Gender Variance Scale (Saunders, 2024)

• Populations: Middle-Late Adolescents, and Young Adults
• Age ranges: 14-24
• Languages: English
• Countries: United Kingdom

Items

•  On a scale of 1–9, where 1 means ‘not at all’, and 9 means ‘completely’, to what extent would you say that your 
• interests are mostly those typical of a boy/young man/masculine person?
• On a scale of 1–9, where 1 means ‘not at all’, and 9 means ‘completely’, to what extent would you say that your 
• interests are mostly those typical of a girl/young woman/feminine person? 
•  On a scale of 1–9, where 1 means ‘not at all’, and 9 means ‘completely’, to what extent would you say that you do 
• most things in a manner of a boy/young man/masculine person?
•  On a scale of 1–9, where 1 means ‘not at all’, and 9 means ‘completely’, to what extent would you say that you do 
• most things in a manner of a boy/young man/masculine person? 
• On a scale of 1–9, where 1 means ‘not at all’, and 9 means ‘completely’, how masculine do you think you look?
• On a scale of 1–9, where 1 means ‘not at all’, and 9 means ‘completely’, how feminine do you think you look?
• On a scale of 1–9, where 1 means ‘not at all’, and 9 means ‘completely’, how masculine do you feel?
• On a scale of 1–9, where 1 means ‘not at all’, and 9 means ‘completely’, how male do you feel?
• On a scale of 1–9, where 1 means ‘not at all’, and 9 means ‘completely’, how feminine do you feel?
• On a scale of 1–9, where 1 means ‘not at all’, and 9 means ‘completely’, how female do you feel?
• What was your sex registered at birth (The sex put on your birth certificate?

Responses

Items used a 9 point continual scale, where 1 rated a construct lowly and 9 rated a construct highly.

Scoring

“GVS uses a 9 point scale from 1 ‘not at all’ ‘feminine/masculine’ to 9 ‘completely’ ‘feminine/masculine’, to enable greater sensitivity to diversity. Responses to each item component were aggregated to create two separate scores for each respondent: a ‘masculinity score’ ranging from 5–45, and a ‘femininity score’ ranging from 5–45. These scores were obtained by summing the individual scores for each of the five questions. (The score for each question ranged from 1–9, so that the total score for each subscale ran from 5–45). These scores were then combined to create a final gender variance or ‘transness’ score for each respondent according to the following formula: GVS = ((45-masculine score) + (feminine score-5) IF birth registered sex=male) OR ((45-feminine score) + (masculine score-5) IF birth registered sex=female) The GVS measures an individual’s level of (transgendered) variance or deviance from a prevailing ‘cisgendered’ norm: on a scale from 0 (minimum possible variance) to 80 (maximum possible variance).” (Saunders, 2024)

Citations

• Elizabeth Yarrow, Robbie Duschinsky & Catherine L Saunders (2024) The gender variance scale: developing and piloting a new tool for measuring gender diversity in survey research, Journal of Gender Studies, 33:2, 244-256, DOI:10.1080/09589236.2023.2277463