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This chapter examines the surgical body modification experiences of transgender and cisgender people in the United States. It analyzes how surgery consumers with different gendered histories pursue “enhanced” embodiment. Both cisgender and transgender people obtain similar surgeries, but their procedures are differently regulated. Based on 40 in-depth interviews, this chapter compares the presurgical and postsurgical experiences of transgender and cisgender people. The findings show that cisgender and transgender people felt similarly about their bodies before surgery and reported corresponding cosmetic and psychological motivations for surgery. Both groups also had comparable postsurgical outcomes and used surgery to actualize a more desirable gendered embodiment. Ultimately, surgery resulted in changed gendered embodiment that enhanced the self for both groups. It could be psychologically transformative for cisgender people and provide more of a cosmetic effect for transgender people. These findings complicate disparate regulations of transgender and cisgender surgeries. They highlight surgeries as body technologies that enhance gendered embodiment allowing both cisgender and transgender consumers to articulate gendered concepts of the self.

Transgender people experience significant health and healthcare disparities in comparison to cisgender people. Limited access to quality, trans-competent healthcare in the USA is a central social determinant of these inequities. In this chapter, we expand on the burgeoning literature on accountability structures and transgender healthcare through an analysis of individual interviews with cisgender medical providers about their and their colleagues’ capacity to provide trans-competent healthcare. First, we find that providers report unfamiliarity and uncertainty concerning transgender people, their healthcare needs, and related issues. Although providers regard such ignorance as a structural problem within medical education and practice, the solutions they proffer rely on the benevolence and personal initiative of individual providers to seek out trans-specific information and training. This upholds the boundaries between what is considered “normal” (i.e., cisgender centered) healthcare and trans-competent healthcare. Second, we find that cisgender medical providers who want to provide quality healthcare to transgender people engage in emotion work that prioritizes the comfort and ignorance of their cisgender colleagues and inhibits institutional change. In sum, we argue that, regardless of their intentions, cisgender providers engage in practices that maintain healthcare as a cisnormative accountability structure and, in turn, contribute to the persistence of transgender health and healthcare disparities.

The reality of policing in the twenty-first century is that most officers identify as white, heterosexual and cisgender (or identifying with the sex assigned to them at birth) and outnumber officers from diverse groups. Whilst many diverse officers are employed by police organisations, there is a lack of evidence to suggest transgender people seek employment in policing or (following strategic recruitment drives) are actively recruited by police organisations. This raises questions regarding the factors which constrain or facilitate employment of transgender people into policing and whether strategic recruitment drives targeting transgender people work. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Following a recruitment drive targeting diverse community members, an online survey was administered to police recruits in one of Australia’s smaller state based police organisations (n=742) to determine if recruits self-identity as transgender or cisgender, and whether or not self-identified cisgender or transgender recruits would be willing to work alongside one another.

The results indicated that all the recruits in this study identified as cisgender. Whilst transgender recruits may have participated in the research, none of the recruits identified openly as transgender in the survey. Consequently, there was a significant association between the recruit’s gender and sexuality, and their perceptions of working alongside transgender officers, with almost all recruits stating that they would prefer to work with cisgender officers.

The findings of this research contribute original knowledge to the extant body of policing literature regarding police recruit perceptions of working alongside transgender officers.

This type of research has not been conducted in an Australian context before.

Transgender people have received substantial attention in recent years, with gender identity being a focal point of online debate. Transgender identities are central to discussions relating to sex-segregated spaces and activities, such as public toilets, prisons, and sports participation. The introduction of “gender-neutral” spaces has received criticism because some argue that there is an increased risk of sexual violence against women and children. However, little is known about the implications that these constructions have for whom is able to claim a “victim status.” In this chapter, I provide a critical analysis of the techniques used by individuals to align themselves with a “victim status.” These claims are presented and contextualized within varying notions of victimization, from being victims of political correctness to victims of a more aggressive minority community. This feeds into an inherently transphobic discourse that is difficult to challenge without facing accusations of perpetuating an individual's “victimhood.” Transphobic rhetoric is most commonly expressed through constructing transgender people as “unnatural,” “sinful,” or as experiencing a “mental health issue.” This chapter argues that the denial of transphobia and simultaneous claims of victimization made by the dominant, cisgender majority are intrinsically linked.

In this chapter, I assess the treatment of transgender within the sociology of gender and propose a new standard of transfeminist methodology that would work against transgender marginalization in social scientific research.

I assess the treatment of transgender within the sociology of gender by conducting a content analysis of all articles and chapters focusing on transgender people, experiences, bodies, and phenomena published between 1987 and 2014 in the journal Gender & Society (n = 12) and between 1996 and 2014 in the book series Advances in Gender Research (n = 5).

I first outline key tenets of feminist methodology and suggest additional transfeminist methodological considerations. I proceed to a content analysis of existing transgender research in two key publications to support my proposal of the development of transfeminist methodology.

This chapter highlights the need to expand feminist methodology for the study of transgender people and phenomena. Specifically, I propose the development of transfeminist methodology, an approach that centers on transgender experience and perspectives.

The purpose of this study is to compare perceptions of male cisgender and male transgender stalking perpetrators. There present study compared participants’ perceptions of whether behaviour constituted stalking, posed a threat, had a risk of violence and required police intervention when the perpetrator was transgender or cisgender. The present study also sought to replicate the prior-relationship misconception in stalking literature and to investigate whether perceptions of transgender perpetrators changed based on the age and gender of the perceiver.

Participants read vignettes outlining the relationship between victim and perpetrator as well as a description of the stalking behaviours. Participants then reported their perceptions of the four dependent variables on Likert-type scales.

The prior-relationship misconception was replicated. There were no significant differences in perceptions of transgender and cisgender perpetrators across the four dependent variables. There were also no significant differences in perceptions based on the gender of the perceiver. Contrary to expectations, older participants perceived transgender perpetrators as less threatening than younger participants.

The prior-relationship misconception is robust to gender identity of the perpetrator. The participants in the present study seemed to make judgements based on stalking behaviour and not the gender identity of the perpetrator. Future research should replicate this study with more severe stalking behaviours and with greater variation in gender identity.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to compare perceptions of cisgender and transgender males in the context of stalking perpetration. There is also consideration of how the demographics of the perceiver could impact these perceptions. This study also contributes to research on the prior-relationship misconception by demonstrating that the misconception is robust to gender identification of the perpetrator.

This study aims to explore the relationship between the reported frequency of illegitimate tasks undertaken at work (FREQIT) and gender identity among cisgender individuals and persons with a (?) transgender or gender non-conforming (TGNC) identity.

This research combines an experimental approach with a field-study. Study 1 contained a vignette experiment where participants reported their likelihood to assign illegitimate tasks (IT) to either a cisgender or a TGNC employee. Study 2 measured perceptions of tasks-illegitimacy (PERTI), FREQIT, perceptions of organisational gender climate (PGC), burnout and intention to quit among a sample of cisgender and TGNC participants.

In Study 1, individuals in a supervisory position were more likely to assign IT to TGNC than cisgender employees. In Study 2, gender identity influenced burnout, intentions to quit and PGC, serially mediated by PERTI and FREQIT. The results from Study 2 did not support the initial model, which proposed that lower PERTI would lead TGNC employees to report a higher FREQIT, leading to lower occupational well-being scores. Instead, TGNC participants’ burnout, intention to quit and PGC scores improved as a consequence of their lower PERTI. However, when comparing cisgender and TGNC individuals, the latter presented higher levels of burnout, intentions to quit and lower PGC scores.

This is the first study measuring the effects of IT on TGNC individuals’ occupational well-being. It underscores the importance to reduce cisgender biases and transphobia and to address IT as obstacles to trans equality in the workplace.

The participation of trans people is increasingly being framed as a defining issue for women's sport. A dominant narrative, promoted by various newly formed feminist organizations located in the Global North, is that (cisgender) women's sport will be forever changed – and negatively so – by the increased recognition and sports participation of trans athletes. The message is the following: first, that biological sex is fundamentally binary; second, that the place of ‘females’ in sport depends on the recognition of this biological ‘truth’; and third, that sports policymakers must choose between advancing the rights of interests of (cisgender) women or those of trans athletes, but can't do both. I call this phenomenon biofeminism: the wielding of scientific knowledge and expertise to claim binary, biological sex difference as the ‘true’ basis of (cisgender) women's experience and her rights. In this chapter, I offer an exploratory, empirical account of this variety of feminist mobilization by analyzing an awareness-raising event held in the United Kingdom in 2019. I approach this event as an opportunity to better understand how biofeminist actors are organizing, their epistemic strategies and the political frames they rely upon to give meaning to ideologies of binary sex difference and impact policy and legislation. Given the unfinished business of realizing gender equity within the institution of sport, I reflect on how women's sports organizations might counter biofeminist mobilization and pursue allyship between cis and trans women.

In the months leading up to, and during, the 2021 legislative session – the most dangerous for trans athletes in the history of the United States – 1,224 news articles, public statements and opinion pieces were published through online sources about trans people having access to sport. Conducting a textual analysis of those mediated articles, we conclude that trans athletes are being used by conservative political forces to instigate a social, moral panic. We identified three primary framings being used to instil a moral panic in articles published between 1 December 2020, and 1 June 2021, inflaming the debate over trans athletes. First, trans athletes have been positioned as spectres haunting the future of sport. Second, narratives of fear frame trans women as psychologically malevolent. Finally, conservative politicians are creating a moral panic to paint themselves as protectors of cisgender girls in sport. We conclude by describing the ways fears about trans athletes are being politicized by larger conservative forces that may have especially harmful ramifications for both trans athletes and cisgender women athletes.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the mechanisms underlying hiring discrimination against transgender men.

The authors conduct a scenario experiment with final-year business students in which fictitious hiring decisions are made about transgender or cisgender male job candidates. More importantly, these candidates are scored on statements related to theoretical reasons for hiring discrimination given in the literature. The resulting data are analysed using a bivariate analysis. Additionally, a multiple mediation model is run.

Suggestive evidence is found for co-worker and customer taste-based discrimination, but not for employer taste-based discrimination. In addition, results show that transgender men are perceived as being in worse health, being more autonomous and assertive, and have a lower probability to go on parental leave, compared with cisgender men, revealing evidence for (positive and negative) statistical discrimination.

Targeted policy measures are needed given the substantial labour market discrimination against transgender individuals measured in former studies. However, to combat this discrimination effectively, one needs to understand its underlying mechanisms. This study provides the first comprehensive exploration of these mechanisms.

This study innovates in being one of the first to explore the relative empirical importance of dominant (theoretical) explanations for hiring discrimination against transgender men. Thereby, the authors take the logical next step in the literature on labour market discrimination against transgender individuals.