INTERVIEW: Selin Gülgöz Flashcards
What does she study?
gender development of cisgender and transgender children
Transgender children express preferences consistent with their gender not sex
What research questions guide her work?
How children reason and understand social categories
How much do children see gender as essential (in born and cannot change)
- See how much they view male and female as binary
AND how gender non conforming / trans kids reason about these social categories
What is the biggest misconception about this area of research?
When talking about trans children, ppl freak out thinking these kids had medical interventions
Not true, we means socially transitioned (call by diff pronouns, names, or appearances)
- Treated as gender they identify with
How do they recruit people for this study?
Recruit ppl through online / in person support groups for families with trans kids
Then word of mouth
(Sometimes interview in public spaces or at home-can give insight to environment)
What is the difference between trans and gender non conforming in her study?
Trans: Use other pronouns and don’t identify with sex
Gender non conforming: Might still use pronouns assigned at birth, or might be gender neutral (they/them)
In her study, there is no correlation between time spent transitioning and performance on gender identity measures.
(their gender preferences / association stays stable no matter where they are in transition, doesn’t get stronger over time)
Why?
Indicate it is not the act of socially transitioning that causes gender preferences
(ex. NOT: I use she/her, everyone treats me as a girl, I use girl toys, so I will prefer girl things
BUT: These preferences are there with or without the social transition)
Since we can only include kids whose parents accept them, there might be a selection effect.
What would happen if we can interview kids from not accepting households?
Had to use this selection because they wanted to work with kids who had socially transitioned (unaccepting families wouldn’t let them transition)
Hard to speculate on differences cuz they are very inaccessible
Are there current projects in this field to note?
Yes, these kids are part of a longitudinal study
- Now two time points minimum for each child
looking at gender stability, effect on mental health etc for these kids overtime
ALSO how gender non conforming kids (not socially transitioned) compared with trans kids (socially transitioned)
Find: trans kids show more binary preferences (less gender neutral)
What does she hope the field goes into more?
How cis children perceive trans peers and how they evaluate them
Cis children do have some resistance to trans peers
Wants us to look how to structure education and early experiences to avoid discriminatory beliefs from becoming solidified.
