“Protect the women!” Trans-exclusionary feminist issue framing and support for transgender rights
“Protect the women!” Trans-exclusionary feminist issue framing and support for transgender rights
An increasingly salient policy innovation pursued by LGBT+ rights groups and socially liberal policy entrepreneurs is the right of trans people to bring their legally recorded sex in line with their lived gender by way of self-identification. In response to these moves toward trans inclusion, a unique coalition of trans-exclusionary (gender critical) feminists and traditionalist conservatives has emerged to challenge these reforms. This coalition of policy opponents, mirroring historical issue frames that present homosexuals as predatory sexual deviants, campaign on a salient issue frame that presents transgender individuals and the expansion of trans rights as an inimical threat to the security, safety, and welfare of (cisgender) women, particularly in single-sex spaces. In this paper, we address two questions. First, we ask: do trans-exclusionary “protect women” issue frames over the alleged threat of trans persons to (cis) women shape mass public opinion? Second, we ask: in a relatively LGBT+ friendly policy environment, who supports the right to self-identification for trans individuals? We answer these questions via an original pre-registered survey experiment embedded within the 2021 Scottish Election Study. We find that trans-exclusionary issue frames appealing to (cis) women's safety significantly depress support for trans rights, particularly among women respondents. Highlighting these concerns is an effective means of increasing already robust opposition to reforms designed to improve the welfare of transgender individuals, which should be of concern for proponents of self-identification policies.
Gender Recognition Act, Gender self-ID, LGBT+, Scotland, Scottish Election Study, experiment, feminism, issue-framing, public opinion, public policy, transgender, gender self-identification, issue framing, trans-exclusionary feminism, transgender rights
Turnbull-Dugarte, Stuart J.
e25c6280-842c-407f-a961-6472eea5d845
McMillan, Fraser
7e1b5fc7-f86a-4a72-a8b4-ab1f73b28f8d
Turnbull-Dugarte, Stuart J.
e25c6280-842c-407f-a961-6472eea5d845
McMillan, Fraser
7e1b5fc7-f86a-4a72-a8b4-ab1f73b28f8d
Turnbull-Dugarte, Stuart J. and McMillan, Fraser
(2022)
“Protect the women!” Trans-exclusionary feminist issue framing and support for transgender rights.
Policy Studies Journal.
(doi:10.1111/psj.12484).
Abstract
An increasingly salient policy innovation pursued by LGBT+ rights groups and socially liberal policy entrepreneurs is the right of trans people to bring their legally recorded sex in line with their lived gender by way of self-identification. In response to these moves toward trans inclusion, a unique coalition of trans-exclusionary (gender critical) feminists and traditionalist conservatives has emerged to challenge these reforms. This coalition of policy opponents, mirroring historical issue frames that present homosexuals as predatory sexual deviants, campaign on a salient issue frame that presents transgender individuals and the expansion of trans rights as an inimical threat to the security, safety, and welfare of (cisgender) women, particularly in single-sex spaces. In this paper, we address two questions. First, we ask: do trans-exclusionary “protect women” issue frames over the alleged threat of trans persons to (cis) women shape mass public opinion? Second, we ask: in a relatively LGBT+ friendly policy environment, who supports the right to self-identification for trans individuals? We answer these questions via an original pre-registered survey experiment embedded within the 2021 Scottish Election Study. We find that trans-exclusionary issue frames appealing to (cis) women's safety significantly depress support for trans rights, particularly among women respondents. Highlighting these concerns is an effective means of increasing already robust opposition to reforms designed to improve the welfare of transgender individuals, which should be of concern for proponents of self-identification policies.
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Accepted/In Press date: 16 September 2022
e-pub ahead of print date: 3 November 2022
Keywords:
Gender Recognition Act, Gender self-ID, LGBT+, Scotland, Scottish Election Study, experiment, feminism, issue-framing, public opinion, public policy, transgender, gender self-identification, issue framing, trans-exclusionary feminism, transgender rights
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 470556
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/470556
ISSN: 1541-0072
PURE UUID: 76012482-e0b5-468d-89d9-9f34ec17e51f
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Date deposited: 12 Oct 2022 16:56
Last modified: 17 Mar 2024 04:01
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Author:
Fraser McMillan
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