and masculinity were not correlated for speakers in the study, I ran a simple linear model predicting femininity ratings from masculinity ratings, and there was no significant effect (p = 0.9993, R2 = -0.056), as shown in Figure 1. Since there was no effect, both femininity and masculinity were included in the models. Though femininity and masculinity are not correlated, their interaction was not included in the model because the interaction between these relationships to gender would be unclear to interpret. I also tested the correlation for each pair of predictors in the model using simple linear models, and no other pair of predictors were correlated, so they all were placed in the full model before stepping down.

The models had random intercepts for speaker and word and a random slope of race by word, but all other potential random slopes and their combinations failed to converge for both models. The random effects of preceding and following segment were not included in the models because the random effect for word accounted for the variance of these effects. p-values were calculated using Satterthwaite approximations to degrees of freedom through the lmerTest R package (Kuznetsova, Brockhoff, & Christensen 2014). Contrasts for visibility, SAB, and race were coded as sum contrasts, which compares one level of the predictor to the grand mean. For

25 each model, I stepped down to the smallest model with effects that added significant predictability to the model using log-likelihood tests, testing the full model against the model without each effect in question.

Figure 1. Femininity ratings by masculinity ratings for all speakers.

26 Results & Discussion

/s/ Results

Estimate St. error t-value p-value Intercept 6445.62 444.57 14.50 < 0.001

Race (Black) -324.53 238.15 -1.36 0.188 masculinity 12.70 6.49 1.96 0.065 SAB (AFAB) 641.57 347.29 1.85 0.080 femininity 2.41 5.27 0.46 0.652 race (Black) x masculinity 17.45 6.34 2.75 < 0.05 SAB (AFAB) x femininity -6.65 5.56 -1.18 0.252 Table 4. Linear mixed effects regression model results of demographic predictors for CoG in Hertz. p-values were calculated using Sattherwaite approximations.

The final stepped down model predicting CoG from demographics included the two-way interactions between race and masculinity and between SAB and femininity. Though the SAB x femininity interaction was significant in the log-likelihood comparison (p < 0.05), neither the interaction nor its simple effects were significant in the final model, though SAB was nearly significant (p = 0.08).

Speaker race and masculinity ratings are significantly correlated with CoG as shown in

Figure 2. For Black speakers, as masculinity ratings increase, CoG increases, while CoG is not correlated with masculinity for white speakers. This effect remains when excluding the masculinity outlier amongst the white speakers. The positive correlation between masculinity ratings and CoG for Black speakers is unexpected. Black speakers may be using higher frequency /s/ to perform a specifically Black non-normative masculinity. This may also be in order to counteract the stereotypes of hyperaggression and hypermasculinity that are imposed on

Black people (Hill-Collins 2004), which multiple Black participants commented on in their

27 interviews. Black non-binary speakers may be using higher frequency /s/ to counteract this stereotype, which could also explain why this effect does not hold for white speakers, who do not have hyperaggressive or hypermasculine stereotypes mapped onto them.

Figure 2. CoG by masculinity for Black and white speakers.

Estimate St. error t-value p-value Intercept 7027.70 182.38 38.63 < 0.001 visibility 1 93.46 193.82 0.48 0.635 visibility 2 -576.60 271.87 -2.12 < 0.05 visibility 3 -364.40 230.38 -1.58 0.130 Table 5. Linear mixed effects regression model results of visibility predictor for CoG in Hertz.

The model predicting CoG from visibility only included visibility after the stepping down process. Speakers coded at visibility level 2 produce CoG levels significantly below average. 28 Since there are only three visibility level 2 speakers, this result may overly represent their speech. Figure 3 suggests that visibility 1 AFAB speakers (comprising six out of ten speakers at visibility level 1 and raising the mean f0 for this level) and visibility 4 speakers may be driving the mean up, which could overemphasize the relatively low visibility level 2 mean f0. Without speakers evenly distributed amongst the levels of visibility, interpreting the effects at visibility levels other than level 1 is unclear.

Figure 3. CoG by visibility level.

29 f0 Results

Estimate St. error t-value p-value Intercept 93.89 7.91 11.87 < 0.001 SAB (AFAB) 82.92 6.50 12.75 < 0.001 femininity 0.42 0.11 3.88 < 0.001 Table 6. Linear mixed effects regression model results of demographic predictors for f0 in Hertz.

Table 6 shows the final stepped down f0 model, which includes the main effects of SAB and femininity ratings. No model fit predicting f0 from visibility during the stepping down process, so only the demographics model is reported for f0.

Unlike Jas’ (2018) non-binary speakers in the UK, there is a main effect of sex assigned at birth for the Columbus non-binary speakers, as AMAB speakers produce lower mean f0 than

AFAB speakers, following previous studies that show that speakers whose larynxes exposed to testosterone during puberty produce lower frequencies than those whose larynxes were not (Fitch

& Holbrook 1970; Lee, Potamianos, & Narayanan 1999). Figure 4 shows this effect.

30

Figure 4. Boxplot of f0 by sex assigned at birth.

There was also a significant effect of femininity such that higher femininity ratings result in higher f0 for both AFAB and AMAB speakers. The best-fit line in Figure 5 showing the relationship between f0 and femininity suggests that there is a negative correlation between f0 and femininity, though this is driven by differences in mean f0 between AFAB and AMAB speakers. Though the interaction between SAB and femininity was not included in the model, the main effect of SAB motivates separating speakers by SAB for femininity ratings. Figure 6 shows the effect of femininity on f0 separated by SAB. Higher f0 correlates with higher femininity in line with past studies on f0 and gender (e.g., Munson 2007). This increase in f0 with increase in femininity ratings for people of both sexes assigned at birth replicates the high-low opposition 31 between AFAB and AMAB speakers’ f0 within each of these sexes assigned at birth. In other words, we see the tendency that bodies who are socially ascribed more femininity (AFAB speakers) produce higher average f0 than bodies who are ascribed less femininity (AMAB speakers) occur on another scale: more feminine speakers produce higher average f0 than less feminine speakers within each sex assigned at birth. f0 can be used as a gendered resource beyond physiological differences.

Figure 5. f0 by femininity.

32

Figure 6. f0 by femininity ratings with sex assigned at birth.

33 Conclusion

In line with their alignment towards non-normative gender, non-binary speakers’ use of sociolinguistic variables does not necessarily pattern distinctly towards or away from cisgender speakers (as suggested by Gratton (2016)). Notably, cisgender and non-binary speakers use different resources to index femininity, with cisgender speakers in previous studies showing a positive correlation between /s/ CoG and femininity (e.g., Campbell-Kibler 2011) and between f0 and femininity (e.g., Munson 2007), while non-binary speakers in the current study instead use only higher f0 to index femininity. This suggests that non-binary speakers selectively use some linguistic resources and not others to perform gendered speech styles.

The variation in phonetic variable productions amongst non-binary speakers in the current study corresponds to previous studies on /s/ and social goals. Hazenburg (2016) found that one’s /s/ production reflects their self-identified gender more than it does the physiology of their body, which is reflected in how neither SAB nor race alone significantly affect /s/ production for non-binary speakers. This finding also corresponds to Stuart-Smith’s (2007) finding that other social aspects may be at play beyond the physiology of the body in /s/ production. The overall variation amongst speakers, especially the lack of effect of SAB on /s/, supports the idea that non-binary talkers may not produce phonetic variables parallel to one another due to their different social goals, as suggested by Kirtley (2015), Zimman (2017), and

Jas (2018). It is unclear what goals participants shared in the portions of their speech that were used for analysis. In the current study, the phonetic variables were extracted from read speech, which is more controlled than conversational speech (Labov 1966). As stated by Kirtley (2015),

“participants might use one particular feature in two very different contexts for different purposes, exploiting its abstract social meaning in different ways such that its specific meaning

34 becomes apparent in use, and it in turn adds to the interaction once its meaning is apparent” (pp.

208). In the context of a reading passage, it is not clear what social meaning(s) each speaker is working towards, limiting the extent to which we can understand how speakers are using particular realizations of phonetic variables to construct styles since styles rely on context.

Though limited in the number of speakers under study, Kirtley (2015) and Gratton (2016) built interactional context into their methods, which allowed for a better understanding of speakers’ attempted social meanings in each context. Future study of non-binary speech should account for the interactional goals and context under study.

Black non-binary speakers make use of linguistic variables differently than their white counterparts, reflecting social pressures that they face. The Black non-binary speakers in this study show that linguistic resources that are generally characterized as feminine, such as high /s/

CoG, may be incorporated into masculine styles in order to perform gender in a way that does not conform to normative binary expectations. Through bricolage, Black non-binary speakers use high frequency /s/ productions in a self-described masculine context to construct non-binary styles that simultaneously refer to and distance themselves from the normative femininity that they pull from. This follows the idea suggested by Zimman (2017) and Calder (forthcoming) that high /s/ production can be recontextualized by trans people and people with non-normative gender expression to express non-normative stances towards femininity and/or masculinity. The way that Black non-binary speakers distance themselves from normative phonetic expressions of gender (i.e., high /s/ = high femininity; low /s/ = high masculinity) further supports that race is key in understanding the context under which styles are made coherent, following Pharao et al.

(2014). These results suggest that we need to center racialized speakers in our investigations into

35 gender and style since race influences gender expression and vice versa, as suggested by

Crenshaw (1989).

Considering clothing style as related to participants’ visibility as queer/non-binary in public provided needed insight into style beyond simply relationships to the “feminine” or

“masculine.” Designing a metric of gendered style as described by non-binary people themselves such as queer/non-binary visibility is one attempt at framing gender beyond the limits of femininity and masculinity, though it does not fully encompass participants’ experiences of gender. Since visibility did not have a clear pattern of effects on /s/ nor f0, though, coding clothing style as a spectrum of visibility does not appear to fully encapsulate the variation amongst the clothing that non-binary participants wear. The inconsistent results for /s/ and f0 regarding visibility may also have to do with the circumstances under which participants were interviewed: since it was the middle of Midwestern winter and people were coming in for an interview with a friend/acquaintance, they were not all dressed in what they prefer to wear, and many were wearing sweatpants for warmth. Multiple participants mentioned that themselves and/or other non-binary people dress more genderless when in public but may dress full-on genderfuck when going out to queer dance parties, further suggesting that they may not have been wearing clothing that best represents their relationship with their non-binary gender.

Additionally, since not every clothing style was exhibited by each SAB by race demographic group, determining the extent to which significance in the models reflects variation beyond the few people in each demographic group is not straightforward. Upcoming production studies of non-binary, racialized speakers must seek to gather more balanced samples of the populations in order to make clearer conclusions about gender, race, and clothing style, in addition to querying participants on their relationship to the gender visibility continuum.

36 Future study of non-binary style would benefit from collecting more information about participants, including their sexuality, socioeconomic status, and other information that may affect speakers’ use of the phonetic variables at hand. Moving forward, we can ask questions about how non-binary speech functions in perception. For example, do speakers perceive Black non-binary speakers as more masculine than white speakers, and how is this modulated by /s/ production? How does a listener’s proximity to non-binary speakers affect their perception of non-binary speech? This study adds to our understanding of /s/ and gender, especially amongst trans speakers and those who orient themselves away from normative gender, and it is just one drop of water in the vast ocean that the study of non-binary speech can open up to sociolinguistics.

37 References

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40

Appendix A: Gender questionnaire

What pronouns do you use? ______

What sex were you assigned at birth? (please circle)

Assigned female at birth Assigned male at birth Other

When reporting on this study, we will not use your name to keep your identity safe. Instead, we will use a pseudonym (a fake name) for you. Is there any pseudonym that you would like us to use to refer to you? (leave blank if you have no preference)

______

Select the range or a location on the scales below to position(s) that best describe your gender overall.

Feminine 0%------100%

Masculine 0%------100%

Select the range or location on the scales below to position(s) that best describe your gender today.

Feminine 0%------100%

Masculine 0%------100%

We’re interested in who knows who in the non-binary community.

Please list all of the non-binary people you know in the Columbus area. Additionally, circle those who you have interacted with 5 or more times in the past month, and specify the event(s)/group(s)/occasion(s) where you have interacted with them. We will not disclose the identities of the people you list and we will not contact them. This information is for study purposes only, and will not be disseminated or tied to you or the people you list in any way.

______41

______

______

______

______

______

______

We are also interested in what you are involved in in Columbus. What are some events and types of events that you have attended in the past 3 months, and what groups/organizations have you attended meetings of in the past 3 months? For example, open mics, monthly parties, other types of events, art collectives, etc.

______

______

______

______

______

______

42 Appendix B: Interview Guide

Growing up -Tell me a little about growing up. -Where did you grow up? What was it like there? -What was your first language? -Can you tell me a little bit about your experiences as a queer/non-binary person growing up? -What is your highest form of education that your parents finished? -What pronouns do you currently use?

Columbus -How long have you lived in Columbus? -Can you tell me a little bit about Columbus? -What do you like about Columbus? What don’t you like? -Where do you live in the city? Why do you live there? -What’s your favorite part of town? Least favorite part of town? Why?

Work -What do you do for a living? -What do you like about your job? What don’t you like about it?

Activities and friends -What do you do for fun? -Can you tell me about some places you go to often? What do you do there? Why do you go there? -What are your friends like? Are they mostly queer/non-binary folks? About how often do you think you talk/hang out with non-binary vs. binary folks? -If you hang out with mostly queer/non-binary folks, why do you do so?

Coming out -When did you figure out that you were non-binary? How old were you? What was that like? -How did you figure out you were non-binary? Tell me about your process. -What was/is it like coming out to others? Was/is it difficult? Why or why not? -Who are you out to? Who are you not out to? Why or why not?

Columbus queer community -Tell me about the queer community in Columbus. -Tell me about the non-binary community in Columbus. -Are you active in the non-binary/queer community here in Columbus? Why or why not? If so, what activities do you do as part of the community? -What kinds of non-binary/queer events happen around Columbus? What are they like? Do you attend them? Why or why not? -What’s it like to be part of the non-binary/queer community here? - Imagine someone just moved to Columbus. What would you tell them about the Columbus non-binary and/or queer community? What are the scenes?

43 -What are the biggest issue(s) in the non-binary community now, if any? Why?

Personal gender identity -Describe your usual gender. -What’s your gender like today? -Describe what being non-binary means to you. -Would describe yourself in terms of masculine or feminine? Or not at all? (How) did you fit in the gender slider questionnaire? -Do you think of non-binary as a gender? Why or why not? -Do you think of yourself as queer? Is this because you’re non-binary or because of something else? Why or why not? -Tell me about the clothes you’re wearing today. -How would you describe your presentation today? -Do you think of clothing as gendered? Why or why not? -Is the clothing you wear gendered? -Tell me about clothing: do you see it as gendered? Does your view of clothing differ for you personally compared to how you see others (or socially)? -How do your gender identity and your gender expression relate to each other? Do they? -What race(s) do you identify as? -Do you think your race has to do with you being non-binary? How so? -Do you see yourself connected to people based on race and non-binaryness? How so?

Non-binary community and gender -How can you tell if someone’s non-binary? -What does a typical non-binary person look like? Dress like? Talk like? Sound like? -What is the prevailing stereotype(s) of non-binary people? Do you think you fit that stereotype? Why or why not? -Can you tell me about the different “types” or styles of non-binary people? -What different clothing styles do non-binary people wear? Describe them. - If you mentioned different types of non-binary people, do these groups have different ways of speaking? What are they? -Are you yourself a certain “type” or style of non-binary? Are there any words/labels that you might use to describe yourself? -Are there agreed upon "rules" of being non-binary? What are they? If not, why not? -Can you tell me the difference between non-binary and binary people? How are they different? -Are there things that you feel like non-binary people do differently than binary people? Why or why not? -Do you think there is a “non-binary-dar?” If so, what do you think are cues that might help people identify non-binary people? -How good do you think your “non-binary-dar” is? Can you tell me any stories about your ability to detect other non-binary people? How could you tell they were non-binary? -Do you think you set off other people’s “non-binary-dar” a lot? Do you have any stories about this? - Have you ever gone to another city and met non-binary people? What were they like? How were they different than non-binary people you know in Columbus?

44

Speech -Are there different ways of talking that you’ve seen around here? Can you describe some that you’ve heard? -What does it mean to “sound” non-binary? -Thinking of your non-binary friends: do you think the majority sound non-binary? Why or why not? How do you feel about that? -If you were to listen to someone who sounded really non-binary, how would you be able to tell? (i.e. what about the way they say a sentence makes them sound non-binary?) -When you think about your gender, do you think about the way you speak? -Do you think you sound non-binary? Why or why not? How do you feel about that? -How do you feel about your voice or the way you speak? -What do other people think about the way you speak? Have you ever been told you sound a certain way, such as like a man, woman, etc.? How did it make you feel? -Do you talk differently around different people? If yes, how so? -Is there a time in your life when you purposely changed the way you speak? Why? What did you do? Do you think it "worked"? -Have you changed your voice to be more non-binary? Why and how? -If you were to change your voice to sound more how you’d want it, what would you change exactly and how? -Do you know others who have? What did they do? How do you feel about that? -Have you ever tried to chance your pitch, or lowness of your voice? - Do you think of speech as gendered? What kind of speech is masculine? What kind is feminine? -Do you notice that binary people use different words than non-binary people? -Do you notice that binary people pronounce things differently? -Are there certain slang/words that are common for non-binary people?

45 Appendix C: /s/ and f0 Word Lists

/s/ words for analysis

sunlight explain strikes Aristotle raindrops sun's something since centuries raindrops explained difference various considerably some size accepted drops explanation increases universal size Greeks drops sign increases Norsemen super-imposition considered second passed first sky since

f0 words for analysis

sunlight people Greeks refraction green strikes look used raindrops first raindrops ever imagine causes result air finds sign rainbows give act man gods complicated bow prism looks foretell ideas abnormally form something war rainbow wide rainbow beyond heavy formed yellow rainbow reach rain difference band division friends Norsemen rainbow red white say considered depends green light looking rainbow considerably light many pot bridge size mixed beautiful gold gods drops form colors end passed width yellow take rainbow earth colored very shape centuries home band common long people sky increases type round explained Others size bow 46 path rainbow tried drops showing high various explain actual mainly above ways phenomenon primary red two accepted physically rainbow yellow ends miracle Aristotle observed little apparently physical thought said no beyond explanation rainbow effect green horizon Hebrews caused super-imposition blue according token reflection number legend be sun's bows pot no rays red gold more rain second one universal found bow end floods reflection falls

47 Appendix D: Participants’ Visibility Scores and Self-Descriptions of Their Clothing on the Day of Their Interview

Descriptions in participants’ words are in italic, and non-italicized words are my paraphrases of their descriptions or notes about their clothing on the day of their interview.

SAB Race Visibility Clothing self-description (1=low, Pseudonym 4=high) Alexis AMAB Black 2 jeggings, cream colored jacket, and pink hoodie Desi AMAB Black 4 pink Ford camo hat, fur coat AMAB Black comfortable, distinctly queer: black skinny jean leggings, grey sweatpants over, black hoodie over Apollo 1 pink hoodie AMAB Black super comfortable @@ uh.. i got on uh doc martens, doc martens is my favorite brand, i love these boots, uh. yeah, some doc martens. i like colorful socks or: you know design, patterned socks. these aren't too intricate, but those are my socks. some joggers... my adidas uh shirt and my uh.. i call this a new york fuckboy jacket, cuz it has the orange inside. i think they wear that up there a lot, so.. that's my adidas shirt, and my new york fuckboy Brock 1 jacket. oh it's definitely masculine. AMAB Black girl's pants w a weird (.) red, pinkish salmon looking color with leopard prints in some spots and gold leaf and gold chains all over it, or printed on it, a gold and black jacket with flowers all over it, black and pink nikes, It is a Final Fantasy shirt. It says black magic in purple and pink letters and a black mage throwing a fire spell cause (.) nerd shit., fake gold chain that he likes cuz it's sparkly, quartz necklace, gold nametag w anime character's name on it, nail Kali 4 polish AFAB Black The clothes I'm wearing today are um, depression clothes. It's basically like, the closest I can get to like Ruth 1 wearing pajamas in public; comfortable AFAB Black coverup type; only black; reserved, cozy, flannel Jake 1 hoodie ripped jeans AFAB Black I'm wearing a plaid button-down! shirt, it's like dark grey and white (.) under black overalls. ..Um there are some legging grey dark grey leggings underneath the overalls. ..That you can see between..The cuff! of my overalls and my high socks..That are dark blue. ..I'm wearing...Black, lace Wilson 3 up combat boots..They're like..Docs but a different 48 brand. ...Chelsea Docs. ....Yeah and then a single earring (TONGUE CLICK) had on blue lipstick earlier...No eyebrows which is unusual for me these days... AFAB Black I stole one of my dads cosby sweaters but it shrunk in the dryer so now it's a sweater crop top. I'm wearing a long um... colorful skirt. It's got.. red, green, peach and purple floral? type design thingys, black and gold leggins, red Doc Martens and a My Chemical Romance hoodie from my 15th birthday, a Mike 3 choker that my partners got me AFAB Black I'm wearing men's jeans they are a dark denim with the ends cuffed I'm wearing red converse um a white tshirt crew neck and a red north face jacket J 1 um, I also had on a black beanie AMAB White i'm... wearing.. mostly black. i'm wearing black combat boots and black, um.. uh sweatpants, and kind of a grey-black shirt, and a blue choker, and a: black uh.. little thing around my wrist, and i was wearing a: light blue hat and light blue jacket, before Saoirse 1 the interview AMAB White gray sweater with a blue well- .. multicolored shirt but you can see like a blue colar and then .. kinda green it's like green jeans .. forest green. and rain Bradie 3 boots black rain boots. with black socks AMAB White turtle neck, big gold hoop earrings (huge and swing Suze 3 when shake head), black combat boots AMAB White my clothing today is mostly: um... for: functionality and.. warmth, uh; this like, long sleeve waffle shirt Jacky 1 thing, sweatpants AMAB White Clarks boots because cold, warm socks, Uniqlo heat resistant tights/leggings, pleated skirt, 90s turtleneck Christy 2 striped shirt, piggy buns AFAB White blue and white button down, men’s pants, leather Jame 1 men’s shoes AFAB White the pants, they're wool! pants. that're black with a white grid on it. uh, they're high-waisted and pleated.. i'm wearing.. mismatched white socks.. because they're the- basically the only clean socks i have left becuase our dryer's broken; i'm wearing.. a.. red.. belt.. that i got from.. goodwill; i'm wearing... my favorite coa:t, that i wear all the ti:me, that's red and blue:.. together. and i guess that's like... pretty.. oh my gosh, red and blue! pink and blue:! @@ Louise 3 woah:! it's like both of the genders together!! i'm

49 wearing this shirt, tha:t, i ma:de. it says flying lotus on it? AFAB White wears a lot of black bc darker colors are more neutral; I am wearing these pants that are like kind of @sweatpants but not, docs, I am wearing a colored shirt that I also got from the teenage boys department and then I am wearing a sweatshirt that I cut off the bottom uh so that it doesn't cling to me um and I am wearing these funny argyle socks that I K 1 stole from my brother AFAB White striped sweater, black jeans, black boots (not Sawyer 2 particularly feminine in their look that day) AFAB White jeans, grey scoop neck sweater, leather boots, Hannelore 1 beanie hat

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