Measuring Hong Kong undergraduate students' attitudes towards transpeople

Abstract

Hill and Willoughby's (Sex Roles, 53:531-544, 2005) Genderism and Transphobia Scale (GTS), originally developed in Canada, was examined with a Hong Kong sample. Undergraduate students, 82 female and 121 male (total n∈=∈203), completed a Chinese version of the instrument. Overall scores and factor structure of the Hong Kong sample were compared with Hill and Willoughby's Canadian data. Gender differences in transphobia were investigated, both in terms of the participants' gender as well as the gender of the gender variant persons to whom GTS items referred. Transphobia was higher in Hong Kong than in Canada. The factor structure for Hong Kong differed from Canada. Five factors were identified (with a gender effect on Factors II and V). They were: I, Anti Sissy Prejudice; II, Anti Trans Violence; III, Trans Unnaturalness; IV, Trans Immorality; and V, Background Genderism. Hong Kong men were more transphobic than women. Gender variance in men was viewed less favourably than in women. © 2008 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.