Acceptance of Transgender Veterans in Social Settings: An Experimental Study

Abstract

Public awareness revolving around experiences of individuals in the transgender community has grown in the past decade compared to years past but requires further research to examine how people who identify as transgender are perceived in various specific settings. For example, research surrounding this topic and the levels of society’s acceptance of these individuals in social settings is still limited, as is research about transgender veterans’ experiences. The term cisgender is “used to describe an individual whose gender identity and gender expression align with the sex assigned at birth,” whereas the term transgender is “an umbrella term encompassing those whose gender identities or gender roles differ from those typically associated with the sex they were assigned at birth” (A glossary: Defining transgender terms, 2018, p. 32). Thus, the term transgender or gender nonconforming is used to identify several groups within the transgender community. The word Open Data and Open Materials badges earned for transparent research practices. Data and materials are available at https://osf.io/94kdb/ ABSTRACT. U.S. society has become more exposed to and aware of the issues facing veterans who identify as transgender, but there is limited research surrounding this topic and the levels of acceptance society has of these individuals in social settings. With the growing “out” transgender population and changing views within political and military realms on transgender identities, there are concerns for the mental health and equal treatment of these individuals. This experimental study examined how participants reacted to a scenario in which they met a veteran in a social setting who shared a similar hobby (conditions: someone who either self-discloses they are transgender or an identical scenario except with no self-disclosure of transgender identity). This study explored the psychological attitudes that may impact these judgements and examined participants’ expected future behavior regarding the extent to which they would want further contact with that person. Results regarding likability were in the opposite direction hypothesized, such that participants reported the individual to be more likable in the condition where the person self-disclosed their transgender identity compared to the condition where transgender identity was not indicated, t(120) = −2.87, p = .005, d = 0.52. Perceptions of similarity and willingness to spend more time with the person were not significantly different across conditions. These results suggest more positive attitudes toward transgender veterans than initially expected, which is surprising and also promising for future research with the veteran transgender community, yet future research to further understand how generalizable these findings are may be critical.