Evaluation of the updated Transgender Awareness Webinar

Abstract

Introduction: The Transgender Awareness Webinar was designed to educate the general public about transgender individuals and reduce stigmatizing attitudes toward transgender and gender diverse people.

Methods: The present study involved the development of an update of the webinar to be more inclusive of non-binary gender identities and to evaluate the revised webinar using a pilot randomized control trial (RCT) design. The study included 203 participants (n = 102 treatment group; n = 101 control group). Each participant completed a pre-test and post-test of the Transphobia Scale before and after participation in the webinar.

Results: Results indicated that transphobia scores went down from pre-to-posttest among participants in the high baseline transphobia category. In addition, several demographic groups had significantly higher levels of mean transphobia scores (higher income, male gender, traditional religious groups).

Conclusions: The results of this study suggest that the updated Transgender Awareness Webinar holds promise for reducing transphobia among members of the general public who have high levels of baseline transphobia. Other findings and implications are presented with regard to the development of an anti-stigma webinar.

Keywords:

• Transgender
• gender diverse
• webinar
• transphobia
• gender

Ethics statement

Before conducting the study, the study received institutional review board approval (Fielding Graduate University, IRB#20-0906, Development and Evaluation of a Webinar to Reduce Stigma).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data supporting the findings of this study are available upon request.

Clinical impact statement

Results revealed that transphobia was significantly reduced from pre-test to post-test after participating in the stigma-reducing webinar among participants with a high level of baseline transphobia condition and that this webinar holds promise as an effective clinical tool or reducing stigma among members of the general public with higher levels of stigma.

Author note

A positionality statement is relevant to this manuscript pertaining to gender diverse identities. With respect to gender, two authors self-identified as cisgender women, two authors as cisgender men, and one author with a history of gender diversity.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.