How Gender Identity and Transgender Status Affect Perceptions of Attractiveness

Abstract

Can a perceiver’s belief about a target’s transgender status (distinct from gender nonconforming appearance) affect perceptions of the target’s attractiveness? Cisgender, heterosexual men and women ( N = 319) received randomly assigned labels (cisgender cross-gender, transgender man, transgender woman, or nonbinary) paired with 48 cross-sex targets represented by photos and rated the attractiveness and related characteristics of those targets. The gender identity labels had a strong, pervasive effect on ratings of attraction. Nonbinary and especially transgender targets were perceived as less attractive than cisgender targets. The effect was particularly strong for male perceivers, and for women with traditional gender attitudes. Sexual and romantic attraction are not driven solely by sexed appearance; information about gender identity and transgender status also influences these assessments. These results have important implications for theoretical models of sexual orientation and for the dating lives of transgender people.

Gender essentialism and the mental representation of transgender women and men: A multimethod investigation of stereotype content

“…Both bigendering and de-gendering imply that transgender women and men will be perceived to be similar in their gendered qualities (cf. Howansky et al, 2019Howansky et al, , 2020Mao et al, 2019;Wittlin et al, 2018), but they differ in expecting the common profile applied to transgender groups to be either relatively androgynous or relatively neutral in gendered content. These different ways in which transgender women and men might be gender stereotyped suggest that stereotypes of transgender groups will show less consensus than those of cisgender groups.…”

The role of language, appearance, and voice in the social perception of nonbinary individuals.

“…In turn, those studies that do address the issue of perception of, specifically, nonbinary people tend to limit it to only the label “nonbinary person” (e.g., Mao et al, 2019), without considering the socially recognizable signals of nonbinary identification, such as linguistic forms. In consequence, they explore the social perception of the label “nonbinary person” rather than the social perception of the individual who cannot be spontaneously classified into traditional gender categories.…”

Sexual orientation as a contextual frame for attractiveness judgments.

“…Not only do physically attractive people enjoy more romantic and sexual opportunities (Finkel & Eastwick, 2008; Luo & Zhang, 2009), but they also earn up to 13% more money (Hamermesh & Biddle, 1993) and even live longer (Henderson & Anglin, 2003). This powerful attractiveness halo (Dion et al, 1972; Langlois et al, 2000) often favors dominant groups, assigning higher appraisals of attractiveness to physical attributes associated with dominant social groups (e.g., White people, cisgender people), or even to individuals merely believed to belong to these groups (Mao et al, 2019; Ryabov, 2019; Swami et al, 2013). People therefore appear to partly learn what their culture values as attractive and confer greater benefits to these high-status persons.…”