Gender Essentialism in Rural and Urban Children Predicts Prejudice Against Gender Nonconformity

• In Event: Attitudes toward and experiences of transgender and gender diverse youth

Abstract

Gender nonconforming (GNC) children face prejudice from peers for their gender identity. As a result, GNC children suffer from bullying that negatively affects their well-being (Kosciw et al., 2018). To combat this prejudice, it is important to understand what beliefs may underlie it. Essentialism has been linked to prejudice (Mandalaywala et al., 2017), so we explore this connection in relation to prejudice against GNC children. We were interested in this relation in children from rural and urban areas as past work suggests their essentialist beliefs may vary by community (Rhodes & Gelman, 2009).
Currently we have recruited 220 children from the rural Midwest and an urban area in the Pacific Northwest of the U.S. Participants ranged in age from 6 to 10 years old (M =7.98 years, SD =1.45; 121 girls, 99 boys). We measured participants’ gender essentialism, gender identity essentialism (the extent to which children believe gender identity, apart from sex, is stable across time), and prejudice against GNC children. Gender essentialism was measured using a new 16-item scale of gender essentialism developed by the authors (full scale α= .77).
Results. We have found that higher gender essentialism correlated with greater prejudice against GNC children. In contrast, gender identity essentialism did not relate to prejudice. Participants from rural areas [t(98) = 3.12, p = .002], but not urban areas [ t( 118) = -1.89, p = .06], showed prejudice against GNC children. In urban participants, we also see that older children showed less essentialism (r = -.47, p < .001) and prejudice (r = -.19, p = .04) than younger children. Interestingly, in rural participants, older children showed less essentialism (r = -.39, p < .001), but age did not correlate with prejudice (r = -.14, p = .18). Although rural participants had higher rates of prejudice [t(216) = 3.67, p < .001] and essentialism [t(217) = 4.82, p < .001] than urban participants, in a regression model with participant community and essentialism, only essentialism significantly predicted prejudice [essentialism B = 1.19, SE B = .17, β = .45, t(214) = 7.10, p < .001; community B = -.26, SE B = .16, β = .18, t(214) = -1.51, p = .13].
Conclusion. Children’s gender essentialism is predictive of their prejudice towards GNC children. However, these findings are correlational. Research is needed to experimentally test if essentialism affects prejudice against GNC children. Future work should explore if prejudice against GNC children can be reduced by reducing gender essentialist beliefs.

Authors

• Rachel Fine, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
  Presenting Author

• Susan A Gelman, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
  Non-Presenting Author

• Selin Gülgöz, Fordham University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Rachel Horton, University Of Washington
  Non-Presenting Author

• Kristina R Olson, Princeton University
  Non-Presenting Author