Charlotte Tate | Gender is for the BIRDS… Understanding: Measuring The Various Meanings of “Gender” using the BIRDS Nomological Network

Over the past 100 years, psychology researchers have acknowledged differences in the meaning of "gender" across research contexts (e.g., demographic category, role endorsement), yet there was no concerted attempt to systematically organize these different meanings into a nomological network of measurable constructs (cf. Cronbach & Meehl, 1955)–until Egan and Perry's (2001) work on the multi-dimensional understanding of gender for childhood and adolescent research. My own work (Tate, Ledbetter, & Youssef, 2014) extended Egan and Perry's perspective and formalized the new nomological network into the "gender bundle" understanding (throughout the lifespan) in order to guide the creation and evaluation of valid measures of the constructs under the "gender" umbrella term—with the recognition that any measurement must center cis and trans experiences to be useful. Now, the "bundle" understanding has been updated to the acronym BIRDS, with each letter describing the most elemental construct space that scholars have considered regarding a focus of measurement. "B" for all biological referents (modifiable and non-modifiable); "I" for identity (as in self-categorization, demographic category); "R" for roles, as in gender roles, role endorsement, expectations and ideologies; and "S" for sentiments, as in all interpersonal evaluations and attitudes. In this talk, I present my lab's empirical progress on creating cis- and trans-centered valid and reliable measures of the 5 facets of gender within the BIRDS nomological network.

Charlotte Tate, Ph.D., is a Professor of Psychology at San Francisco State University. She is a mixed ethnicity trans woman, a lesbian, and an intersectional feminist. Her work is situated at the nexus of social and personality psychology—drawing methods, theories, and approaches from both traditions. Specifically, she examines the social identities of gender (trans* inclusive), sexual orientation (asexual inclusive), and ethnicity in the United States by focusing on the self and identity processes within those identities as well as prejudice and discrimination directed toward them. Her work uses an intersectional lens as a foundation to understand all these topics. Her work is largely quantitative, with a focus on multivariate statistical modeling, and is guided by conceptually analytic models that are amenable to qualitative inquiry as well. She has been on the editorial boards of Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology and Journal of Lesbian Studies and currently serves as an Associate Editor for Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity, on the Editorial Board of Journal of Sex Research, and as a Consulting Reviewer for American Psychologist.