New Study Finds That Kids Are More Flexible About Gender Identity

One of the trends my team and I uncovered and wrote about in Non-Obvious was “Ungendered”, a term that describes how our shifting definitions of traditional gender roles are leading some to reject the notion of gender completely.

A study released by Vanderbilt University adds to that picture. Researchers studied children's reactions to a genderless robot character on the Amazon show Annedroids and its conflict about whether to call itself a girl or boy. The droid ultimately chooses not to pick a gender and instead “just be me.”

The study suggests the conclusion that gender is increasingly seen as a preference, and sometimes even optional altogether.