Thread by @CindyBVeldhuis

A thread: In LGBT research, we often use what is called the "two step method" to measure gender identity. This means you ask about sex assigned at birth (the sex on the birth certificate) and gender identity (woman, man, trans, nonbinary, etc.). 1/17

When we did our study on the effects of the 2016 election on queer women and trans individuals, we just asked the latter - essentially, do you ID as a man, woman, transgender person, etc. (choose all that apply). 2/17

Reviewers of our publications didn't like that bc we didn't know if there might be, for example, people who ID'ed only as men who might also actually be transgender. Thus, we might be underreporting trans* people. 3/17

In our next study, we switched to the two-step method and some participants did not like that as they felt their sex assigned at birth was irrelevant. It is how they identify today that is important. 4/17

So, there is this tension between the things we do in the service of research (like our insistence on categories to make stats easier) and the needs and concerns of the communities we research. 5/17

But, it is possible that the decisions we make as researchers may have actual negative effects on the communities we work with... 6/17

Someone who was reviewing a draft of the survey I am planning to use for my study of queer relationships had a very negative reaction to the two-step method. 7/17

They (they identify as trans) felt as though our asking about sex-assigned at birth was a bit traumatic as it brought back their gender dysphoria. 8/17

Which obviously, we don't want to do. Our survey should not be traumatic! But we also don't want to undercount trans* people in the study as that would mean the experiences of trans* people would be undercounted/underrepresented. 9/17

Also, I'm hoping to get funding to interview trans couples, so that data is important as this will help us with recruitment. 10/17

One option would be to have a separate question as to whether or not participants identify as cisgender or transgender - but I'm not fond of that as I feel like that is a bit of an artificial dichotomy that relies more on how people appear rather than how they feel inside. 11/17

We could have similar discussions about the measurement of things like sexual identity (force people to fit into categories is antithetical to the fluidity of sexuality and our view of sexuality as a spectrum) - and how we measure race/ethnicity is problematic at best. 12/17

All of this complexity and the tensions between research and the needs of our communities are so interesting - and have implications beyond what reviewers think of our ultimate decisions. 13/17

And another challenge is that some of the measures we use were cutting edge when they were created and reflected our understandings of gender and sexuality at that time - but these things are so fluid and our understanding and experiences evolve rapidly. 14/17

By the time a study validating measures of sexual or gender ID gets published & hailed "the new gold standard" we may already be 13 light years ahead of that in understanding these IDs. (and that is just us researchers-our communities are likely 23 light years ahead of us). 15/17

At the last @ISGMH LGBTQ+ health conference, they had an amazing session that included researchers and community members talking about intersectional issues in research on race/ethnicity and racism in the LGBTQ+ communities. 16/17

It was an incredible session and really facilitated some important and difficult dialogues. Dialogues I think we need to have in multiple areas like gender identity and sexual identity among many other areas. 17/17