Factors associated with frequency of gender identity nonaffirmation microaggressions among transgender persons

• Published in: Culture, health & sexuality health & sexuality, 2021-08, Vol.23 (8), p.1094-1110
• Main Authors: Parr, Nicholas J., Howe, Bethany Grace
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adolescents; Age; Aversive; Discrimination; Ethnicity; Gender identity; Housing; Low income groups; Microaggressions; minority stress; passing; Race; Self evaluation; Sex crimes; Sexual violence; Social rejection; sociodemographic; Sociodemographics; Transgender persons; Victimization; Workplaces
• ISSN: 1369-1058; 1464-5351
• DOI: 10.1080/13691058.2020.1755454

Gender-based victimisation (GBV) is commonly experienced by transgender individuals, and can include physical or sexual violence; social, workplace, or housing discrimination; or family or social rejection. In addition to overt forms of GBV, transgender individuals experience gender identity-related microaggressions: subtle, frequently-occurring aversive events that convey nonaffirmation or rejection of an individual's gender identity. The degree to which a transgender individual is socially perceived as the gender with which they identify, sometimes referred to as passing, as well as sociodemographic factors such as annual income and race/ethnicity, have been previously linked with experiencing overt GBV. This study aimed to quantitatively assess whether self-rated degree of passing, age, annual income and being a person of colour were associated with the frequency with which transgender individuals experience less overt identity-related victimisation in the form of gender nonaffirmation microaggressions. Among an age-diverse sample of US adolescent and adult transgender persons ( = 224) who responded to 14 situational prompts of nonaffirmation microaggressions, adolescents experienced the highest average weekly frequency of nonaffirmation microaggressions (M = 2.16, SD = 1.48). Factors significantly associated with increased average weekly frequency of nonaffirmation microaggressions included lower degree of passing and lower income, while older age was associated with lower frequency of microaggressions.