Presented By: Personality and Social Contexts
PSC and GFP Brown Bags
Will Beischel, PSC Doctoral Student
Gender/sex configurations via sexual configurations theory: A novel survey method for assessing diverse gender/sexes
The assessment of gender and/or sex is often confined to a binary choice between male and female or placement on single dimensions. These measures do not often facilitate investigations of the way gender and sex can branch or coincide, change over time and context, vary in importance to one’s self, be situated in relation to cultural norms, or exist outside binary understandings of gender/sex. To address this gap, we developed a novel method for assessing individual gender, sex, and gender/sex (i.e., “gender/sex configurations”) using diagrams adapted from sexual configurations theory (SCT; van Anders, 2015). SCT provides a way of understanding and describing gender/sex configurations that centers gender/sex diversity. However, SCT has yet to be adapted for use in survey research. In this presentation, I will describe a study in which we asked participants (N = 242) with diverse gender/sex identities to describe their gender/sex configurations with both textual descriptions and through marking and writing on the diagrams from SCT via an online platform. Participants also answered follow-up questions about their understanding of the concepts and their experience describing their gender/sex configurations. Results indicated that a) the diagrams were used in ways consistent with self-identified gender/sex and b) a level of nuance was captured that otherwise would have remained invisible. Furthermore, participants reported generally understanding the concepts, and though some found the diagrams unnecessarily complicated, many saw the utility of the survey, either for describing their own gender/sex, as a way to consider others’ identities, or as a tool for understanding gender/sex diversity in general. Taken together, these findings indicate that drawing on SCT diagrams proves a promising way to allow people of all identities to describe themselves in ways that have not yet been explored in psychological research, with numerous potential uses in scientific research, clinical settings, and for individual self-understanding.
The assessment of gender and/or sex is often confined to a binary choice between male and female or placement on single dimensions. These measures do not often facilitate investigations of the way gender and sex can branch or coincide, change over time and context, vary in importance to one’s self, be situated in relation to cultural norms, or exist outside binary understandings of gender/sex. To address this gap, we developed a novel method for assessing individual gender, sex, and gender/sex (i.e., “gender/sex configurations”) using diagrams adapted from sexual configurations theory (SCT; van Anders, 2015). SCT provides a way of understanding and describing gender/sex configurations that centers gender/sex diversity. However, SCT has yet to be adapted for use in survey research. In this presentation, I will describe a study in which we asked participants (N = 242) with diverse gender/sex identities to describe their gender/sex configurations with both textual descriptions and through marking and writing on the diagrams from SCT via an online platform. Participants also answered follow-up questions about their understanding of the concepts and their experience describing their gender/sex configurations. Results indicated that a) the diagrams were used in ways consistent with self-identified gender/sex and b) a level of nuance was captured that otherwise would have remained invisible. Furthermore, participants reported generally understanding the concepts, and though some found the diagrams unnecessarily complicated, many saw the utility of the survey, either for describing their own gender/sex, as a way to consider others’ identities, or as a tool for understanding gender/sex diversity in general. Taken together, these findings indicate that drawing on SCT diagrams proves a promising way to allow people of all identities to describe themselves in ways that have not yet been explored in psychological research, with numerous potential uses in scientific research, clinical settings, and for individual self-understanding.
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