NONBINARY PRONOUNS USAGE ACCEPTABILITY AND ATTITUDES Laura Hekanaho

NONBINARY PRONOUNS: USAGE, ACCEPTABILITY AND ATTITUDES Laura Hekanaho laura. hekanaho@helsinki. fi https: //pronounblogger. wordpress. com/ Humanistinen tiedekunta 07/2018 1

Nonbinary pronouns • Nonbinary pronouns are used to refer to individuals who do not identify (exclusively) as female or male, and do not wish to be referred to as a he or a she • Nonbinary they • Lee likes their coffee black. • Neopronouns, e. g. ze • Chris likes zir coffee black. Humanistinen tiedekunta 2

Participants • Online survey, 1128 participants • 54% male, 36% female, 9% transgender, including 79 nonbinary participants • Age range 18 -80, mean 29, median 26 • 75% have university level education • 82% identify as politically liberal Humanistinen tiedekunta The Swedish hen 3

Usage, acceptability and attitudes • Which pronouns do the nonbinary participants use? • What do the participants think about nonbinary pronouns? • Acceptability (quantitative data) • Attitudes (qualitative data) Humanistinen tiedekunta 4

Usage (72 nonbinary participants) Which pronouns do you want people to use when referring to you? • They the most commonly used pronoun • 36 participants (50%) listed they as their only pronoun • 59 participants (82%) listed they as a suitable alternative • 10 participants listed neopronouns: ze, xe, e, ae, ey, zhe • Only 5 nonbinary participants used only he or she • 3 participants listed it as a suitable pronoun Humanistinen tiedekunta 5

Acceptability of nonbinary pronouns (n=1128) ”Have you met Chris? They work(s) at the local store. ” ”Lee has decided to get a cat. Ze already has a dog. ” Humanistinen tiedekunta

Logistic regression • Logistic regression: which variables help explain variation? (Or: which variables help predict the outcome of the dependent variable) • Odds ratios: comparing the odds of viewing nonbinary pronouns as unacceptable between two groups • Two models: one for they (unmarked verb forms), one for ze Humanistinen tiedekunta

Logistic regression: Unacceptability of nonbinary they (1) From youngest to oldest, 22%, 28%, 38%, 49% and 55% of each of the age groups found they unacceptable 40% of male, 27% of female, and 3% of transgender participants found they unacceptable Humanistinen tiedekunta 8

Logistic regression: Unacceptability of nonbinary they (2) 57% of 29%24% of native and conservative and of those with, 41% and 44% of those 28%of ofnon-native liberal with no friends speakers oftrans English participants or acquaintances found theyas viewed they found they unacceptable *modified scale from Walch et al. , 2012 **modified scale from Parks and Roberton, 2000 both are sum variables, scale 1 -5 Humanistinen tiedekunta 9

Logistic regression: Unacceptability of nonbinary ze (1) 78% of male, 46% of female, and 4% of transgender participants found ze unacceptable Humanistinen tiedekunta 10

Logistic regression: Unacceptability of nonbinary ze (2) 54% of the participants familiar with neopronouns and 76% of the participants 51% of LGBT/allies unfamiliar with and 93% of neopronouns found ze participants not part unacceptable of LGBT/allies found ze unacceptable Humanistinen tiedekunta 11

Attitudes • Optional open answer questions: What is your view on X? • Nonbinary they 423 responses (~9400 words) • Neopronouns 590 (~15900 words) • Thematic analysis of the results (+corpus methods) Humanistinen tiedekunta 12

"Sounds a bit odd" "They refers to a group“ "Sounds weird" "they is not singular“ "Seems confusing as to my knowledge this would reference a group of people" "People should be able to choose their preferred pronouns" "Awkward and stilted" "This can be really confusing" "This is always confusing and makes it feel like there are multiple people in question" Humanistinen tiedekunta "Sounds confusing and grammatically incorrect" there are only two genders

uncommon unusual not real pronouns artificial “These are not part of the official language” "Very few understand those words and they feel alien" weird awkward ridiculous odd stupid alien "If this is how someone wishes to be referred to, it's not my place to object" Humanistinen tiedekunta there are only two genders we don't need neopronouns because we have singular they who is ze or xe?

To sum up… • nonbinary the most used nonbinary pronoun • nonbinary they found acceptable by more participants than neopronouns • gender effect on acceptability: more males than females find nonbinary pronouns unacceptable, transgender individuals in general accept nonbinary pronouns • participants expressed various attitudes – negative attitudes explained by novelty and unfamiliarity? • they to become the standard nonbinary pronoun? Humanistinen tiedekunta 15

References • Parks, Janet & Roberton, Mary Ann (2000). Development and Validation of an Instrument to Measure Attitudes Toward Sexist/Nonsexist Language. Sex Roles, vol. 42, no. 5, pp. 415 -438. • Walch, Susan; Ngamake, Sakkaphat; Francisco, Jacquelyn; Stitt, Rashunda & Shingler, Kimberly (2012). The Attitudes Toward Transgendered Individuals Scale: Psychometric Properties. Archives of Sexual Behavior, vol. 41, no. 5, pp. 1283 -91. • More info on my project: https: //pronounblogger. wordpress. com/ Humanistinen tiedekunta 16