Gender Roles, Masculinity, and Support for Transgender Rights

Prejudice against transgender people is often linked to traditional or even toxic conceptualizations of gender and gender identity and particularly to norms and expression of masculinity. Attitudes toward transgender people and rights are deeply divided by gender, with lower levels of support among men, and also by attitudes about traditional gender roles. Two experiments provide evidence that among men, threats to masculinity generate greater opposition to transgender people and rights while reassurances of masculinity generate greater support, particularly for support of transgender military service. Consistent with expectations, women who are exposed to information threatening or reassuring them of their femininity tend not to be affected.

Just a Little Bit of History Repeating

Recent vocal and vociferous anti-transgender messages parallel historical attacks aimed at gay men and lesbians throughout the 20th century. Back then, many people described gay and lesbian people as pedophiles, sexual deviants, unnatural, or mentally ill. Both historically and today, opponents to transgender equality often call into question the legitimacy of transgender identity, dismissing transgender people as predatory, deviant, a threat to the natural order, or mentally ill. While there are parallels between public opinion toward gay men and lesbians then and transgender people today, this chapter discusses three significant differences: the nature and structure of public opinion, the role of media portrayals, and the impact of interpersonal contact with outgroups. The chapter addresses each in turn, describing how the past, present, and future of transgender rights differ from those of rights for gay men and lesbians.

Identity Reassurance Theory

Many Americans are uncomfortable with transgender people and rights, and changing those attitudes requires a new approach. This chapter describes Identity Reassurance Theory, a method of helping targets of persuasion shift their attitudes to better align with their preexisting senses of themselves as moral human beings. The chapter also includes key definitions and background about public opinion about various sexual orientations and gender identities, including differences in attitudes toward transgender men and women in different scenarios and environments. Other data explore levels of and predictors of attitudes toward transgender people and rights.

Transforming Prejudice From the Inside Out

The experiments presented in this book chart a path to greater comfort with and support for transgender people using Identity Reassurance Theory. The factors that drove rapid and widespread attitude change toward gay and lesbian people are simply not available to transgender people. They are a very small portion of the population and there are few (albeit increasing) positively portrayed transgender people in the media. Transgender people represent a challenge to the gender binary and can threaten men’s sense of masculinity. That said, attitudes are changing and many people are still forming their opinions. Widespread discrimination and violence are negatively affecting the lives of transgender people and there is an urgent need for shifts in public opinion and public policy. Messaging that incorporates Identity Reassurance Theory can help to generate those shifts and save the lives of vulnerable transgender people.

Finding the Path to Attitude Change on Transgender Rights

Access to public restrooms and transgender people serving openly in the U.S. military are the two most visible public issues related to transgender rights in recent American history. This chapter describes several randomized public opinion experiments testing how to increase public support for those policies. One experiment finds that framing transgender bathroom access as about freedom or safety does little to increase support for transgender bathroom access rights; although consistent with opposition advertising campaigns, those frames can generate significant decreases in support. Elite cues and framing of the military service issue as about equality and integrity show more promise in increasing support for transgender rights. The studies in this chapter serve as the core of Identity Reassurance Theory and its central tenets about bolstering self-esteem and finding the optimal messaging strategy to mitigate emotional reactions.

Feeling a Little Uncomfortable, and That’s Okay

Discomfort is a central feature of attitudes toward transgender people and rights. Previous work with other stigmatized groups including the physically disabled shows that acknowledging that discomfort can be a successful strategy for alleviating discomfort and increasing support. Two experiments described in this chapter explore efforts to mitigate discomfort. The first finds that simple acknowledgment of discomfort is not effective. The second, combining acknowledgment with a message of a journey story from a woman whose daughter came out as transgender, is much more effective at increasing expressed comfort with and support for transgender people and rights.

Emotions and Moral Elevation

Opposition to transgender people and rights is often based in emotional reactions, particularly in disgust and fear. Plutchik’s theory of emotion suggests that openness to transgender people and rights can be increased by mitigating those emotions with opposing ones. For example, when a person is thinking out of fear or anxiety, you can neutralize fear with trust. Relatedly, when people experience a sense of goodness and happiness, or a sense of moral elevation, such as extreme generosity, they can be motivated to also be more supportive of transgender people and rights. This test of identity reassurance theory uses two experiments, one exposing participants to photos of scary spiders or cute puppies and another exposing participants to videos meant to amuse or to increase feelings of moral elevation.