Gender Can Be a Continuous Variable, Not Just a Categorical One: Comment on Hyde, Bigler, Joel, Tate, and van Anders (2019)

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Author(s)
Reilly, David
Griffith University Author(s)
Year published
2019
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Hyde, Bigler, Joel, Tate, and van Anders (2019) opened debate on the treatment by psychologists and researchers of sex−gender as a dichotomous variable (male−female) and the utility of alternative conceptions. In doing so though, they framed the alternative to a gender-binary as treating gender as a categorical variable. Hyde et al.’s review obscures important contributions of a large number of psychological researchers who for decades have treated gender as a continuous variable. Their work offers a forceful contrast to the traditional gender-binary approach and also has a direct bearing on some of the questions raised by ...
View more >Hyde, Bigler, Joel, Tate, and van Anders (2019) opened debate on the treatment by psychologists and researchers of sex−gender as a dichotomous variable (male−female) and the utility of alternative conceptions. In doing so though, they framed the alternative to a gender-binary as treating gender as a categorical variable. Hyde et al.’s review obscures important contributions of a large number of psychological researchers who for decades have treated gender as a continuous variable. Their work offers a forceful contrast to the traditional gender-binary approach and also has a direct bearing on some of the questions raised by Hyde et al., including gender differences in prevalence of depression.
View less >
View more >Hyde, Bigler, Joel, Tate, and van Anders (2019) opened debate on the treatment by psychologists and researchers of sex−gender as a dichotomous variable (male−female) and the utility of alternative conceptions. In doing so though, they framed the alternative to a gender-binary as treating gender as a categorical variable. Hyde et al.’s review obscures important contributions of a large number of psychological researchers who for decades have treated gender as a continuous variable. Their work offers a forceful contrast to the traditional gender-binary approach and also has a direct bearing on some of the questions raised by Hyde et al., including gender differences in prevalence of depression.
View less >
Journal Title
American Psychologist
Volume
74
Issue
7
Copyright Statement
© 2019 American Psycological Association. This article may not exactly replicate the final version published in the APA journal. It is not the copy of record. Reproduced here in accordance with publisher policy. Please refer to the journal link for access to the definitive, published version.
Subject
Cognitive and computational psychology
Social Sciences
Psychology, Multidisciplinary
gender
sex differences