Importance of transgender nuances in research and advocacy: Reply to Morgenroth (2025) and Tate (2025)

Abstract

In their responses to our paper ‘Conceptualizing transgender experiences in psychology: Do we have a “true” gender?’ (The British Journal of Psychology, 2024, 115, 723), Tate (2025) and Morgenroth (2025) provide reflections on the importance of nuance when researching gender and in transgender advocacy. In this reply, I note where this paper is situated in the literature and engage in a discussion of the role of definitions in transgender advocacy. Over-reliance on an individual's true gender when evaluating transgender people's legitimacy may exclude individuals whose gender is not understandable as ‘true’ to a cisgender majority. I suggest that a broad definition of transgender can allow legitimization to arise from transgender identification and gender self-categorization alongside broader experiences of body and gender.