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1. Similarity in transgender and cisgender children’s gender development

   https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1909367116  

   Gülgöz, Selin; Glazier, Jessica J.; Enright, Elizabeth A.; Alonso, Daniel J.; Durwood, Lily J.; Fast, Anne A.; Lowe, Riley; Ji, Chonghui; Heer, Jeffrey; Martin, Carol Lynn; et al (November 2019, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)

   Gender is one of the central categories organizing children’s social world. Clear patterns of gender development have been well-documented among cisgender children (i.e., children who identify as a gender that is typically associated with their sex assigned at birth). We present a comprehensive study of gender development (e.g., gender identity and gender expression) in a cohort of 3- to 12-y-old transgender children (n = 317) who, in early childhood, are identifying and living as a gender different from their assigned sex. Four primary findings emerged. First, transgender children strongly identify as members of their current gender group and show gender-typed preferences and behaviors that are strongly associated with their current gender, not the gender typically associated with their sex assigned at birth. Second, transgender children’s gender identity (i.e., the gender they feel they are) and gender-typed preferences generally did not differ from 2 comparison groups: cisgender siblings (n = 189) and cisgender controls (n = 316). Third, transgender and cisgender children’s patterns of gender development showed coherence across measures. Finally, we observed minimal or no differences in gender identity or preferences as a function of how long transgender children had lived as their current gender. Our findings suggest that early sex assignment and parental rearing based on that sex assignment do not always define how a child identifies or expresses gender later. 

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2. Educational Outcomes Of Gender-Diverse Youth: A National Population-Based Study

   https://doi.org/10.1177/08912432211038689  

   Wilkinson, Lindsey; Shifrer, Dara; Pearson, Jennifer (August 2021, Gender & Society)

   Despite the growing population of youth identifying with a transgender or nonbinary gender identity, research on gender-diverse individuals’ educational outcomes is limited. This study takes advantage of the first nationally representative, population-based data set that includes measures of gender identity and educational outcomes: the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009. Using minority stress and structural symbolic interactionist frameworks, we examine the association between gender identity and high school and college educational outcomes. We compare the educational outcomes of gender-diverse youth—binary transgender, nonbinary, and gender unsure—with those of cisgender youth, and also examine differences within the gender-diverse population. Given the strong link between minority stress and educational experiences among gender-diverse youth, we examine differences in outcomes before and after accounting for school belonging and emotional distress. We also account for individuals’ social-structural location, arguing that social positionality shapes both gender identity and educational outcomes. Results indicate important differences in educational outcomes within the gender-diverse population: Whereas binary transgender and gender-unsure youth exhibit educational disadvantage, relative to cisgender youth, nonbinary youth do not. The gender-unsure disadvantage remains even after accounting for differences in social-structural location and social-psychological factors associated with minority stress. 

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3. Towards Leveraging AI-based Moderation to Address Emergent Harassment in Social Virtual Reality

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3544548.3581090  

   Schulenberg, Kelsea; Li, Lingyuan; Freeman, Guo; Zamanifard, Samaneh; McNeese, Nathan J. (April 2023, CHI '23: Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems)

   Extensive HCI research has investigated how to prevent and mitigate harassment in virtual spaces, particularly by leveraging human-based and Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based moderation. However, social Virtual Reality (VR) constitutes a novel social space that faces both intensified harassment challenges and a lack of consensus on how moderation should be approached to address such harassment. Drawing on 39 interviews with social VR users with diverse backgrounds, we investigate the perceived opportunities and limitations for leveraging AI-based moderation to address emergent harassment in social VR, and how future AI moderators can be designed to enhance such opportunities and address limitations. We provide the first empirical investigation into re-envisioning AI’s new roles in innovating content moderation approaches to better combat harassment in social VR. We also highlight important principles for designing future AI-based moderation incorporating user-human-AI collaboration to achieve safer and more nuanced online spaces. 

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4. Streaming your Identity: Navigating the Presentation of Gender and Sexuality through Live Streaming

   https://doi.org/10.1007/s10606-020-09386-w  

   Freeman, Guo; Wohn, Donghee Yvette (September 2020, Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW))

   The digital presentation of gender and sexuality has been a long-standing concern in HCI and CSCW. There is also a growing interest in exploring more nuanced presentations of identity afforded in emerging online social spaces that have not been thoroughly studied. In this paper, we endeavor to contribute towards this research agenda in yet another new media context – live streaming – by analyzing female and LGBTQ streamers’ practices to present and manage their gender identity and sexual identity. Our findings highlight streamers’ gender representation and sexual representation as a demonstration of controlling their own bodies, an awareness of the audiences and the resistance to their expectations, and an exhibition of the affordances and power structure of the specific online social space. We extend existing studies on live streaming by exploring the understudied gender identity and sexual identity aspect of the streaming practices. We also highlight the less audience/performance-oriented but more self-driven aspect of digital representations and the importance of affirmation and empowerment in this process.We add nuance to the existing HCI/CSCWstudies on gender and sexuality by investigating a highly dynamic, interactive, and multilayered self-presentation mechanism emerging in live streaming and point to the need for potential new lenses to analyze technology-supported identity construction. 

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5. "Acting Out" Queer Identity: The Embodied Visibility in Social Virtual Reality

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3555153  

   Freeman, Guo; Acena, Dane (November 2022, Proceedings of the ACM on humancomputer interaction)

   This paper focuses on embodied visibility emerging in social Virtual Reality (VR) as a new lens to explore how queer users build and experience visibility in nuanced ways. Drawing on 29 queer social VR users’ experiences across various countries and cultures, we identify three main strategies for building and experiencing embodied visibility in social VR, limitations of each strategy, and impacts of such visibility on queer users’ identity practices online and offline. We broaden current studies on queer visibility online and expand the traditional lens of selective visibility by highlighting how embodiment both supports and challenges the multidimensional online presentations of queer identity. We also propose potential design considerations to further support diverse queer users’ visibility in social VR and inform future directions for creating inclusive online social experiences. 

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