Abstract
As activists and scholars look toward nationally representative surveys for quality data regarding gender and sexual minorities, it is important to understand how top-utilized social surveys may be reinforcing dominant gender and sexuality-based stereotypes through their language or survey structure. Using the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research’s data on survey downloads and a focused survey of 300 social and health sciences faculty, we identified 18 top-utilized U.S. social surveys for our content analyses. For each wave of every survey, we identified and hand-coded language and practices that directly or indirectly referenced sex, gender, and/or sexual orientation within questionnaires. While the trend among surveys was toward the inclusion of sexual identity and/or two-step sex and gender measures, many surveys continue to exclude expansive gender and sexuality measures and essentialize sex and gender as interchangeable. We also identified three widespread practices that reinforce binary gender ideology, heteronormativity, and mononormativity: (1) assumptive language, (2) question or item omission, and (3) overtly biased priming and phrasing. Documenting how top-utilized social surveys rely on, and potentially reinforce, marginalizing gender and heteronormative assumptions is essential to begin establishing more inclusive survey practices that yield high-quality, accurate data regarding gender and sexual minority populations.
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Notes
- 1.
This may be why the GSS introduced the experimental question replacing the term “homosexual” with “gay” in 2021 asking, “Suppose this gay person wanted to make a speech in your community. Should this person be allowed to speak, or not?” (p. 102).
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Tabler, J., Gonzales, C.M., Snyder, J.A., Schmitz, R.M., Geist, C. (2022). Hidden (and Not so Hidden) Messaging in Top-Utilized U.S. Social Surveys: The Persistence of Heteronormative Ideology and the Gender Binary. In: Baumle, A.K., Nordmarken, S. (eds) Demography of Transgender, Nonbinary and Gender Minority Populations. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06329-9_2
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