Gender Essentialism and the Mental Representation of Transgender Women and Men: A Multimethod Investigation of Stereotype Content

Abstract

Social category systems – such as nationality, class, and gender – are constantly shifting. How are emergent social groups, which had previously not been societally recognized, mentally represented alongside more established groups? The growing visibility of transgender women and men in the US is an opportunity to observe this sort of cultural shift. Across three diverse methods of stereotype measurement, we assessed characteristics associated with transgender women and men and compared them to the stereotypes of their more traditional (cisgender) counterparts. In our final study, we directly assessed how people mentally position transgender groups relative to culturally well-established cisgender groups. Across these four studies, we show that mental representations of emergent gender groups are highly idiosyncratic, such that some participants extended same-gender-identity stereotypes to transgender groups (e.g., stereotyping transgender women as feminine), while others extended same-sex-assigned-at-birth stereotypes to transgender groups (e.g., stereotyping transgender women as masculine). Moreover, these differences were substantially explained by endorsement of gender essentialist beliefs.

Sexual Orientation and Race Intersectionally Reduce the Perceived Gendered Nature of Normative Stereotypes in the United States

“…Across both sexual orientation and race, being part of a non-prototypical group had more influence on people's prescriptions than being a particular gender; people didn't desire gay, Black, Asian, Latino, and Middle-Eastern men and women to act as differently from one another as they desired straight and White men and women to act. Unpublished research on representations of transgender men and women have found a similar lack of gender differentiation within nonprototypical targets (Gallagher & Bodenhausen, 2021), a phenomenon they label as "degendering". Other work has also found that global stereotypes around competence and warmth for Black men and women show more similarity than the same stereotypes between White men and women (Coles & Pasek, 2020), further supporting the conclusion that gender differentiation is muted within non-prototypical groups.…”

Sexual Orientation and Race Intersectionally Reduce the Perceived Gendered Nature of Normative Stereotypes in the United States

“…This implies that the normative pressures on minoritized groups fluctuate depending upon which aspect of their identity is foregrounded. Research on representations of transgender men and women has found a similar lack of gender differentiation within minoritized targets (Gallagher & Bodenhausen, 2021), a phenomenon they label as "de-gendering." Other work has also found that global stereotypes around competence and warmth for Black men and women show more similarity than the same stereotypes between White men and women (Coles & Pasek, 2020), further supporting the conclusion that gender differentiation is reduced within minoritized groups.…”

Psychological essentialism and the structure of concepts

“…(2010), Yzerbyt, Corneille, and Estrada (2001), Pauker et al. (2016), and Gallagher and Bodenhausen (2021) for findings that support a positive relationship between essentialism and stereotyping. See Ritchie and Knobe (2020) and Bailey and Knobe (2021) for alternative views.…”