Gender Labels and Drug Use

Drug use from a gender identity label perspective

This article examines the intertwined roles of gender labels and gender identity in predicting drug use behaviors and experiences of middle school students in a large, ethnically diverse, southwestern city. Gender labels refers to male vs. female while gender identity refers to a subjective sense of maleness/masculinity or femaleness/femininity.

Gender labels by themselves appear to be more salient in explaining differences in self-reported drug use than two of the three gender identity measures examined. Boys used more drugs, used them more frequently and were more likely to use marijuana and hard illicit drugs. However, masculine dominance also is associated with drug use, especially for boys. Such boys report more drug use and exposure.

Gender identity measures do not supersede gender labels and drug use prediction for outcomes. However, labels and identity together are more powerful predictors than separately.

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