About this session

Friday, 1:20 PM - 2:50 PM

Advancing Best Practices for Measuring Transgender and Gender Expansive Youth Identities: Insights and Implications

Recent estimates indicate that transgender and gender expansive (TGE) people make up 1.6% of the United States population and up to 3% globally, with youth aged 13 to 17 more likely to identify as TGE than older generations (Ipsos, 2023; Pew, 2022; Williams, 2022). As more youth are reporting TGE identities, there has been a wave of anti-trans legislation and disinformation, negatively impacting youth mental health (Trevor Project, 2023). Much of this discrimination stems from ignorance and misunderstandings of who TGE people are (Pew, 2022), highlighting the need for researchers to establish best practices for gathering data on TGE youth experiences. This symposium presents three projects exploring how to accurately capture TGE identities with complexity and fluidity. Paper 1 analyzes a state-wide public health survey of middle and high school students to identify flexible means of categorizing gender and the implications of the use of different categorization schemes on our understanding of TGE youth experiences (e.g., changes in bullying prevalence rates based on different categorization methods). Paper 2 employs a three-wave national probability sample of LGB people to explore the changes in youth gender identification over time. Paper 3 uses longitudinal data from middle and high school students in 3 states to explore the implications of different means of asking about and categorizing gender identity. Taken together, these projects provide researchers and practitioners with important insights for conceptualizing and measuring gender identity to advance science and improve the lives of TGE youth.

Paper #1
Title	An inclusive approach to a complex, gender identity select-all-that-apply item on large public health survey
Presenting author	Dr. Kay A. Simon, Ph.D., Department of Family Social Science, University of Minnesota, United States

Paper #2
Title	Gender identity change among youth: results from a nationally probability sample
Presenting author	Andre G. Real, Department of Human Development and Family Sciences, University of Texas at Austin, United States

Paper #3
Title	Exploring two-step gender identity assessment in a multi-site adolescent student sample
Presenting author	Cayley Bliss, Department of Counseling, Developmental, and Educational Psychology, Boston College, United States

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Session chair
Dr. Robert Marx, Ph.D., Department of Child and Adolescent Development, San Jose State University, United States

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