Considering the
discrimination trans people face on a daily basis, it comes as no surprise that trans people are overlooked when it comes to dating. Two Canadian researchers recently asked almost 1000 cisgender folks if they would date a trans person in a new
study published in the
Journal of Social and Personal Relationships. This is the first study to ever attempt to quantify the extent of trans discrimination when it comes to romantic and sexual relationships.
958 participants (all but seven cisgender, ranging in age from 18 to 81, with an average age of 26) were asked to indicate which genders they would consider dating. The options included cisgender man, cisgender woman, trans man, trans woman, or genderqueer, and participants could select as many genders as they wanted.
Only 12% of all participants selected "trans woman" and/or "trans man."
Those who would consider dating a trans person didn't differ in race/ethnicity, but were somewhat older, more likely to hold a university degree, and, unsurprisingly, less likely to be religious than those who would not date a trans person. But some of the most striking differences were in regards to participants' gender and sexual orientation.
Virtually all heterosexuals excluded trans folks from their dating pool: only 1.8% of straight women and 3.3% of straight men chose a trans person of either binary gender. But most non-heterosexuals weren't down for dating a trans person either, with only 11.5% of gay men and 29% of lesbians being trans-inclusive in their dating preferences. Bisexual/queer/nonbinary participants (these were all combined into one group) were most open to having a trans partner, but even among them, almost half (48%) did not select either 'trans man' or 'trans woman.'
Of the seven participants who themselves identified as transgender or
nonbinary, 89% were willing to date another trans person.
