Social and psychological heterogeneity among binary transgender, non-binary transgender and cisgender individuals

Abstract

Researchers have identified important psychosocial distinctions between three emergent gender categories: cisgender, binary transgender and non-binary transgender. The present study further examines such heterogeneous experiences and explores the methodological implications for research of the transgender community. Participants were 153 cisgender, 201 binary transgender and 164 non-binary transgender American adults who completed questionnaires on the topics of life satisfaction, gender determinism and perceived social support. Results demonstrate that non-binary transgender participants report lower gender determinism than both cisgender and binary transgender participants. Furthermore, correlations between significant other support and life satisfaction were higher in cisgender participants than either binary or non-binary transgender participants, whereas the correlation between friend support and life satisfaction was higher in both cisgender and binary transgender participants than in non-binary transgender participants. These results threaten the methodological coherence of studying a unitary ‘transgender community’, and suggest that some meaningful group differences can be attributed to one of two dimensions of gender variance: cisgender versus transgender identity, or binary versus non-binary gender identity. Future survey research should further explore the methodology of assessing non-binary identity and transgender identity using separate items.

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