Queer inclusion in speech datasets: An audit and taxonomy of practical tensions

In this paper, we motivate the need for a participatory speech dataset creation framework through a case study of the LGBTQIA+, or queer, community - a community with documented concerns about AI and reported harms, including attempts to develop 'gaydar' technologies that purportedly identify individuals as queer. We review common speech data collection practices, why these methods may be unsuitable for engaging with queer speakers, and discuss previous efforts in participatory AI with queer community engagement, as well as participatory endeavours specific to speech data collection for other marginalized communities. From this review, we develop a conceptual framework for participatory speech data curation by, for, and with marginalized communities drawing on insights from co-design and knowledge sharing. We propose a framework comprising overlapping and two-way processes of defining a community, project formulation, modes of participation, and personal autonomy.

Despite its cultural relevance and diffusion, queer slang remains underrepresented in Natural Language Processing research. Towards addressing this gap, we introduce Slang-Q, a manually curated dataset of naturally user-generated English sentences paired with queer slang terms and reference definitions, built upon a newly constructed taxonomy of 118 queer terms. We use this resource to conduct a first exploratory evaluation of language models on their ability to understand and define queer slang under varying prompting conditions. Slang-Q is intended as a basis for studying how current models handle sensitive, community-specific language and whether they can provide accurate and reliable information about such forms of identity and linguistic expression.

Speech technology penalizes some voices: recognition errs nearly twice as often for Black speakers, and accuracy declines for second-language accents and older speakers. We introduce TRIAD, an audit grid crossing 120 texts, 24 rendered demographic voice profiles (gender, age band, accent), and ten expressive styles via controllable text-to-speech, isolating perceived demographic attributes from content and affect. For ten open-weights encoders we define axis-fidelity functionals, principal-angle leakage between axis subspaces, and group-conditional gaps; a proposition proves that average probe disparity grows with the same aggregate voice-semantic leakage $Λ$ we measure, and a corollary shows that peak leakage forces worst-case disparity inside an active region. The measured mean-square probe disparity tracks $Λ$ (Pearson r = 0.93), and a black-box protocol exposes the same signature in two closed-source models. ORCA, an adapter combining axis-specific contrastive heads, an orthogonality penalty, and group-balanced sampling, cuts leakage 72% and roughly halves the gaps.