Perceived social norms and acceptance of transgender students in gendered restrooms

Abstract

Transgender college students report higher rates of discrimination in gendered restrooms than do their cisgender peers. It is critical to understand factors that promote greater acceptance of transgender students using restrooms that align with their gender identity. The current experiment examined the impact of perceived social norms on both acceptance of transgender individuals using various locations and transphobia. Participants were 133 cisgender college students recruited on a college campus that had recently added all-gender restrooms to all campus buildings. Participants completed a prescreening measure of transphobia. During the experimental session, participants read results from a fictional study in which the social norm of their college campus was described as either in favor of (supportive norm) or against (unsupportive norm) the installation of all-gender restrooms on campus. Then participants completed measures of acceptance of transgender individuals in various spaces and transphobia. Supporting the primary hypothesis, relative to those in the unsupportive norm condition, participants in the supportive social norm condition were more accepting of transgender individuals using restrooms that aligned with their gender identity. However, the norm manipulation did not impact personal levels of transphobia between prescreen and post experimental manipulation. Implications and future directions will be discussed.