Trans Contact Relates to More Positive Trans Attitudes

Some feel that transgender people threaten the gender binary. Motivation to defend the status quo may prompt negative trans attitudes when exposed to system threat. Personal contact may lessen the effect of threat on trans attitudes. Participants were randomly exposed to a system threat or control, then reported attitudes towards and previous level of contact with transgender people. Results show more personal contact with a trans person relates to more positive attitudes. We found no effect of threat regardless of contact level. These findings indicate the importance of personal contact on positive transgender attitudes, encouraging future initiatives to increase it