Gender encoding in gender diverse and gender conforming children

Abstract

Previous research suggests that encoding people’s gender may be universal, even in childhood. The present research provided a new test of this possibility by asking whether gender diverse children (i.e., children whose gender identity or expression differs from that expected based on their assigned sex) encode gender. We recruited gender diverse participants (N = 71), siblings of gender diverse children (N = 52), and gender conforming controls (N = 69) and found that the groups did not significantly differ in degree of gender encoding. These results converge with prior research to suggest that gender diverse children may process gender in ways that do not differ from gender conforming children, and provide further evidence that gender encoding may be a universal aspect of person perception.