What the voice tells us about interpersonal safety: The utilisation of speech strategies by gender non-comforming speakers

While navigating our daily lives, we all experience the feeling of having different personalities suited for different contexts. We change our behaviours to subtly express our sense of self and our relationships with those around us e.g., speaking differently to

grandparents versus friends. Instead of explicitly voicing how we feel, we often convey this through the way we sound. Our voices, often overlooked, play a critical role in displaying emotion, identity, and relationships. Historically, research on vocal expression has focused on binary gender categories overlooking vocal diversity. As a community that constantly redefines norms to align with their identity, queer people frequently find themselves in spaces where their queerness is scrutinised. Recent studies have increasingly focused on how they use vocal modulation to express identity in non-normative ways, but the role of interpersonal safety remains underexplored. For gender non-conforming individuals, vocal modulation becomes a strategy for navigating hostile environments while maintaining authenticity. These adaptations emphasise the voice’s role as a tool for

negotiating identity.