Sex Roles

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-018-0916-6

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Gender, Masculinity Threat, and Support for Transgender Rights:

An Experimental Study
Brian F. Harrison 1 & Melissa R. Michelson 2

# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2018

Abstract
We explore how gender, attitudes about traditional gender roles, and threats to masculinity and femininity affect U.S. participants’
support for transgender rights. First, we present analyses using data from the 2016 pilot survey of the American National Election
Survey (ANES) showing how men and women differ in their attitudes toward transgender people as measured by thermometer
ratings toward transgender people and questions about perceptions of whether they are victims of discrimination. Next, we
describe our randomized laboratory experiment, testing three hypotheses/predictions: (a) that men are less supportive of trans-
gender people and rights than women are, (2) that threatening a man’s masculinity increases opposition to transgender rights
whereas threatening a woman’s femininity has no effect, and (3) that this effect will be stronger among men who report that their
gender identity is very important to them. Consistent with existing scholarship, we find that women are more supportive of
transgender rights compared to men. More importantly, we also find that threatened masculinity is an even better predictor of
opposition to transgender rights than gender identity. In short, we find that attitudes toward transgender people and rights are
closely linked with the way people think and feel about their own gender identity and expectations of gender performance.

Keywords Transgender . Gender . Transgender rights . Political psychology . Gender identity . Masculinity . LGBT . Public
opinion . Bem Sex Role Inventory . BSRI . Threat

Transgender individuals and rights are increasingly part of
American culture and our national conversation as demonstrat-
ed by cover-story magazine issues of National Geographic
(January 2017) and Time (March 16, 2017). The ability to use
public spaces like bathrooms and locker rooms that match
one’s gender identity is one of the most frequently discussed
issues surrounding transgender rights in the public sphere in the
United States. Other issues of transgender equality are also the
subject of public debate and policymaking, including gender
equity in sports, transgender people serving openly in the mil-
itary, and transgender candidates for public office. For example,
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article
(https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-018-0916-6) contains supplementary
material, which is available to authorized users.
* Melissa R. Michelson
melissa.michelson@menlo.edu
1
Department of Political Science, Northwestern University, Scott Hall,
601 University Place, Evanston, IL 60208, USA
2
Department of Political Science, Menlo College, 1000 El Camino
Real, Atherton, CA 94027, USA
Mack Beggs, a transgender male high school wrestler in Texas,
leapt onto the front page in early 2017 when he won the state
girls’ wrestling championship despite having asked state offi-
cials to compete in the boys’ tournament (and again when he
defended his title in 2018). In July 2017, President Trump made
headlines when he tweeted about banning transgender people
from serving in the U.S. military, reversing an Obama
Administration policy enacted in July 2015. Two federal judges
have blocked the ban, noting that the administration’s justifica-
tion for the ban was suspect and likely unconstitutional.
The legal battle is ongoing. In November 2017, trans-
gender candidates made history by winning elections in
several states: at least eight openly transgender people
won seats on city councils, school boards, and state
legislatures around the United States.
The National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) de-
fines gender identity as a person’s Binternal knowledge of
[their] own gender—for example, your knowledge that you’re
a man, a woman, or another gender^ (National Center for
Transgender Equality 2016, para 3). As they note, every-
one—not just transgender people—has a gender identity.
NCTE describes transgender people as follows:

When we’re born, a doctor usually says that we’re male
or female based on what our bodies look like. Most
people who were labeled male at birth turn out to actu-
ally identify as men, and most people who were labeled
female at birth grow up to be women. But some people’s
gender identity—their innate knowledge of who they
are—is different from what was initially expected when
they were born. Most of these people describe them-
selves as transgender.
Scholars estimate that roughly .6% of the American popula-
tion, approximately 1.4 million people, identifies as transgen-
der (Flores et al. 2016, p. 2). The vast majority of people are
not transgender, also known as cisgender; their gender identity
is the same as the sex they were thought to be at birth.
Until recently, the fight for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans-
gender (LGBT) rights has been dominated by the issue of
same-sex marriage, often eclipsing other LGBT rights issues
of greater concern to the transgender community (Harrison
and Michelson 2017, chapter 7; Mananzala and Spade 2008;
Nownes 2015). Increased media attention to transgender
equality and relevant public policy issues notwithstanding,
relatively little is known about what drives public opinion
about transgender people and rights or how advocates and
policymakers can most effectively communicate those issues.
We do know that the U.S. public often supports transgender
rights in the abstract while being less supportive of specific
policies that protect those rights. For example, a 2016 PRRI
poll finds that 78% of Democrats and 61% of Republicans
support the abstract statement that laws should protect
LGBT people from discrimination in jobs, public accommo-
dations, and housing.
The same survey, however, finds far less support for a more
specific law allowing transgender people to use bathrooms
that correspond to their current gender identity: 64% of
Democrats, 44% of Republicans, and 51% of Independents
(53% overall) report not supporting a more specific law about
bathroom access (Cooper et al. 2016). Another recent survey
finds that even those who are supportive of transgender
youth generally are less comfortable with allowing them
to use the restroom aligned with their gender identity or
to share a room with a same-gender peer on a school
trip (Elischberger et al. 2016).
The aim of the present paper is to better understand what
drives public opinion toward transgender people and the rights
they seek. Specifically, we investigate the impact of individual
gender identity and attitudes toward traditional gender roles.
After a brief overview of the concepts of gender identity and
gender expectations, we detail our findings from the January
2016 pilot survey of the American National Election Study
(ANES). Next, we present results from an original laboratory
experiment at a large Midwestern research university. Overall,
our data show that although men and women do differ in their
Sex Roles
support of transgender people and rights, threats to gender
identity are even stronger predictors of support or opposition
to transgender rights compared to gender identity alone.
Gender, Gender Ideologies, and Expectations
Existing research finds that U.S. attitudes toward LGBT peo-
ple are often driven by feelings of discomfort and disgust
(Gadarian and Van der Vort 2017; Geller 1991; Gillig and
Murphy 2016; Haider-Markel et al. 2017; Herek 1984;
Miller et al. 2017). Values like authoritarianism (Norton and
Herek 2013), beliefs in traditional gender roles (Nagoshi et al.
2008), political conservatism (Norton and Herek 2013), and
identifying as Republican (Flores 2015) are all associated with
more negative beliefs toward transgender people as well. Most
relevant to our research questions, surveys find that men are
consistently less supportive of transgender rights than women
are. Norton and Herek (2013, p. 750) note: BMen’s greater
negativity toward transgender people is consistent with the
notion that they are more invested than women in adhering
to gender norms, presumably as a means of affirming their
own masculinity and heterosexuality.^
That gender identity is a strong and reliable predictor of
attitudes toward transgender people and rights is consistent
with research on the power of gender as a predictor of a wide
array of political attitudes (Erikson and Tedin 2015). Studies
have also found that gender is one of the most powerful cog-
nitive schemas available (Brewer and Lui 1989; Starr and
Zurbriggen 2017). People who are transgender often, by def-
inition, challenge the traditional conceptualization of gender
identity as binary and immutable (Burdge 2007). We expected
this challenge to affect men and women differently.
Specifically, we hypothesized that gender differences in sup-
port for transgender people and rights would be exacerbated
by threats to men’s masculinity given the inherent threat to
male gender identity often posed by transgender rights.
This expectation stems from existing research that finds
men to be susceptible to perceived threats to masculinity, fear-
ful of insufficient masculinity, and supportive of traditional
gender norms. The masculine overcompensation thesis posits
that when men are concerned about the social implications of
losing their masculinity (e.g., being seen as gay or otherwise
lacking masculine traits), they tend to overcompensate by
exhibiting extreme masculine behaviors and attitudes to create
the impression that they are, indeed, masculine in socially
desirable ways (Adams et al. 1996; Burke 1991; Burke and
Stets 2009; Heise 2007). Masculine overcompensation has
been cited as the cause of relatively benign behaviors like
buying sports cars at the onset of Bmid-life crises^ all the
way up to escalation of the Vietnam War by President
Johnson (Fasteau 1974; Kimmel 1996). Anti-gay hate crimes
Bare tied closely to rigid and hierarchical ideas about
Sex Roles
masculinity that depend on differentiating ‘real’ men from
women as well as gay and bisexual men^ (Wade 2016, para 8).
Men heavily invested in performing masculinity at extreme
levels—a phenomenon often referred to as toxic masculinity
(Karner 1996)—are more likely to engage in domestic vio-
lence against their female partners (Macmillan and Gartner
1999), to sexually harass women (Maass et al. 2003), and even
to commit mass shootings (Bridges and Tober 2017; Wade
2016). Contemporary conceptualizations of toxic masculinity
rely on reaffirming superiority and dominance, leading certain
men to abuse people and power because of what Enloe (2017,
p. 16) calls Bthe sustainability of patriarchy.^ Gender theorist
Judith Butler suggests that toxic masculinity also underlies
anti-transgender violence: BTrans women have relinquished
masculinity, showing that it can be, and that is very threaten-
ing to a man who wants to see his power as an intrinsic feature
of who he is^ (quoted in Tourjée 2015, para 9). As many boys
grow into men, Bthey learn that they are entitled to feel like a
real man, and that they have the right to annihilate anyone who
challenges that sense of entitlement^ (Kimmel 2012, quoted
in Wade 2016, para 9).
Willer et al. (2013) explore the impact of threats to both
masculinity and femininity, finding that men who are told that
they are feminine are more supportive of war, more homopho-
bic, more interested in purchasing an SUV, and more support-
ive of dominance hierarchies and male superiority compared
to men who are told that they are masculine. These reactions
are particularly strong among men with higher levels of tes-
tosterone as measured by saliva tests. They do not find a
parallel effect among women whose femininity is threatened,
however; there are no measurable differences in attitudes be-
tween women who are told that they are masculine and wom-
en who are told that they are feminine. Based on these results,
we expected that men whose masculinity was threatened
would be less supportive of transgender people and rights
compared to men whose masculinity was not threatened. We
did not anticipate finding differences among women regard-
less of the strength of their gender identities or whether that
gender identity was threatened.
We further hypothesize that effects should vary by strength
of gender identity. Individuals vary in the degree to which they
support and find personally relevant core dimensions of
gender-differentiated normative standards (that men should
be dominant and independent and that women should be help-
ful and concerned about others) (Wood et al. 1997).
Strength of gender identity and connection to it can
vary across one’s lifespan in response to an array of
factors (Ely 1995; Martin and Ruble 2010; Sinclair
et al. 2006; Tobin et al. 2010; White and Gardner
2009). We hypothesize that men with strong gender
identities will be more sensitive to manipulated threats
to their masculinity compared to men with gender iden-
tities that are less central to their identity.
Attitudes toward Transgender People
and Rights
Relying on this scholarship as well as to update and replicate
existing data about public attitudes toward transgender people,
we examine questions about transgender people and rights in
the January 2016 pilot of the American National Election
Study (ANES), including 1200 respondents (570, 47.5%,
men; 630, 52.5%, women). The survey included two items
about transgender people. The first asked respondents how
much discrimination there is against transgender people in
the United States. The second asked respondents to rate trans-
gender people with a feeling thermometer, ranging from 0 to
100 (cool–warm). These questions establish a general orien-
tation toward transgender people, asking men and women to
place them in social contexts and to assess the degree to which
their experiences rise to the level of discrimination. Given
established gender gaps on attitudes about transgender people,
we expected women to perceive higher levels of discrimina-
tion against transgender people and to report warmer feeling
thermometer ratings. Data support these expectations. Women
were more likely to recognize that transgender people experi-
ence a great deal of discrimination (28.6%) compared to men
(20.7%), a difference of 7.9 percentage-points, and this differ-
ence is statistically significant, χ2(1) = 10.030, p = .002,
Cramer’s V = .09. Women were less likely to answer that
transgender people experience a little discrimination or none
at all (women 19.2%; men 27%, a difference of 7.8 percent-
age-points). This difference is also statistically significant,
χ2(1) = 10.242, p = .001, Cramer’s V = .09. On the feeling
thermometer question, the mean response among men was
47.2 (SD = 31.747) degrees and the mean response among
women was 54.7 (SD = 31.355) degrees; the difference of
7.5 degrees is both substantively large and statistically signif-
icant, t(1197) = 7.50, p < .001, Cohen’s d = .24.
We further hypothesized that gender gaps would be less
powerful predictors of attitudes about transgender people
when controlling for attitudes about traditional gender roles.
We explored this point using two ANES Pilot items. The first
item asked: BDo you favor, oppose, or neither favor nor op-
pose requiring employers to pay women and men the same
amount for the same work?^ The second item asked: BDo you
favor, oppose, or neither favor nor oppose requiring em-
ployers to offer paid leave to parents of new children?^
Responses to both items were reported on 7-point Likert
scales ranging from 1 (favor a great deal) to 7 (oppose a great
deal). We also include control variables for partisan identifi-
cation and political ideology. Party identification is coded on a
7-point scale ranging from 1 (strong Democrat) to 7 (strong
Republican). Partisan ideology is coded on a 7-point scale
ranging from 1 (very liberal) to 7 (very conservative).
As shown in Table 1, both of these questions mea-
suring gender traditionalism are statistically significant
 Sex Roles

Table 1 Predicting attitudes

toward transgender people and Predictors Transgender feeling thermometer Discrimination against transgender people
support for gender equality, 2016
ANES pilot Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4
M (SE) M (SE) M (SE) M (SE)

Gender 3.94 (2.41) 5.15* (1.75) −.05 (.07) −.10 (.07)

Equal pay −3.27* (.85) −1.75* (.60) .11* (.02) .07* (.02)
Parental leave −3.42* (.76) −1.33* (.56) .17* (.02) .13* (.02)
Party ID – −1.41* (.48) – .07* (.02)
Political ideology – −10.56* (1.06) – .16* (.04)
Constant 59.51* (4.73) 86.19* (4.13) 1.99* (.13) 1.50* (.16)

n = 1200 for Models 1 and 3; n = 1069 for Models 2 and 4. Data are weighted to be nationally representative.
Gender is coded 1 = male, 2 = female. Party ID is coded 1 = strong Democrat to 7 = strong Republican; Political
Ideology is coded 1 = very liberal to 7 = very conservative
*p < .05

predictors of attitudes toward transgender people. As
shown in Model 1, respondents who oppose equal pay
for men and women or who oppose paid parental leave
have cooler feelings toward transgender people and per-
ceive less discrimination. This finding persists in Model
2 when controlling for partisan identification and polit-
ical ideology. As shown in Model 3, respondents who
have cooler feelings toward transgender people or who
oppose paid parental leave perceive less discrimination
against transgender people. Again, this finding persists
when controlling for party identification and ideology.
These attitudes are more consistent and stronger predic-
tors than gender identity alone, which is not statistically
significant in three of the four models. This suggests
that different conceptualizations and expectations of
gender identity and gender roles (as indicated by re-
sponses to the two gender equity items) may be a stron-
ger predictor of attitudes toward transgender individuals
and support for transgender rights. It may also be the
case that attitudes toward gender roles and transgender
people are all driven by a common underlying factor of
conservative ideology. We control for political ideology
in the analysis of our subsequent experimental data.
These results are consistent with recent scholarship that
finds that perceptions of and expectations about masculinity
and femininity, known predictors of support for traditional
gender roles, are stronger predictors of political attitudes than
is self-reported gender identity. In particular, McDermott
(2016) argues that traditional understandings of gender-
based differences in political attitudes and behaviors are actu-
ally based on gender expectations and traits of masculinity and
femininity. We found support for this idea: support for gender
roles as measured by the 2016 ANES Pilot study was more
predictive of attitudes toward transgender people and rights
than reported gender identity.
Building on these initial findings, we hypothesized
that threats to traditional gender norms (i.e. masculinity
and femininity) should also be significant predictors of
attitudes about transgender people. As we noted, the
concept of transgender identity likely threatens those
for whom the concept of a traditional, immutable gender
is essential to their own individual identity. Identity loss
theory, originating from economic decision-making, sug-
gests that because many people view gender as having
only two discrete social categories, violating these ex-
pectations Bevokes anxiety and discomfort in oneself
and in others. Gender identity, then, changes the ‘pay-
offs’ from different actions^ (Akerlof and Kranton 2000,
pp. 716–717). In other words, when a conventional
Bmale or female^ conceptualization of gender expression
is threatened, attitudes and behaviors toward that which
threatens the identity (i.e. transgender people and rights)
should change as well.
Existing research shows that identity threat translates to
more negative attitudes toward gay and lesbian people. As
we noted, Willer et al. (2013) found increased homophobia
among men whose masculinity was threatened. In part, their
finding stems from the same threat to gender traditionalism
that LGBT identity and rights represent. One area of current
debate that is likely to trigger a visceral threat to masculinity is
bathroom access for transgender people. As Cavanagh (2010,
p. 4) notes: BNowhere are the signifiers of gender more pain-
fully acute and subject to surveillance than in sex-segregated
washrooms. The perceived loss of a binary gender axis, the
grid upon which normative heterosexuality depends for co-
gency and intelligibility, incites anxiety about gender
incoherence.^ The policy issue of transgender bathroom
access is a threat to the underlying ontological structure
of the strict binary gender expression (Roughgarden
2013). For some people, the idea that they might
encounter a transgender person while using a public
bathroom or locker room is perceived as a real (and intensely
personal) potential threat (Schlit and Westbrook 2015;
Westbrook and Schilt 2014).
Sex Roles
Priming Gender Identity
To test the effect of individual-level identity on attitudes
toward transgender people and rights, we rely on the
prominent theory of priming (Druckman 2004; Iyengar
and Kinder 1987; Krosnick and Brannon 1993; McLeish
and Oxoby 2008). Previous research has demonstrated
that priming can effectively manipulate gender self-
concepts among both men (McCall and Dasgupta
2007) and women (Haines and Kray 2005; Rudman
and Phelan 2010). Social identity theory (Tajfel 1981;
Tajfel and Turner 1986) suggests that people have both
personal identities as unique individuals and also social
identities as members of groups.
Although social identity is often thought of in cate-
gorical terms, significant evidence demonstrates that any
given social identity can be a more important source of
identity for some members of a group than for others.
For example, although all women may identify as mem-
bers of the social category Bwomen,^ there is consider-
able variation in the degree to which each individual
woman considers that membership as central to or as
an important part of her self-identity (Burn et al.
2000; Schmader 2002). As a result, identity importance
or salience is a key measure of identity priming effects
as well. Klar (2013) notes that priming can increase an
identity’s salience and, subsequently, related concern for
identity-based interests, particularly when a strongly-
held identity is threatened. Priming gender identity and
threats to gender norms can test the power of gender
construction in shaping attitudes and behavior, particu-
larly toward issues like transgender rights that draw so
heavily on individual concepts of gender.
The Present Study
Next, we turn to a survey experiment that experimentally
manipulates threats to participants’ masculinity or femi-
ninity to test their effects on attitudes and behaviors to-
ward transgender people and key rights for that commu-
nity. We test three hypotheses/predictions: (a) men will be
less supportive of transgender rights compared to women
(Hypothesis 1); (b) threatening a male respondent’s mas-
culinity will increase opposition to transgender rights
(Hypothesis 2a); we predict that threatening a female re-
spondent’s femininity will neither increase nor decrease
opposition to transgender rights (Prediction 2b); and (c)
a threat to masculinity will increase opposition to trans-
gender rights more significantly among men who self-
report that gender is essential to their identity compared
to men who do not (Hypothesis 3).
Method
Participants
Participants were 182 undergraduate students at a large U.S.
Midwestern university (Mage = 19.31, SD = .15, range = 17–
39). After providing informed consent, they were asked a set
of demographic questions including their gender identity, year
of birth, political ideology [ranging from 1 (very progressive)
to 5 (very conservative)], their racial and ethnic identity, and
their gender. The sample was roughly equal in terms of gender
identity: n = 89, 48.9%, men; n = 93, 51.1%, women. About
half of respondents reported they were White, non-Hispanic
(n = 90, 49.45%), with the remainder identifying as Black
(n = 12, 6.59%), Hispanic or Latinx (n = 10, 5.49%), Asian
American (n = 32, 17.58%), other (n = 4, 2.20%), or more
than one category (n = 34, 18.68%). When asked to describe
their political views generally speaking, most reported their
ideology as progressive (n = 119, 64.38%) whereas 46
(25.27%) respondents reported their ideology as moderate,
and the remaining 17 (9.34%) respondents reported their ide-
ology as conservative. Most respondents reported their marital
status as single, never married (n = 176, 96.7%), and none of
the respondents had any children. Most respondents
(n = 148, 81.32%) reported their annual income as be-
low $20,000, and most respondents (n = 154, 84.62%)
reported that none of their Bimmediate family members,
relatives, neighbors, co-workers, or close friends^ was
transgender or gender non-conforming.
Procedure and Materials
Men and women were randomly separated into six groups,
with 29–31 individuals randomly assigned to one of six con-
ditions. Replicating Willer et al. (2013), two-thirds of our
participants were assigned to take the Bem Sex Role
Inventory (BSRI) and one third were assigned to complete
the Big 5 personality test (Goldberg 1992; Tupes and
Christal 1961). Of those assigned to the BSRI, half (one-
third of all participants) were randomly assigned to the gender
threat condition and half (one-third of all participants) were
assigned to the non-threat condition. Participants assigned to
one of the BSRI conditions were asked to answer the 60 ques-
tions that compose the original BSRI which captures how
strongly a respondent endorses qualities considered socially
desirable in women and in men. In other words, it measures
how well a respondent endorses traditional gender roles.
Although participants were administered the real BSRI test
in our experiment, the scores they were shown on a scale of 0–
50 were false. (The marked scales we used to share this
false feedback with participants is available in an online
supplement.) Replicating the design by Willer et al.
(2013), upon completing the BSRI respondents received

a false BSRI score which was either threatening or non-
threatening to their masculinity or femininity. Men ran-
domly assigned to the threatening condition were told that
their BSRI score was in the feminine range (BYour Score:
32^), whereas those randomly assigned to a non-
threatening condition were told that their BSRI score fell
in the masculine range (BYour Score: 11^). Similarly,
women in the threatening condition were told that their
BSRI score was masculine (BYour Score: 18^), whereas
those in the non-threatening condition were told that their
BSRI score was feminine (BYour Score: 39^).
Assignment to the Big 5 treatment acts as a placebo: par-
ticipants in these groups also answered a series of survey items
about themselves and the same dependent variables about
transgender rights. Participants in the Big 5 treatment groups
were asked a traditional set of 18 items meant to measure their
score on the Big 5 personality items, items which do not ref-
erence gender or gender expectations. Thus, individuals
assigned to these conditions compose the baseline for com-
parison for the other treatment groups. After completing these
items, all participants in the Big 5 treatment groups received
the same false report, the specifics of which are reported in the
online supplement.
Post-Manipulation Measures: Support
for Transgender Rights
All participants were then asked a set of questions about trans-
gender rights, sexism and gender roles, partisanship, and their
personal identity characteristics. The dependent variables of
interest for the present study include three items: (a) the first
asks respondents about transgender access to public bath-
rooms and locker rooms that match their gender identity
(Bathrooms), (b) the second is about whether the government
should protect transgender people against job discrimination
(ENDA), and (c) the third asks how respondents would vote
on a hypothetical ballot initiative on transgender access to
public bathrooms and locker rooms that match their
gender identity (Ballot). The following presents these
materials verbatim:
1. As you may know, transgender people are those who
identify as a gender different from the one from when they
were born. Some think that bathrooms should be orga-
nized by sex; others think that people should be able to
choose which bathroom or locker room fits their gender
identity. What about you? Do you think people who are
transgender should: (1) be allowed to use the bathrooms
and locker rooms of their preferred gender or (2) have to
use the bathrooms and locker rooms of the gender they
were born?
2. Do you favor or oppose laws to protect transgender peo-
ple against job discrimination?
Sex Roles
3. Suppose your state had a ballot initiative in an upcoming
election where you could vote on a law that would require
public bathrooms and locker rooms to be divided in the
traditional way, male or female. This law would require
transgender people to use the bathroom of the sex they
were assigned at birth, not the one with which they cur-
rently identify. How would you vote on such a measure?
Note that a Byes^ vote would mean requiring bathrooms
divided by male and female; a Bno^ vote would mean
allowing transgender people to choose which bathroom
they want to use. (1) Definitely vote yes, (2) probably vote
yes, (3) undecided, (4) probably vote no, (5) definitely
vote no.
The first two items had binary responses and re-
sponses on the ballot item were collapsed into two re-
sponses: 1 (definitely or probably vote yes), 0
(undecided and probably/definitely no).
After the questions about sexism and gender roles, respon-
dents were asked about their party identification and their
personal identity. Partisanship was coded as a traditional 7-
point Likert scale from 1 (strong Democrat) to 7 (strong
Republican). The personal identity question asked: BWe’d like
you to think about your own personal identity; that is, the
ways you define yourself as a person. How important are each
of these characteristics [gender, race and ethnicity, age, marital
status, employment status, religion, or sexual orientation] to
your own personal identity?^ Responses were recorded on a
scale from 1 (essential to your identity) to 4 (not important at
all). Because very few respondents (n = 20, 11.1% [men: n =
16, 17.98%; women: n = 4, 4.30%]) chose answers 3 or 4 to
characterize their gender identity, we dichotomized this vari-
able into just two categories, collapsing answers 2–4. The
survey ended with a debriefing item that noted that their test
score had been false and reminded them of contact informa-
tion for the Institutional Review Board.
Results
Preliminary Analyses
We conducted a randomization check of ideology and real
BSRI scores for men and women. Men had the same average
BSRI score in both the threatening (M = 60.13, SD = 15.27)
and non-threatening (M = 60.83, SD = 20.31) conditions,
t(1) = .15, p = .882. The same is true for women in the threat-
ening (M = 52.92, SD = 14.62) and non-threatening (M =
48.68, SD = 19.66) conditions, t(1) = −.82, p = .415. In addi-
tion, men, F(4, 84) = .50, p = .735, and women, F(4, 88) =
1.63, p = .173, did not vary by political ideology across all
three conditions (threatening, non-threatening, and control).
Sex Roles

Hypothesis Testing: Simple Comparisons
First, we examined differences in attitudes about transgender
rights between men and women. Overall, 88 (94.6%) women
in the sample supported transgender access to public bath-
rooms and locker rooms compared to 75 (84.3%) men,
χ 2 (1) = 5.22, p = .022, Cramer’s V = .17. Similarly, 82
(88.2%) women said they would definitely or probably vote
to protect transgender access on a hypothetical ballot initiative
compared to 66 (74.2%) men, χ 2 (1) = 5.88, p = .015,
Cramer’s V = .18. However, no significant difference was
found in support for laws to protect transgender people against
job discrimination, with both men (78, 95.1%) and women
(87, 98.9%) reporting strong levels of support, χ2(1) = 2.08,
p = .149. In sum, although we found that a majority of both
women and men had favorable attitudes, we found that our
first hypothesis about differences between women and men on
transgender rights was consistently supported on items about
transgender access to public bathrooms and locker rooms but
not on an item about laws to protect transgender people
against job discrimination.
Next, we used Chi-square tests to examine our second hy-
pothesis regarding gender identity threat for men and women
and its impact on support for transgender rights (see Table 2).
Men assigned to the threat condition (i.e., told that they were
in the feminine range on the false BSRI test) were consistently
less supportive of transgender rights compared to those
assigned to the non-threat condition (i.e., reportedly in the
masculine range) or to the baseline Big 5 condition. In support
of Hypothesis 2a, only 21 (70%) men assigned to the threat
condition said that they supported transgender access rights to
public bathrooms and locker rooms compared to 26 (90%)
assigned to the non-threat condition and 28 (93%) in the
Big5 condition, χ2(2) = 7.10, p = .029, V = .283. There were
also statistically significant differences on the hypothetical
ballot measure about access to public bathrooms and locker
rooms: only 18 (60%) men assigned to the threat condition
repored that they would vote to protect transgender ac-
cess rights compared to 24 (83%) in the non-threat con-
dition and 24 (80%) in the Big5 condition, χ2(2) = 4.79,
p = .091, V = .232.
In contrast, women assigned to the threat condition were
generally no more or less supportive of transgender rights
compared to women assigned to the non-threat and baseline
conditions, with one exception. Among women assigned to
the threat condition, 26 (84%) in the threat treatment condition
said that they would vote to support transgender access rights
on a hypothetical ballot measure compared to 31 (100%)
women in the non-threat condition and 25 (81%) women in
the Big5 condition; this difference is statistically significant,
χ2(2) = 6.39, p = .04, V = .262. Thus, our Prediction 2b was
only partially supported.
No statistically significant responses were found between
women assigned to the threat, non-threat, and baseline condi-
tions for the other two dependent variables, although women
in the threat condition were consistently less supportive than
women in the non-threat condition. These findings suggest
that women who are assigned to a condition that threatens
their femininity think differently about transgender rights
when asked about their attitudes compared to when they are
asked about their own future hypothetical behavior.
Further research is needed to confirm whether this is a
robust difference.
Before moving on to test Hypothesis 3, we used Chi-square
tests to examine whether men and women who self-report that
gender is essential to their identity are less supportive of trans-
gender rights (see Table 3). Overall, 67 (72.0%) female re-
spondents said that gender was essential to their identity as
did 43 (48.3%) male respondents. Among men who reported
that gender is essential to their identity, 32 (74%) supported
transgender access rights to public bathrooms and locker
rooms that match their gender identity compared to 43
(94%) men with non-essential gender identities, χ2(1) =
6.09, p = .014, Cramer’s V = .26. Similarly, 26 (60.5%) men

Table 2 Support for transgender rights by gender and experimental condition

Men Women

Non-threatening Threatening Big5 Non-threatening Threatening Big5

control control

Q1: Bathrooms (% yes access) 89.7% 70%a,b 93.3% 96.8% 90.3% 96.8%
(26/29) (21/30) (28/30) (30/31) (28/31) (30/31)
Q2: ENDA (% yes protect) 96.2% 92.9% 96.4% 100% 96.4% 100%
(25/26) (26/28) (27/28) (30) (27/28) (30)
Q3: Ballot Bathrooms (% yes protect access) 82.2% 60%a,b 80% 100% 83.9%a 80.7%
(24/29) (18/30) (24/30) (31) (26/31) (25/31)

Numbers in parentheses are the number responding Byes^/cell size

a
indicates a statistically significant difference (p < .05) between the threatening vs. non-threatening conditions within each gender
b
indicates a statistically significant difference (p < .05) between the threatening vs. Big5 control conditions within each gender

Table 3 Support for transgender
rights, by gender and strength of
gender identity
Q1: Bathrooms (% yes access)
Q2: ENDA (% yes protect)
Q3: Ballot Bathrooms (% yes protect access)
a
indicates a statistically significant difference (p < .05) across subgroups (essential vs. nonessential) within a
gender
who reported that their gender is essential to their identity
would vote to protect transgender access rights on a hypothet-
ical ballot initiative compared to 40 (87%) men with non-
essential gender identities, χ2(1) = 8.14, p = .004, Cramer’s
V = .30. Among women, there were no statistically significant
differences in support for transgender rights across levels of
gender identity strength.
Hypothesis Testing: Logistic Regressions
We next conducted a set of binomial logistic regressions to
further explore our hypotheses using more complex models
that included a wider range of measures. First, we tested the
effects of gender, race, conservative ideology, age, and wheth-
er the respondent personally knew anyone who was transgen-
der on their likelihood of supporting transgender rights. The
logistic model predicting support for transgender access rights
is significant, χ2(5) = 33.69, p < .001. Men were slightly less
likely to say they support access rights (ß = −1.45, SE = .64),
Wald(1) = 5.11, p = .02, odds ratio = .24, 95% CI [.07, .83].
Additionally, Anglo (non-Hispanic White) respondents were
nearly four times more likely to support transgender access
rights (ß = 1.33, SE = .62), Wald(1) = 4.54, p = .03, odds ra-
tio = 3.77, 95% CI [1.11, 12.78]. More conservative partici-
pants were slightly less likely to support transgender access
rights (ß = −1.49, SE = .35), Wald(1) = 18.06, p < .001, odds
ratio .23, 95% CI [.69, 1.91].
The logistic model predicting support for laws to protect
transgender people against job discrimination was statistically
significant, χ2(5) = 13.38, p = .02, but none of the individual
coefficient estimates are statistically significant at the p < .05
level. The logistic model predicting votes on a hypothetical
ballot measure in support of transgender access rights was also
significant, χ2(5) = 50.69, p < .001. Here, men were slightly
less likely to say they would vote for transgender access rights
(ß = 1.39, SE = .51), Wald(1) = 7.56, p = .01, odds ratio = .25,
95% CI [.09, .67]. White participants were more than three
times more likely to say that they would vote for access rights
(ß = 1.13, SE = .50), Wald(1) = 5.15, p = .02, odds ratio =
Sex Roles
Men Women
Not Essential Essential Not Essential Essential
93.5 74.4a 96.2 94
(43/46) (32/43) (25/26) (63/67)
97.6 92.5 100 98.4
(41/42) (37/40) (25/25) (62/63)
87.0 60.5a 92.3 86.6
(40/46) (26/43) (24/26) (58/67)
3.10, 95% CI [1.17, 8.23]. Conservative respondents were
slightly less likely to say that they would vote for access rights
(ß = −1.59, SE = .30), Wald(1) = 27.56, p < .001, odds ratio =
.20, 95% CI [.11, .37].
We next conducted a set of binomial logistic regressions on
male respondents only, testing the effects of assignment to the
gender threat or cued gender conditions on support for trans-
gender rights. These models also include race, conservative
ideology, age, and whether the respondent personally knew
anyone who was transgender. Models including an interaction
term testing the effect of a threatened gender identity among
respondents who report that their gender is essential to their
identity, testing Hypothesis 3, failed to converge so that vari-
able was dropped from the models. The first logistic model,
predicting support for transgender access rights among male
respondents, was significant, χ 2 (7) = 20.19, p = .01.
Conservative respondents were slightly less likely to say they
support transgender access rights (ß = −1.13, SE = .43),
Wald(1) = 6.81, p = .01, odds ratio = .32, 95% CI [.14, .75].
The model predicting support among male respondents for
laws to protect transgender people against job discrimination
was not statistically significant, χ2(7) = 8.25, p = .31. The
model predicting votes among male respondents on a hypo-
thetical ballot measure in support of transgender access rights
was significant, χ2(7) = 30.43, p < .001. Conservative respon-
dents were slightly less likely to say they would vote to sup-
port transgender access rights (ß = −1.54, SE = .40),
Wald(1) = 14.67, p < .001, odds ratio = .21, 95% CI [.10, .47].
Multivariate logistic regression coefficient estimates can-
not be calculated for the subsample of women respondents
because there is so little variation in their responses to the
dependent variables. (For example, only one female respon-
dent said that she opposed laws to protect transgender people
against job discrimination.) As a result, in many cases, these
multivariate models do not directly test Hypothesis 2a,
Prediction 2b, or Hypothesis 3. However, there were several
interesting findings in the results. Men were overall less sup-
portive of expanding rights for transgender people compared
to women. Conservative political ideology was also a fairly
Sex Roles
consistent predictor of opposition to transgender rights.
Finally, Anglo (non-Hispanic White) respondents were con-
sistently more supportive compared to Respondents of Color.
Discussion
We hypothesized that men would be less supportive of trans-
gender rights compared to women and that threatening the
masculinity of men would increase their opposition to trans-
gender rights, particularly if they self-reported that their gen-
der identity was essential to their overall identity. Although
men were overall less supportive than women were, in many
cases, threats to masculinity led men to be even less support-
ive of transgender rights to access public bathrooms and lock-
er rooms that match their gender identity. Men who self-
reported that gender is an essential part of their identity were
less supportive of those rights but this measure did not interact
with threats to masculinity.
Our experimental study investigated the role of gender,
strength of gender identity, and threats to masculinity and
femininity on support for transgender rights. Overall, we
found that men are consistently less supportive of transgender
rights compared to women. Men assigned to a condition
where they were told that they were feminine were less likely
to support transgender rights compared to men assigned to
conditions that either reported that they were masculine or that
did not prime gender. Men who self-reported that gender is
essential to their identity were also less supportive of trans-
gender rights compared to men who did not. There were no
statistically significant differences among women who report-
ed that gender is essential to their identity compared to other
women, but women who were assigned to a threat condition
that reported that they are masculine were less likely to say
that they would vote to protect the rights of transgender people
to access public bathrooms and locker rooms that match their
gender identity. In sum, we found that importance of gender
identity to one’s self-concept is an important motivator of
attitudes and behavior toward transgender people and rights.
In theory, it may be possible to motivate individuals to revisit
and revise those attitudes if perceptions of gender norms and
expectations can be mitigated.
Men were less likely to support bathroom and locker room
rights for transgender people and were more likely to say that
they would vote for a ballot measure restricting those rights.
Women, as expected, were generally more supportive of those
rights. Men assigned to the masculinity-threatening condition
were more likely than other respondents were to oppose ac-
cess rights and more likely to say they would vote to restrict
those rights. These differences are statistically significant,
supporting Hypothesis 2a. Women assigned to the
femininity-threatening condition also tended to be less sup-
portive of bathroom and locker room access rights compared
to those assigned to the BSRI non-threatening condition; this
difference is large and statistically significant for the item
asking about a hypothetical ballot measure. In contrast, there
were no differences in responses to the item asking about
support for a law protecting transgender individuals against
job discrimination. In part, this reflects the very high levels of
support across all six conditions.
Our final hypothesis was that this effect would be stronger
among men with stronger gender identities. Although this
hypothesis was not confirmed, we did find that men who
reported that their gender identity is essential to them were
far more likely to oppose transgender rights compared to
men who reported that their gender identity is not essential
to them and to women. Finally, the indicator variable of
whether the respondent knew a transgender person was not a
statistically significant predictor of attitudes about transgender
rights. This finding, although tangential to our study,
contributes to a growing literature on the effect of
interpersonal contact on attitudes about transgender people.
For example, Flores (2015) found no effect whereas King
et al. (2009) and Tadlock et al. (2017) found a positive effect
of contact.
Limitations and Future Research Directions
The present study is limited due to several factors of our ex-
perimental design. First, our experimental sample is U.S. un-
dergraduate students, which potentially limits the external va-
lidity of our results, particularly given that young people are
more supportive of transgender rights compared to older peo-
ple. Our sample also predominantly identified as progressive
in terms of political ideology in proportions not representative
of the general public. In addition, our experiment did not in-
clude a manipulation check for threats to masculinity. Future
research may want to include explorations of how respondents
are reacting to assignment to conditions meant to threaten their
gender identity.
Another limitation of our paper is that we do not have
different question wordings and experimental conditions to
test how people think and feel about transgender men com-
pared to transgender women. Our dependent variables fo-
cused, in part, on transgender access rights to public bath-
rooms and locker rooms, a public debate that generally focus-
es on the rights of transgender women. Thus, different results
may have been generated by survey questions more focused
on transgender rights issues that bring to mind transgender
men. Transgender women do not represent all transgender
people writ large, although they do remain the most stigma-
tized group of people within the transgender community.
Many messages label these individuals as Btroubled men^
rather than as transgender women; they reject the validity of
the identity group by refusing to use the word Btransgender.^
Additional work should identify and test differences in

attitudes among transgender men, transgender women, and
gender non-conforming individuals as well.
Another avenue of possible future research is to investigate
how real-world transgender rights issues other than bathroom
access may trigger threats to masculinity (or femininity). For
example, perceptions of threats to concepts like traditional
family values, traditional American society and culture, con-
servative political values and ideologies, and children are like-
ly triggered in different ways by different transgender rights
issues. These threats should be addressed in a more robust
fashion in future work. Further, there are likely emotional
reactions other than threat that are at play. Additional work
should investigate which emotions are being triggered by dis-
cussions of transgender people and explore ways to ei-
ther inoculate against such emotional reactions or to
disarm those emotions to encourage rational and calm
discussion. Additional research might also find different
ways of discussing transgender rights issues in ways
that evoke positive emotions.
Respondents’ gender identity, threats to gender identity,
and conceptualizations of gender expression are just some of
the predictors of attitudes toward transgender people. As we
noted, attitudes about transgender people and rights have other
predictors as well, including feelings of discomfort and dis-
gust, authoritarian values, political conservativism, and
Republican partisanship. Future experimental work might ex-
plore the links between those attitudes and how they are inter-
related as well as possible mechanisms for breaking those
links and crafting persuasive messages that open individuals
to the possibility of attitudinal shifts. Finally, our dependent
variables refer to access to public bathrooms and locker rooms
as is consistent with actual text from ballot initiatives around
the United States. It is possible, however, that respondents
have differing attitudes toward bathrooms versus locker
rooms so that these questions constitute double-barreled ques-
tions. Future research might tease out any differences in public
opinion in terms of access to these spaces.
Practice Implications
Our paper identifies several implications for practitioners and
policymakers as U.S. culture becomes more attuned to the fact
that gender is not, in fact, a binary construction. As awareness
of transgender people increases, so too will discussions of
whether and how public outreach and policies might need to
be revised to better include them as full members of society.
Moving beyond the current headlines about gender-neutral
bathrooms may mean revisiting other elements of sex and
gender in our culture, including our need for sex-marked iden-
tity documents or for sex segregation in competitive sports
(Davis 2017). Attention to how these policies might spark
backlash among those with strong masculine identities might
Sex Roles
help advocates and policymakers to frame their proposals to
mitigate perceived threats to masculinity.
Another practice implication from our findings stems from
the stronger levels of support for transgender bathroom access
rights when framed as transgender people Bshould be
allowed^ to exercise that right compared to when it was posed
as a hypothetical ballot measure. These differences suggest
that policy changes that are made administratively, without
the need for action on the part of the general public, may be
more palatable. In other words, future efforts to recognize and
protect the rights of transgender people may be more success-
ful if they are advanced directly by policymakers rather than
via public referenda.
Conclusion
In many ways, contemporary anti-transgender rhetoric paral-
lels historical attacks against lesbian and gay people: The va-
lidity of those identity groups was called into question, with
many people describing lesbian and gay people as pedophiles,
sexual deviants, or mentally ill. Similarly, today’s opponents
to transgender equality often call into question the legitimacy
of transgender identity, as in the fight against transgender
rights in Houston, Texas that referred to transgender women
as Btroubled men^ (Moyer 2015, para 11).
There has been some progress toward increasing accep-
tance of transgender people, in part due to portrayals in the
media (Gillig et al. 2017). This extension of equality to more
and more groups, progressing from equality for lesbians and
gay men and then expanding to include transgender people is
reminiscent of Charles Taylor’s social imaginary—the idea
that in the modern moral order, the presumption of equal-
ity is Bapplied in more and more contexts, ending with the
multiple equal treatment or nondiscrimination provisions,
which are an integral part of most entrenched charters^
(Taylor 2004, p. 160).
Despite these advances, however, not enough attention is
paid to important issues facing transgender people in the
United States today. For example, transgender people are vic-
tims of harassment and violent assault, including murder, at an
alarmingly high rate. Rates of violence are especially high for
transgender women and particularly against Black transgender
women. According to the National Coalition of Anti-Violence
Programs (McBride 2017), at least 28 transgender people
were murdered in 2017. The Human Rights Campaign reports
that 102 transgender people have been killed since January
2013, 88 of whom were transgender women and nearly all
of whom were Black or Hispanic (Crary 2017). Nearly half
(46%) of respondents to the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey
conducted by the National Center for Transgender Equality
reported being verbally harassed in the previous year because
they were transgender and nearly 9% reported being
Sex Roles
physically attacked in the previous year because of their gen-
der identity (James et al. 2016).
We need to have a better understanding of how the mass
public thinks and feels about transgender people before we
will be able to enact the kind of change that the transgender
community deserves. Our paper serves as our first step by
investigating how expectations of gender performance and
one’s own gender identity (and threats to it) explain support
for or opposition to transgender rights. As Lazarsfeld et al.
(1948, p. 27) note: Ba person thinks, politically, as he is social-
ly. Social characteristics determine political preferences.^
Thus, gender identity—and particularly how a person per-
ceives gender norms and their own individual gender con-
cept—will be an important predictor of how an individual
reacts to issues that call into question norms about that identity
(e.g., transgender rights issues that threaten the gender binary
and thus male and female identities). A better understanding
of the precise interplay between gender identity, threats to
masculinity or femininity, and attitudes about transgender
(and non-gender conforming) people will allow for messaging
and framing of issues that maximize public support.
Although the ability to exercise one’s rights should not be
up for a public vote, the reality of U.S. politics is that the rights
of marginalized communities are often influenced by public
opinion. Increasing acceptance of and support for transgender
people will also reduce the very real threat of acts of violence
and homicide that afflict this community. Additional research
is needed to identify the root causes of attitudes toward trans-
gender people and how those attitudes can be shifted.
Compliance with Ethical Standards
Experimental data for this paper was obtained via the undergraduate
research lab at Northwestern University. All participants provided in-
formed consent prior to participating in the experiment. Prior to data
collection, the study was approved by Menlo College’s Institutional
Review Board.
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