一些律师和法律学者认为,将跨性别原告(即,在歧视案件中引入原告诊断和/或医疗程序)将增强有利的原告结果。将生物本质主义联系起来的研究和理论(即,相信社会群体反映生物学根源,稳定类别)偏见,然而,这表明,对跨性别原告进行医疗处理可能不会帮助他们赢得案件,反而可能适得其反,损害他们的案件结果。为了测试这些相互竞争的假设,我们对1974年至2021年所有公开的涉嫌跨性别歧视的案件(N=124)进行了编码。重要的是,我们通过记录除诊断外的各种其他形式的医学治疗,解决了现有研究对跨性别原告仅通过诊断进行医学治疗的狭义定义的局限性.与法律学者的主张和律师的直觉相反,医学治疗并不能预测跨性别原告的有利结果.事实上,诊断之外的各种形式的医疗化预测了原告案件的负面结果。我们讨论了这项研究对科学理论和法律实践的启示。
Some attorneys and legal scholars argue that medicalizing transgender plaintiffs (i.e., introducing plaintiff diagnoses and/or medical procedures) in discrimination cases will enhance favorable plaintiff outcomes. Research and theory linking biological essentialism (i.e., believing social groups reflect biologically-rooted, stable categories) to prejudice, however, suggests that medicalizing transgender plaintiffs might not help them win cases and might instead backfire and harm their
case outcomes. To test these competing hypotheses, we coded all published cases involving alleged transgender discrimination (N = 124) from 1974 to 2021. Importantly, we addressed limitations of existing research that narrowly defined transgender plaintiff
medicalization exclusively via diagnosis by documenting various other forms of
medicalization beyond diagnosis. Contrary to legal scholars\' claims and attorney intuitions,
medicalization did not predict favorable outcomes for transgender plaintiffs. In fact, various forms of
medicalization beyond diagnosis predicted negative plaintiff
case outcomes. We discuss the implications of this research for informing scientific theory and legal practice.