Actitudes negativas e interiorización de mitos hacia las personas trans en estudiantes mexicanas de Trabajo Social / Negative attitudes and internalization of myths towards trans people in Mexican Social Work students

RESUMEN

Resumen Debido al arquetipo tradicional del género como una construcción binaria, la visibilidad emergente de la comunidad trans sigue siendo una cuestión social cargada de mitos y actitudes discriminatorias. El objetivo de este trabajo fue construir y validar dos escalas, una de actitudes negativas hacia las personas transexuales y transgénero y otra sobre la interiorización de mitos sobre las personas trans. Se trabajó con una muestra aleatoria estratificada de 302 mujeres de la Facultad de Trabajo Social de la Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León (UANL) en Monterrey (México). La escala de actitudes está conformada por 26 ítems agrupados en tres dimensiones y la escala de interiorización de mitos hacia la transexualidad, por 25 ítems agrupados en cuatro dimensiones. Ambos instrumentos se diseñaron con formato de respuesta tipo Likert con puntajes de 1 a 5. El ajuste de ambas escalas se probó mediante indicadores de consistencia interna, con valores satisfactorios de alfa de Cronbach en cuanto a la escala de actitudes (transfobia institucional .878, malestar personal .882, desviación/cambiabilidad .745) y para la escala de mitos (conducta y orientación sexual .739, sistema sexo/género .638, relacional .769, aspectos psicológicos y medicalización .835). Por otro lado, se realizó el análisis de modelamiento por ecuaciones estructurales y se obtuvieron índices de ajuste satisfactorios y relaciones aceptables entre las escalas. Se encontraron puntuaciones más altas en la escala de mitos que en la escala de actitudes; esto se explica en parte por la reproducción de acciones estigmatizantes hacia las personas trans. Se corrobora que las actitudes y los mitos se correlacionan de forma directa entre sí.

ABSTRACT

Abstract Due to the traditional archetype of gender as a binary construction, the emerging visibility of the transgender community (transsexuals, transgender and transvestites) remains as a social issue with myths and discriminatory attitudes. Also, it is generally accepted that social attitudes toward minority groups are related to opinions about policy affecting those groups. After reviewing past literature and existing measures about attitudes towards transgendered people, it is well-known that their construction includes items referring to attitudes, myths and stereotypes. This study aimed to develop and validate two scales (1) Attitudes toward transgender scale (attitudes scale); and (2) Myths about transgender individuals (myths scale). Quantitative analysis comes from a stratified random sampling of Social Work undergraduate female students (n = 302) at the Faculty of Social Work of the Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León (UANL), in Mexico (95 % confidence level and 5 % margin of error). The attitudes scale evaluates the responses for a total of 38 items (14 inverted) divided into 3-item subscales institutional transphobia, personal discomfort, and deviance/changeability. The myths scale includes a total of 39 items (13 inverted) grouped into 4-item subscales sexual behavior and orientation, the sex/gender system, relational aspects (labor issues and social influence), and psychological aspects and medicalization. In this study, undergraduate students completed a survey containing both scales and a number of validity-testing variables. Each item took the form of a statement with which participants were asked to rate their agreement on a 5-point Likert-type scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Within each half of the questionnaire, items were rotated randomly to minimize potential order effects in participant's responses. Higher scores indicated greater anti-transgender prejudice, while lower scores indicated less prejudice. Items in which saturation is similar in two or more factors are excluded from the analysis, and items with greater relevance in the attitudinal scale and better theoretical dimension are maintained. The attitudes scale consists of 26 items and the myths scale, 25 items. Initial test of the scale's Cronbach's alpha(s) indicated that sub-scales are highly reliable as follows for the attitude scale's alpha(s) (institutional transphobia .878, personal discomfort .882, deviation/changeability .745); and for the myths scale alpha(s) (sexual behavior and orientation .739, sex/gender system .638, relational .769, psychological aspects and medicalization .835). Next, the hypothesized structural model was tested to evaluate the unique relationships of each scale and its subscales. Overall, fit index values of the structural model were found for the myths scale and the attitudes scale. These results explain the reproduction of stigmatizing actions towards transgender people. Also, it is confirmed that attitudes and myths are directly correlated with each other. In methodological terms, the results demonstrate that the attitudes scale and myths scale, as well as its subscales independently, offer a consistent, valid and useful measure of attitudes toward transgender community. Based on the results, it is confirmed that ignorance about transsexual and transgender people represent an influential factor for discriminatory attitudes; the deepness of the myths about transgender people are outlined as means of production of stereotypes. Taking into consideration the intolerance towards LGTBI community and especially towards transsexual people, the use of scales to determine the level of aversion and the internalization of myths is particularly important to prevent situations of victimization. This study contributes to research on anti-transgender prejudice by examining the relations of such prejudice with a number of theoretically relevant constructs. Results from this study suggest that anti-transgender prejudice is more closely related to sexual orientation and gender role-specific attitudes. Future studies are seeking to address other populations such as education and labor institutions, in order to design preventive engagements concerning attitudes about transphobia, transmission of erroneous information and actions to prevent the re-victimization of transgender people in different contexts.