Rethinking Gender Measurement: Continuous Approaches for a More Inclusive Future

Traditionally, gender has been measured by offering participants a list of gender categories – historically two (male and female), more recently expanded to include a non-binary option. While the addition of a non-binary category supports the inclusion of queer participants, it remains insufficient to fully capture the diversity of gender identities in futures studies and beyond. To address this, we employed a continuous, two-dimensional measure of femininity and masculinity in a large Austrian organization ( N = 885), with a specific focus on team and organizational contexts. We demonstrate the analytical possibilities enabled by this continuous measure, such as capturing variance within traditional gender categories, calculating team mean values and within-team variance, and assessing how individuals deviate from their team’s femininity and masculinity norms. These features allow for more nuanced analyses of gender-related effects, such as leader–member congruence and team-level diversity. Relying solely on conventional categorical measures may not only exclude gender-minority participants by design but also diminish the validity of findings by oversimplifying the complex gender identities real people hold. By incorporating continuous measures, we can better understand gender inequality, recognize gender minorities, and make quantitative research more inclusive and representative.