When, Where, for Whom, and Why Gender Changed: Determining Gender in the United States, 1990-2015

• In Event: 3446 - Transgender Studies: New Theoretical and Methodological Approaches

Abstract

Gender has changed dramatically in recent decades. Most scholars examining changes in gender focus on changes in gender roles, such as beliefs about who should do childcare or housework. However, a few have noted that there have also been changes in the very categories of gender and their criteria for membership. This article explores these changes using an original dataset of all the mainstream news stories produced about murders of transgender people in the United States between 1990 and 2015. These news stories present a unique opportunity to investigate the inner workings of the gender system both because of the potential “category crisis” transgender practices produce and because journalists are unable to ask the victims how they would like to be gendered and so must rely on their own understandings of the rules of gendering. My analysis reveals that a dramatic shift occurred in the early 2000s where journalists moved from determining a victim’s gender based on assumed sex assigned at birth to using perceived gender identity. However, this change in gender was not uniform. Instead, its adoption varied by region of the United States and by gender of the victim, as journalists were more likely to gender transgender men than transgender women in accordance to their perceived gender identity. Finally, the dataset highlights the role that official styleguides, transgender activists, and the victims’ friends and family played in these changes in gender, as journalists were more likely to respect a victim’s identity when encouraged to do so by others.

Author

• Laurel Westbrook, Grand Valley State University