Kylar Schaad: Time-Sharing Experiments in the Social Sciences

Congratulations to Kylar Schaad, whose proposal has been chosen to receive funding by the Time-Sharing Experiments for the Social Sciences (TESS).

Kylar's project will assess the factors that influence support for identity document laws that allow for people to change their birth certificate gender markers, including support for changes to a non-binary status. In particular, he will examine the role of (1) gender assigned at birth (female, male), (2) gender identity (trans man, trans woman, non-binary), and (3) narrative conformity (conforming to stereotypes about transgender childhood experiences or not) in formulating perceptions of identity legitimacy (i.e., the extent to which one's identity is believed to be real) and willingness advocacy (via a petition) to have the law changed. In so doing, his study will be the first to draw on a nationally representative, probability based sample to assess public support for gender identity rights and isolate the role of perceptions of legitimacy. It will also be the first to simply collect demographic data regading participants' gender identity status that includes a non-binary option. Thus, he'll be able to parsing out what percentage of the population identifies as trans, non-binary, neither, and both.

Posted by Malley, Mary in News