Gender congruency and gender trajectory: Predicting transgender discrimination in four contexts

• Main Author: O'Connor, Jamie Lee
• Format: Dissertation
• Language: English
• Published: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses 01-01-2014
• Subjects: Gender studies; Individual & family studies; LGBTQ studies
• ISBN: 1321142536; 9781321142532

The vast majority of studies on discrimination are confined to a single context. The transgender community is burgeoning in visibility and there is a dearth of large scale quantitative studies regarding this group. This study examines which facets related to being transgender best predict discrimination in four contexts: public accommodations, housing, the workplace, and school. Drawing from logistic regression of 4,175 cases from the National Transgender Discrimination Survey with independent variables that cluster around aesthetic gender congruency (whether a person's appearance conforms with his/her identified gender) and gender trajectory (the direction of male to female or female to male), gender congruency best predicted discrimination in public accommodations, schools, and the workplace whereas gender trajectory, specifically going from male to female, best predicted housing discrimination. Gender congruency is more likely to take precedence over gender trajectory in discrimination. Furthermore, the individual facets which best predict discrimination vary depending on the context.