Affirmed gender shapes virtual embodiment: a phenomenological account of ownership and agency across gender identities

Abstract

Abstract Gender identity plays a crucial role in how we come to feel our bodies as our own. When the inner sense of gender does not align with bodily appearance, the resulting tension can shape both conscious and pre-reflective aspects of embodiment. In this study, we examined how gendered self-representations influence bodily self-consciousness using the Full-Body Illusion in immersive virtual reality. Eleven transgender and eleven cisgender participants embodied both gender-congruent and gender-incongruent avatars viewed from a first-person perspective under visuomotor synchrony. Participants rated their sense of ownership and agency using the Avatar Embodiment Questionnaire, and completed the Utrecht Gender Dysphoria Scale–Gender Spectrum to assess dysphoria and affirmation. All participants experienced a convincing illusion of embodiment. Yet, only transgender participants showed a clear difference between conditions, with stronger embodiment for gender-congruent avatars. Bootstrapped analyses confirmed higher ownership and mirror-ownership scores in the congruent condition, and correlations revealed that dysphoria was positively associated with mirror-based embodiment, whereas affirmation was negatively associated with agency. These findings suggest that the sense of owning and controlling one's body may be influenced not only by multisensory integration but also by its alignment with one’s affirmed gender. Gender identity thus may emerge as a deeply embodied and dynamically instantiated dimension of minimal selfhood, bridging the sensorimotor and the phenomenological layers of bodily consciousness. Significance Statement Bodily self-consciousness is generally understood to arise from multisensory integration, yet the contribution of gender identity to this process has remained largely unexplored. Using immersive virtual reality and the Full-Body Illusion, we provide the first experimental evidence that the congruence between a perceived body and one’s lived gender identity selectively modulates embodiment in transgender individuals. These findings suggest that gender identity-related representations interact with the sensorimotor mechanisms supporting conscious bodily experience, extending current models of minimal selfhood beyond multisensory integration alone. By integrating research on embodiment, gender identity, and virtual reality, this work establishes a novel experimental framework for investigating the embodied basis of identity and provides a foundation for future studies on the cognitive and neural mechanisms linking gender identity, embodiment, and consciousness.