Effects of All-Gender Workplace Facilities Signage on Adults’ Attitudes Toward Transgender and Nonbinary People and Policies

ABSTRACT

Signage for gender-segregated and all-gender facilities (e.g. restrooms, locker rooms) represents gender through imagery and language. Adults regularly encounter the visual cues of facilities signage, yet little research examines how they may affect adults’ conceptualization of gender and attitudes toward transgender and nonbinary (TNB) people and related policies. In this preregistered online experiment with a national sample of adults (United States), we test the differential impact of exposure to all-gender and gender-segregated facilities signage in an office workplace scenario on the attitudes of 385 participants. Exposure to all-gender facilities signage in the office environment positively predicted attitudes toward TNB people, and these attitudes were associated with attitudes toward gender-affirming policies. Unexpectedly, prior exposure to all-gender facilities in everyday life (EDL) was associated with more negative attitudes toward TNB people. Signage exposure in the experiment had no significant direct effects on binary conceptualization of gender and policy attitudes, but interaction effects between experimental condition and prior facilities exposure were found for these outcomes. Results from the experiment show a positive immediate impact of all-gender facilities cues on adults’ attitudes toward people whose identities may challenge traditional gender-related norms, but they also reveal potential limitations of all-gender facilities in shifting adults’ attitudes. Social and theoretical implications are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Gender
• transgender
• LGBTQ
• visual communication
• attitudes

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Paige Gillan for her graphic design work on this project. This research was funded by Washington State University’s Edward R. Murrow College of Communication.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Washington State University [NA].

Notes on contributors

Traci K. Gillig

Traci Gillig is an assistant professor in Washington State University’s Edward R. Murrow College of Communication. Gillig’s research interests are in the psychological, social, and structural factors influencing the mental health of youth from marginalized groups, particularly LGBTQ+ youth. She’s also interested in the effects of gender-related messaging on the attitudes and behaviors of adolescents and others.

Leila Bighash

Leila Bighash is an assistant professor of communication at the University of Arizona. Her research program focuses on organizational processes in networks where information asymmetries are salient, often in online environments. In particular, she is interested in knowledge-sharing, expertise, visibility, and signaling.

Sonia Jawaid Shaikh

Sonia Jawaid Shaikh is an assistant professor of corporate communication at the University of Amsterdam. Shaikh’s scholarly interests include artificial intelligence, human-computer interaction, and information exchange.