Transgender and cisgender children's essentialist beliefs about sex and gender identity.

ABSTRACT: Children essentialize gender from a young age, viewing it as inborn, biologically based, unchanging, and predictive of preferences and behaviors. Children's gender essentialism appears to be so pervasive that it is found within conservative and liberal communities, and among transgender and cisgender children. However, it remains unclear what aspect of gender the children participating in past studies essentialized. Such studies used labels such as "girl" or "boy" without clarifying how children (or researchers) interpreted them. Are they indicators of the target's biological categorization at birth (sex), the target's sense of their own gender (gender identity), or some third possible interpretation? This distinction becomes particularly relevant when transgender children are concerned, a

SUBMITTER: Gulgoz S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8530878 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature