ORIGINAL ARTICLE A Test of the Three-Component Model of Gender-Based Prejudices: Homophobia and Transphobia Are Affected by Raters’ and Targets’ Assigned Sex at Birth Craig T. Nagoshi 1 & J. Raven Cloud 1 & Louis M. Lindley 1 & Julie L. Nagoshi 2 & Lucas J. Lothamer 3 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2018 Abstract The present study tested a three-component model of homophobia and transphobia that differentiates between general and specifically gender-based social threats that motivate these prejudices. A sample of 187 female and 107 male heterosexual U.S. college under- graduates were randomly assigned to complete survey measures of homophobia and transphobia with either born-female (lesbian and female-to-male transgender, respectively) or born-male (gay man and male-to-female transgender, respectively) targets, as well as measures of religious fundamentalism, right wing authoritarianism, aggression, and ambivalent sexism. The participant by target- gender interaction for transphobia showed that transphobia was particularly high for male participants judging born-male transgender targets. Possibly reflecting a fear of any social non-conformity, religious fundamentalism and right wing authoritarianism were positively correlated with homophobia and transphobia regardless of participant or target gender. Possibly reflecting specific fears among men about threats to male privilege, physical aggression proneness was strongly positively correlated with homophobia and transphobia for men judging a male target. Aggression proneness was also positively correlated with homophobia for women judging a female target. Possibly reflecting specific fears among women about threats to female social roles, benevolent sexism was only positively correlated with transphobia for female but not for male participants, with no target-gender difference. Benevolent sexism was also correlated with homophobia for female participants judging a male target. These findings were largely supportive of the three- component model of gender-based prejudice. Keywords Gender . Gay/lesbian . Transgender . Prejudice . Attitudes Three Components of Homophobia and Transphobia: An Application to Different Gender Targets Nagoshi et al. (2008) proposed and validated, in a sample of heterosexual U.S. college students, a three-component model of gender-based prejudice that differentiates homophobia (prejudice against lesbian and gay individuals) from transphobia (prejudice against transgender individuals) based on different perceived threats to social status posed by gay/ lesbian versus transgender individuals. Whereas homophobia focuses on non-gender heteronormative sexual orientation (Wright et al. 1999), transphobia focuses on non-gender heteronormative gender identity and possibly also non- gender heteronormative gender roles (Hill and Willoughby 2005). Transphobia contrasts with homophobia in not only being about revulsion and irrational fears of transgender and transsexual individuals, but also cross-dressers, feminine men, and masculine women (Worthen 2013), that is, in being about issues of gender roles and gender identity and not necessarily sexual orientation (Nagoshi et al. 2008 ). For gender heteronormative individuals (i.e., straights), sexual and gender identity are often conflated (Kitzinger 2005), and any devia- tions from this gender-cis-normativity are perceived as threat- ening (Worthen 2016). Nevertheless, this differentiation of Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-018-0919-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Craig T. Nagoshi cnagoshi@uta.edu 1 Department of Psychology, University of Texas at Arlington, Box 19328, Arlington, TX 76019, USA 2 Southwest Interdisciplinary Research Center, Arizona State University, Phoenix, AZ 85004, USA 3 Department of Political Science, University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, TX 76019, USA Sex Roles https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-018-0919-3