The attitudes toward transgendered individuals scale: psychometric properties

Abstract

Gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered individuals are sexual and gender minorities subject to stigma in a heteronormative culture with binary gender role norms. Although much research has examined sexual stigma in the form of homophobia, or negative attitudes and reactions to homosexuals and homosexuality, little is known about the stigma experienced by transgendered individuals. Transgendered people are those whose gender identity (sense of oneself as a man or a woman) or gender expression (expression of oneself as a man or a woman in behavior, manner, and/or dress) differ from conventional expectations for their physical sex. Although a scale exists to measure transphobia or negative attitudes and reactions to transgendered individuals, it includes items tapping into overt behavioral expression of this stigma, or gender-bashing, and fails to identify or define transgendered persons as the attitudinal target of the items. A new scale was developed and evaluated in an effort to assess transgender-related stigma, separately from discrimination and violence, among members of the general population. Using two separate samples of college students ranging in age from 18-64 years, exploratory (N = 134) and confirmatory factor analyses (N = 237) were performed. The resulting 20-item, self-report measure demonstrated a single-factor structure, high internal consistency reliability, and evidence of convergent and discriminant construct validity.