(Mis)matching: Journalistic uses of gender pronouns and names can influence implicit attitudes toward transgender people, perceived news content credibility, and perceived reporter professionalism

Abstract

The emerging transgender phenomenon has ignited the national debate on journalistic practices of reporting on transgender issues. This study, via an experiment, investigates the effects of the journalistic uses of gender pronouns and names. The findings revealed that among the participants exposed to stories using male names, female pronouns elicited more negative implicit attitudes toward transgender people. Using the transgender subject’s preferred pronouns elicited more perceived news content credibility and perceived reporter professionalism.