Rethinking Gender/Sex Identity

Abstract

Until quite recently, investigations of gender/sex development operated from a baseline assumption that gender/sex is dichotomous or binary. Most such studies constructed gender/sex outside of or adjacent to specific cultures, and for the most part studied children from Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic (WEIRD) countries. In this paper I first advocate for four research guidelines-inclusivity, epistemic justice, materiality, and empiricism. I sketch out the historical background that still shapes contemporary studies into the psychology of gender/sex identity in infants and toddlers. Next, I point toward methods for the study of gender/sex in infants and toddlers that have the potential to make nonbinary development visible and to develop culturally diverse concepts of identity development. Finally, I challenge psychologists and others to view and operationalize the study of identity as a relational, phenomenological entity rather than a fixed feature of the individual psyche.

Keywords: cultural development; gender/sex development; gender/sex indifference; gender/sex insistence; identity; infant development; nonbinary; phenomenology; relational identity.