The process by which a child acquires their gender identity has been the topic of inquiry among developmental psychologists for decades. Theorists have debated the extent to which social learning, biological factors, and children?s own developing cognitive skills contribute to the development of a gender identity. While children?s gender development has been extensively documented, research to date has mostly been limited to cisgender children?children whose gender identities and the socialization they receive from their environment align with their sex assigned at birth. Because the different factors are aligned for cisgender children, this makes it difficult to understand their relative contributions to development. In the current work, we examined gender development and gender cognition among transgender children?children who were assigned one sex at birth and were socialized accordingly early on, but who identify as a different gender and have socially transitioned to live and present as that gender. In this work, we addressed two research questions.
 
First, we were interested in better understanding transgender children?s gender development (i.e., what do their gender identities and related behaviors look like), as well as how their gender development compares to that of cisgender children. Using typical measures of gender development, our results showed that transgender children?s gender identities and gender-typed preferences in toys, clothing and peers are strongly associated with their current gender, and not the gender associated with their sex assigned at birth. Moreover, transgender children?s gender development generally did not differ from that of cisgender controls and cisgender siblings. These findings also did not vary based on how long a child had been living as transgender, or other demographic variables (e.g., family income, family education, race, geographic location). Critically, we found that transgender children?s gender development was similar to gender development observed in members of their own gender (and not their sex assigned at birth) even before they had socially transitioned. Together, these findings suggest that the earliest social messages these children received from their parents are less influential than their own sense of their identity and their attention to broader social messages aligned with that identity in predicting a child?s gender-typed preferences and identity years later.
 
Our second research question concerned transgender children?s reasoning about gender across various domains, and how their gender-related cognition compared to that of cisgender children. For example, in one study, we showed that transgender children showed privileged memory for gender-stereotyped images (e.g., a girl playing with dolls vs. a boy playing with dolls), and they did so to the same extent as cisgender children. In another study, we found that transgender children?s gender stereotypes (i.e., their beliefs about what girls and boys should do) did not differ from those of cisgender children?s. Finally, when asked to make inferences about a child?s gender-typed preferences, we found that both transgender and cisgender children are equally likely to make these inferences based on the target child?s sex assigned at birth, and not the socialization the target received from their environment. Together, these findings suggest that transgender children?s reasoning about gender is similar to cisgender children?s gender cognition.
 
Across multiple studies, we found that transgender children?s gender development and gender cognition closely resembles those of cisgender children of the same gender. Transgender children appear to develop in ways typically seen in members of their current gender, and not their sex assigned at birth. The results in these studies lend support to a prominent theory of gender development, called Gender Schema Theory (Martin et al., 2002), suggesting that transgender and cisgender children similarly socialize themselves to appear and behave in ways deemed consistent with their gender. The studies funded with this fellowship shed light on transgender children?s gender and social cognitive development, a gravely understudied population. Additionally, the current findings add diversity and foundational insight to existing literature on children?s gender development, and thereby, help increase comprehensiveness of gender development theory.
 
The work supported by this fellowship led to the publication of 5 peer-reviewed papers (with several others under review) and 6 conference presentations. In addition, this fellowship supported the intellectual development of the PI/postdoctoral fellow, providing opportunities to expand her statistical training, work on professional development skills, further develop her vita, and ultimately receive a faculty position.

Last Modified: 12/16/2019
Modified by: Selin Gulgoz