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Gender/Sex Diversity Beliefs: Heterogeneity, Links to Prejudice, and Diversity-Affirming Interventions by Zachary C

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Gender/Sex Diversity Beliefs: Heterogeneity, Links to Prejudice, and Diversity-Affirming Interventions by Zachary C Gender/Sex Diversity Beliefs: Heterogeneity, Links to Prejudice, and Diversity-Affirming Interventions by Zachary C. Schudson A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Psychology and Women’s Studies) in the University of Michigan 2020 Doctoral Committee: Professor Sari van Anders, Co-Chair Professor Susan Gelman, Co-Chair Professor Anna Kirkland Associate Professor Sara McClelland Zach C. Schudson [email protected] ORCID iD: 0000-0002-1300-5674 © Zach C. Schudson ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank the many people who made this dissertation possible. First and foremost, thank you to Dr. Sari van Anders, my dissertation advisor and co-chair and my mentor. I have never met someone more committed to social justice through psychological research or to their students. Your expansive, nuanced thinking about gender and sexuality, your incredible, detailed feedback on everything I wrote, your lightning-quick, thoughtful responses whenever I needed anything, and your persistence in improving communication even when it was difficult all make me feel astoundingly lucky. Despite the many time and energy-intensive challenges you have faced over the last several years, you have done everything you can to facilitate my success as a scholar, all the while showing deep care for my well-being as a person. Thank you also to Dr. Susan Gelman, my dissertation co-chair, for your incredible support these last feW years. Your intellectual generosity is truly a gift; I feel smarter and more capable every time we speak. Thank you to Drs. Sara McClelland and Anna Kirkland, members of my dissertation committee and my teaching mentors. Both of you have made me a better teacher and scholar, and I am immensely grateful to have your keen eyes on my dissertation. Thank you to the many people who provided feedback on the Gender/Sex Diversity Beliefs Scale. This includes the trans, non-binary, and gender/sex diverse community experts and the academic experts on gender/sex diversity and/or essentialism, including Drs. Meg-John Barker, Logan Casey, Paz Galupo, Susan Gelman, Yasuko Kanamori, Julieann Nagoshi, Kristen Schilt, and Charlotte Tate. An additional thank you to Dr. Paz Galupo for her constant encouragement and endless support for this work. Thank you also to the American Psychological ii Association for helping fund this dissertation with an APA Dissertation Research AWard. This research was also supported in part by funding from the Canada 150 Research Chairs program to Dr. Sari van Anders. I’d like to thank every member of the van Anders lab, past and present, who supported this work through thoughtful feedback, hours spent coding, and important conversations with me. A very special thank you to Sara Chadwick, an incredible friend and colleague, who has reminded me of my value whenever I have doubted it. Being right by your side throughout graduate school was one of the very best parts. Thank you to Emily Dibble for alWays being so eager to talk gender, sexuality, queerness, psychology, philosophy, and every other topic that animates my scholarship and my daily thoughts. Thank you to Will Beischel for your incredibly hard work on much of the research described in this dissertation, and for your constant Willingness to dive deep into the murkiest parts of research on gender/sex diversity with me. I want to thank the many friends who have helped make my life these past several years the joy that it should be, even when it took concerted effort on their part. A very special thank you to Sunhay You, Faye Wang, Emily Vargas, Hannah Tay, AndreW Siann, Meryl SeWard, Gabrielle Sarpy, Amanda Rodriguez-NeWhall, Mary Renda, Grace DitsWorth, Anna Bax, and Maryam K. Aziz. All of you have been pillars for me at one point or another in this long process of graduate school - some of you, at many points. I have no idea what I did to deserve the friends that I have, but whatever it was, I am very glad I did it. And finally, thank you to my family. Thank you to my siblings, Jenna Schudson and Daniel Schudson, for checking in on me and making sure I never felt too lonely or disconnected, even when thousands of miles aWay riding out yet another Michigan winter. To my father, Michael Schudson, thank you for your love and unwavering care. Your visits to Ann Arbor have iii been buoys for my spirits throughout graduate school. And to my mother, Suzie Schudson, thank you for loving and supporting me every second of every day. Your genuine excitement about everything that I do, your curiosity, and your commitment to treating other people ethically are the foundation for who I am, how I see myself, and how I fight for what I believe. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ii LIST OF TABLES vii LIST OF FIGURES ix LIST OF APPENDICES x ABSTRACT xi CHAPTER 1: Introduction 1 CHAPTER 2: Individual Variation in Gender/Sex Category Definitions 9 Methods 14 Results 20 Discussion 27 CHAPTER 3: Avalanche Samples: Gender/Sex Majorities’ Motivated Disruption of Gender/Sex Diversity Research 36 CHAPTER 4: Gender/Sex Diversity Beliefs: Scale Construction, Validation, and Links to Prejudice 49 Item Generation and Refinement 55 Study 1: Exploratory Factor Analysis 57 Study 2: Confirmatory Factor Analysis and Criterion-Related Validity 63 Study 3: Test-Retest Reliability 73 General Discussion 74 CHAPTER 5: Sexual Configurations Theory as an Intervention to Improve v Attitudes Toward Gender/Sex Minorities 78 Methods 86 Results 89 Discussion 93 CHAPTER 6: General Discussion 97 TABLES 107 FIGURES 123 APPENDICES 127 REFERENCES 136 vi LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1. Composition of each group by gender/sex and sexual orientation. 107 Table 2.2 Frequency of definitions that received each biological or sociocultural content code for each gender/sex category. 108 Table 2.3. Frequency of definitions that received each descriptive code for each gender/sex category. 109 Table 2.4. Examples for levels of the definition complexity code. 110 Table 2.5. Logistic regression models predicting odds of including biological content in definitions for CisMin, CisMaj, and FB as compared to GSMin. 111 Table 2.6. Logistic regression models predicting odds of including sociocultural content in definitions for CisMin, CisMaj, and FB as compared to GSMin. 112 Table 3.1. Participant demographics. 113 Table 3.2. Rotated factor loadings and item-level descriptive statistics for 27 initially retained items of GSDB. 114 Table 3.3. Study 1 correlations betWeen GSDB factors, Genderism and Transphobia Scale-Revised (GTS-R), and Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale (MCSDS). 117 Table 3.4. Model summaries for confirmatory factor analysis of the GSDB. 118 Table 3.5. Study 2 correlations betWeen GSDB factors and gender/sex feeling thermometers. 119 Table 3.6. Study 2 correlations betWeen GSDB factors, SDO, RWA, NFC, GES, vii and Conservatism. 120 Table 3.7. Hierarchal regression for variables predicting feelings toward gender/sex minorities. 121 Table 4.1. Participant demographics. 122 viii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.1. Mean definition complexity ratings for GSMin, CisMin, CisMaj, and FB for each gender/sex category. 123 Figure 3.1. Five-factor model of the final, 23-item GSDB. 124 Figure 4.1. Effect of SCT intervention on feelings toward gender/sex minorities at baseline. 125 Figure 4.2. Effect of SCT intervention on gender/sex diversity affirming beliefs at baseline. 126 Figure C-1. A gender/sex SCT diagram. 135 ix LIST OF APPENDICES Appendix A: Gender/Sex Diversity Beliefs Scale, Preliminary Item List 127 Appendix B: Gender/Sex Diversity Beliefs Scale 133 Appendix C: Sexual Configurations Theory – Gender/Sex Diagram 135 x ABSTRACT This dissertation explores the structure and significance of beliefs about the nature of gender/sex categories, or gender/sex diversity beliefs, across a series of empirical studies. In Chapter 1, I describe the recent history of the study of gender/sex categories and gender/sex diversity beliefs, and implications for the current sociopolitical situation of gender/sex minorities. Claims about the nature of gender/sex and the meaning of gender/sex categories are contentious both within and beyond feminist discourses, including in public policy and academic research, and this dissertation clarifies their implications for understanding gender/sex majorities’ attitudes about minorities. Next, in Chapter 2, I take a bottom-up approach to understanding heterogeneity in gender/sex diversity beliefs by examining variation in individuals’ definitions of gender/sex categories. I analyze the presence of sociocultural and/or biological content in participants’ definitions of the words woman, man, feminine, masculine, female, and male. Further, I examine the complexity of participants’ definitions and the role of social location factors, particularly gender/sex and sexual minority/majority status. In Chapter 3, I explore in-depth a sub-sample of transgender-exclusionary radical feminists Who participated in the research described in Chapter 2 to disrupt and control it. I contextualize why my research Was targeted in particular and I describe implications for online diversity-related research more generally. In Chapter 4, I develop the Gender/Sex Diversity Beliefs Scale (GSDB), a survey measure of beliefs about the nature of gender/sex that are especially relevant to gender/sex minority identities. I create an item list with feedback from community experts (i.e., gender/sex xi minority individuals) and academic experts on gender/sex diversity and/or beliefs about the nature of social categories. Across multiple studies, I test the factor structure and test-retest reliability of the GSDB. Further, I examine the relationship of the GSDB to sociopolitical ideologies and attitudes about gender/sex minorities. Finally, in Chapter 5, I develop an intervention to improve gender/sex majorities’ attitudes about gender/sex minorities and gender/sex diversity beliefs.
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