Effects of Biological Determinism on Beliefs and Attitudes About Transgender People: Psychological Essentialism and Biased Assimilation

Growing up in a rural area, social support, and internalized transphobia: Understanding Appalachian transgender mental and physical health.

“…Numerous researchers have applied Meyer’s (2003) model of minority stress, which posits that distal and proximal stressors related to one’s sexual minority status contribute to negative mental health outcomes, to gender minority populations (e.g., Griffin et al, 2019; Hendricks & Testa, 2012; Lefevor et al, 2019; McLemore, 2018; Testa et al, 2015). Overall, research suggests that people hold moderate to negative attitudes toward transgender people (Anderson, 2022; Clark & Hughto, 2020; Norton & Herek, 2013), and those negative attitudes may be rooted in beliefs such as gender essentialism (Ching & Chen, 2022; Gallagher & Bodenhausen, 2021; Worthen, 2022), religiosity (Gegenfurtner, 2021; Norton & Herek, 2013), and political conservatism (Billard, 2018; Gegenfurtner, 2021; Molin et al, 2021; Norton & Herek, 2013; Perez-Arche & Miller, 2021). Though sexual and gender minority people and women generally report more positive attitudes toward transgender people (Anderson, 2022; Billard, 2018; Gegenfurtner, 2021; Norton & Herek, 2013; Perez-Arche & Miller, 2021), there is a current uptick in trans-exclusionary ideology in some queer spaces, especially with cisgender lesbian women (Worthen, 2022).…”

Genetic Association Studies in Transgender Cohorts: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

“…Given the nature of complex traits, it is extremely unlikely that a single marker will ever be able to differentiate transgender and cisgender individuals; indeed, in this study, many cisgender men possessed the marker that was overrepresented in transgender women. On the contrary, demonstrating certain markers are overrepresented in people who experience GI could contribute to the de-stigmatisation of transgender identities in the eyes of the public, as several studies suggest that biological views of transgender identities are associated with positive attitudes towards transgender people, whilst the view that transgender identities are environmentally caused are associated with negative attitudes (Bowers & Whitley, 2020;Brown et al, 2017;Campbell et al, 2019;Ching & Chen, 2022;Elischberger et al, 2016Elischberger et al, , 2018Greenburg & Gaia, 2019;Landén & Innala, 2000;Rad et al, 2019;Woodford et al, 2012). Additionally, studying the underlying genetics of gender identity may promote understanding transgender identities as representing natural human variation, rather than reinforcing a binary sense of gender.…”

Epistemological Deviant, Epistemic Abjection and Lost Opportunities: A Case Study of a Muslim Trans Intersex Student’s Othering and Dehumanisation in an Indian Science Classroom

“…This is demonstrative of how biological classrooms invisibilise intersex bodies and the experiences of intersex individuals despite overwhelming evidence from biological research that points towards a non-binary reality of ‘biological sex’ (Fausto-Sterling, 2012). Thus, in contradiction to biological essentialism through which biology marginalises trans individuals (Ching & Chen, 2022), what is happening here is a dissociation of the ‘normal’ sex from the ‘biological sex’. An intersex variation is indeed a biological sex, but in the paradigm and imagination of the teacher, it is not a ‘normal’ sex.…”