Why Can’t You Just Pick One? The Stigmatization of Non-binary/Genderqueer People by Cis and Trans Men and Women: An Empirical Test of Norm-Centered Stigma Theory

Interpersonal Transphobia Within Nursing: A Critical Concept Exploration

Transphobic perceptions negatively impact health care access and outcomes among transgender and gender-diverse people and challenge nurses' capacity to maintain ethical practice standards. The concept of transphobia has not been well defined in the literature or nursing. Using a critical realist lens, this concept exploration sought to define interpersonal transphobia through a review of purposefully selected literature. Attributes included discrimination and prejudice, while antecedents were cisnormativity, erasure, and stigma. Nurses can help reduce transphobia by seeking education and practicing gender-affirming care, including transgender people in research, and advocating for equitable policies and procedures.

Life Satisfaction and Negative Affect Among Trans Men, Trans Women, and Nonbinary Individuals in a U.S. National Sample

Purpose: Transgender and nonbinary individuals often have limited educational and economic resources, lack social capital such as family and community support, and face discrimination. These factors are likely to have negative consequences for subjective well-being of transgender individuals. Yet, there is limited research using a national sample and comparing trans women, trans men, and nonbinary individuals. This study examined the impact of social support, social belonging, transgender connectedness, and discrimination on trans and nonbinary individuals' life satisfaction and negative affect. Methods: We used data from TransPop 2016-2018, the first survey conducted on a national probability sample of the transgender population in the United States. We focused on measures of life satisfaction and negative affect and their predictors, including social belonging, transgender connectedness, and everyday discrimination. Results: We found that trans men, trans women, and nonbinary individuals had lower life satisfaction and higher negative affect than cisgender heterosexual individuals. Social belonging had a positive effect on trans men and trans women's life satisfaction, whereas it had a negative effect on trans men and nonbinary individuals' negative emotion. While family support had a positive effect on trans men's life satisfaction, social support had mixed effects on nonbinary individuals' life satisfaction and negative affect. Finally, everyday discrimination had a negative influence on life satisfaction although there was variation by gender identity and dependent measure. Conclusion: Different factors predicted life satisfaction and negative affect of trans men, trans women, and nonbinary people. Thus, a one-size-fits-all model of trans and nonbinary subjective well-being does not work.

A Google Trends Analysis of Interest in Nonbinary Identities

Emerging research on stigma suggests that society's mistreatment of nonbinary individuals can, in part, be attributed to public uncertainty and a lack of knowledge about nonbinary identities. In response to this, this study drew upon the theoretical framework of uncertainty management to explore research questions related to nonbinary identity and information behaviors by investigating uncertainty management as evidenced by longitudinal Google Trends data related to nonbinary gender identities. If individuals were found to be engaging in information seeking, the result of this behavior may be that they become less likely to hold stigmatizing attitudes toward nonbinary people, and ultimately be less likely to engage in discrimination toward them. Results indicated that indeed there has been an increase in search volume interest related to nonbinary identities in the past decade. The study concludes by presenting the need for further research to clarify the nature of the relationship between stigma and information seeking, as well as presenting a quandary for researchers regarding the desire for more detailed demographic data, as balanced with concerns for privacy.

"Through the Things That Have Happened to Me, They've Made Me Stronger": Individual and Interpersonal Sources of Violence and Resilience Among a Diverse Sample of Transgender Women in Los Angeles

Within the United States, transgender women face a disproportionate burden of violence, experiencing increased rates of multiple forms of violence compared with cisgender women and other sexual/gender minority groups. Among transgender women, further racial/ethnic disparities in experiences of violence exist. Resilience has been shown to be protective against the adverse impacts of violence on mental and physical health outcomes, yet little is known about unique sources of resilience, coping, and strength among transgender women. Sixteen in-depth interviews were conducted with a racially diverse sample of transgender women between May and July, 2020 in Los Angeles. Participants were between the ages of 23 and 67 years. Four participants identified as African American/Black, four as Latina, four as White, two as Asian, and two as Native American. Participants were recruited from a local social service organization. Interview questions assessed social network characteristics, experiences of violence, coping mechanisms, and sources of resilience in response to violence. Deductive and inductive coding schemes were used to identify common themes, and data analysis focused upon experiences of violence and sources of resilience/coping. Violence was common among members of the sample, with every participant reporting a history of multiple forms of violence. Violence perpetration came from many sources, including cisgender male strangers, family members, intimate partners, and other transgender women. Women also reported multiple sources of strength and coping, including engaging in self-care and leisure activities, behavioral adaptations, mentorship/support from other transgender women, and striving to "pass" as cisgender. Despite having faced extensive violence, the participants in this sample were resilient, demonstrating many internal and external coping mechanisms and sources of strength. These findings can inform programs and services that target transgender women, providing participants with opportunities to build resilience and other coping mechanisms to buffer the harmful mental and physical health impacts of exposure to violence.

The Dobbs Decision and the Future of Occupational Health in the US

Access to abortion care has a profound impact on women's ability to participate in the workforce. In the US, restrictions on abortion care have waxed and waned over the years, including periods when abortion was broadly permitted across the nation for most pregnant people for a substantial proportion of pregnancy and times when restrictions varied across states, including states where abortion is banned for nearly all reasons. Additionally, access to abortion care has always been a reproductive justice issue, with some people more able to access this care than others even when it is structurally available. In June 2022, the US Supreme Court handed down the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, returning to states the ability to determine restrictions on abortion, including near-total bans on abortion. In this anthology, ten experts share their perspectives on what the Dobbs decision means for the future, how it will exacerbate existing, well-researched issues, and likely also create new challenges needing investigation. Some contributions are focused on research directions, some focus on implications for organizations, and most include both. All contributions share relevant occupational health literature and describe the effects of the Dobbs decision in context.

Non-binary gender/sex identities

An increasing number of individuals openly identify as non-binary (i.e., not exclusively female or male). Accordingly, psychological research on non-binary identities has expanded rapidly. We review key insights from this growing literature, first examining work that has demonstrated links between beliefs about the true nature of gender and/or sex (gender/sex) and feelings toward non-binary people. We also review research on non-binary people's self-concepts, which has shown the inadequacy of binary-focused gender/sex measurement practices for effectively studying non-binary people's lives and has suggested treating gender/sex as multidimensional. Then, we consider scholarship on non-binary people's wellbeing, including work exploring sources of joy and pleasure in non-binary people's lives (e.g., gender euphoria). Finally, we discuss recent advances in gender-inclusive theories and methods.

Experiences of Transgender Identity in a Sample of Primarily White Binary Trans Masculine and Nonbinary Individuals

Purpose

This study investigated the differences between binary and nonbinary transgender individuals' experiences of transgender identity through the Transgender Identity Survey (TIS).

Method

Binary and nonbinary participants in the United States were recruited through social media. Despite efforts to recruit binary trans feminine individuals and People of Color, the participants in this study were primarily White binary trans masculine and nonbinary individuals. Participants completed the TIS and demographic questions online.

Results

Four independent t-tests were conducted along the TIS subscales of passing, shame, alienation, and pride. We grouped our sample as "binary" and "nonbinary" based on participant-reported gender. After controlling for multiple comparisons, we had four main findings. First, nonbinary individuals possessed significantly less concern about passing (or being perceived) as their affirmed gender than binary individuals. Second, nonbinary individuals possessed significantly less shame than their binary counterparts. Third, we found no significant differences between binary and nonbinary participants with regard to their feelings of alienation from other transgender individuals. Fourth, nonbinary individuals possessed significantly more pride in their transgender status than binary individuals.

Conclusion

Our findings, which should be interpreted in light of our sample (i.e., predominantly White binary trans masculine and nonbinary people), suggest that the current standard of care (medical transition) for transgender individuals may not account for the needs of the nonbinary community. Furthermore, concepts of passing and shame may be more nuanced for nonbinary people and warrant future research. Transgender individuals experiencing distress associated with their transgender status may benefit from psychological care aimed at building community resources.

Computational Modeling of Stereotype Content in Text

Stereotypes are encountered every day, in interpersonal communication as well as in entertainment, news stories, and on social media. In this study, we present a computational method to mine large, naturally occurring datasets of text for sentences that express perceptions of a social group of interest, and then map these sentences to the two-dimensional plane of perceived warmth and competence for comparison and interpretation. This framework is grounded in established social psychological theory, and validated against both expert annotation and crowd-sourced stereotype data. Additionally, we present two case studies of how the model might be used to answer questions using data “in-the-wild,” by collecting Twitter data about women and older adults. Using the data about women, we are able to observe how sub-categories of women (e.g., Black women and white women) are described similarly and differently from each other, and from the superordinate group of women in general. Using the data about older adults, we show evidence that the terms people use to label a group (e.g., old people vs. senior citizens) are associated with different stereotype content. We propose that this model can be used by other researchers to explore questions of how stereotypes are expressed in various large text corpora.

"Mom and dad = cis woman + cis man" and the stigmatization of trans parents: an empirical test of norm-centered stigma theory

Background: Empirical research on transgender individuals and their families is growing but investigations of attitudes toward trans parents are sparse. This gap is especially important to address because transgender parents face unique strains due to their violations of hetero-cis-normativity and the "Mom and Dad = Cis Woman + Cis Man" stereotype. Methods: Using a sample of adults aged 18-64 stratified by U.S. census categories of age, gender, race/ethnicity and census region collected from online panelists (N = 2,948), this study provides an intersectional investigation of Norm-Centered Stigma Theory (NCST) with hetero-cis-normativity (a system of norms, privilege, and oppression that situates heterosexual cisgender people above all others) as the centralized overarching concept that helps us to understand negativity directed toward transgender parents. Specifically, social power axes including gender identity (cisgender woman, cisgender man, nonbinary; trans people were excluded from the current study), sexual identity (heterosexual, lesbian, gay, bisexual), and interactions among these axes of social power are investigated. Results: Findings indicate that hetero-cis-normativity is strongly related to negativity toward trans mothers and fathers and that there is overall greater stigma toward trans dads when compared to trans moms. In addition, gender, sexual identity, and interactions among these experiences of social power have complex relationships with the stigmatization of trans parents. Conclusion: Results provide support for the use of Norm-Centered Stigma Theory to help us best understand the constellation of hostilities directed toward trans people and their families.