Social Preferences Among Transgender, Gender Nonconforming, and Gender Typical Children

该奖项是美国国家科学基金会社会、行为和经济科学博士后研究奖学金（SPRF）计划的一部分。SPRF计划的目标是为学术界、工业界或私营部门和政府的科学事业准备有前途的早期职业博士级科学家。SPRF奖励包括在知名科学家的赞助下进行为期两年的培训，并鼓励博士后进行独立研究。美国国家科学基金会寻求促进科学界各阶层的科学家，包括那些未被充分代表的群体的科学家，参与其研究项目和活动；博士后阶段被认为是实现这一目标的一个重要的专业发展阶段。每个博士后必须解决各自学科领域的重要科学问题。在普林斯顿大学克里斯汀娜·奥尔森博士的赞助下，这个博士后奖学金奖支持一位早期职业科学家调查性别多样化的青年和青少年如何对社会世界进行推理。普林斯顿大学（Princeton）的跨性别青年项目（transyyouth）是一项全国性的纵向研究，研究对象是最大的青春期前跨性别和性别不符合标准的青少年及其兄弟姐妹。这个项目处理性别发展研究领域的一个长期问题。也就是说，到目前为止，几乎所有的理论和经验方法都假设孩子出生时被分配的性别与他们生活中的性别认同相匹配。尽管对许多人来说这是事实，但近年来，变性人——那些认同与自己出生性别相反的性别的人——已经获得了更多的关注。因此，发展研究人员扩大其理论范围以包括性别多样化的青年的时机已经成熟。自我披露身份是许多好处的先兆，比如获得社会肯定，围绕自己的身份建立社区。然而，跨性别青年必须考虑到随之而来的歧视和欺凌的可能性。跨性别青年如何在公开还是隐瞒自己的身份之间做出选择，这很重要，但却没有得到很好的理解。该项目名为“跨性别儿童、性别不一致儿童和性别典型儿童的社会偏好”，其目标是双重的。首先，该项目评估了跨性别青少年（13-18岁）如何评价那些向他们透露自己性别身份的人（目标1）。这一目标采用了混合方法，使用主题分析来确定与青少年成功披露经历相关的主题，通过青少年对他们所选择的知己的支持程度的评分来衡量。其次，该项目根据潜在知己的特征，包括他们的朋友群体在性别多样性方面的构成，实证地评估幼儿如何在第三人称情境下推断披露决定（Aim 2a）。最后，本研究将检验跨性别青少年对其知己的评价是否与较年轻的跨性别儿童对他人披露决定的推理一致（目的2b）。该项目促进了科学知识的发展，这些知识有可能为不同性别的个体提供更好的结果。此外，通过评估不同性别认同范围的儿童如何理解性别认同披露的好处和负担，本研究将为如何更好地支持不同性别的个体提供经验基础。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This award was provided as part of NSF's Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellowships (SPRF) program. The goal of the SPRF program is to prepare promising, early career doctoral-level scientists for scientific careers in academia, industry or private sector, and government. SPRF awards involve two years of training under the sponsorship of established scientists and encourage Postdoctoral Fellows to perform independent research. NSF seeks to promote the participation of scientists from all segments of the scientific community, including those from underrepresented groups, in its research programs and activities; the postdoctoral period is considered to be an important level of professional development in attaining this goal. Each Postdoctoral Fellow must address important scientific questions that advance their respective disciplinary fields. Under the sponsorship of Dr. Kristina Olson at Princeton University, this postdoctoral fellowship award supports an early career scientist investigating how gender diverse youth and teens reason about the social world. The TransYouth project at Princeton is a national, longitudinal study of the largest sample of prepubescent transgender and gender nonconforming youth and their siblings. This project addresses a longstanding issue in the field of gender development research. Namely, that virtually all theorizing and empirical approaches to date assume that the sex a child is assigned at birth matches their lived gender identity. Although this is true for many, in recent years transgender individuals—those who identify with the gender opposite their natal sex—have gained more visibility. Thus, the time is ripe for developmental researchers to broaden the scope of their theorizing to include gender diverse youth. Self-disclosure of one’s identity is a precursor to many benefits, such as receiving social affirmation and building community around one’s identity. However, transgender youth must take into consideration the potential for discrimination and bullying that may follow. How transgender youth adjudicate between the option to disclose rather than conceal their identity is important, but not well understood.The goal of the project, entitled "Social Preferences Among Transgender, Gender Nonconforming, and Gender Typical Children" is twofold. First the project assesses how transgender teenagers (13-18 years) evaluate those whom they have disclosed their gender identity to (Aim 1). This aim employs a mixed-methods approach using thematic analysis to identify themes associated with teens’ successful disclosure experiences, as measured by the teens’ ratings of their chosen confidants’ levels of support. Second, the project empirically assesses how young children reason about disclosure decisions in a third-person context based on the characteristics of potential confidants, including the composition of their friend groups with respect to gender diversity (Aim 2a). Finally, this work will examine whether transgender teens’ evaluations of their confidants is consistent with younger transgender children’s reasoning about others’ disclosure decisions (Aim 2b). This project advances scientific knowledge that has the potential to support better outcomes for gender diverse individuals. Further, this work will provide an empirical basis for how to better support gender diverse individuals by assessing how children across the gender identity spectrum reason about the benefits and burdens of gender identity disclosure.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.