Transgender people experience disproportionately high mental and physical health risks. Minority stress theory identifies distal and proximal stressors that contribute to negative mental health outcomes for transgender people, and suggests that resilience factors can buffer the negative influence of these stressors. In this article, we aim to synthesize the psychological literature on resilience strategies among transgender people and position it within the minority stress framework and introduce an adapted model called the transgender resilience intervention model (TRIM). The TRIM suggests that social support, community belonging, family acceptance, participating in activism, having positive role models, and being a positive role model are group-level resilience factors. Self-worth, self-acceptance and/or pride, self-definition, hope, and transition are individual-level factors that promote resilience. Community, group, and individual interventions and their potential influence on resilience are discussed. The model calls for the development of additional interventions aimed at increasing resilience for transgender people.
Research has generally shown the benefits of social support, such as the buffering effects on life stressors, yet there has been little empirical investigation of different types of support resources for transgender individuals. We examined family support, support from friends, and connectedness to a transgender community and how these forms of support come together to influence mental health and resilience. The sample included 695 transgender participants (mean age ϭ 25.52 years, SD ϭ 9.68, range ϭ 16 -73; 75.7% White) who completed an online survey. Greater than half of participants reported moderate to severe levels of anxious and depressive symptoms. Family social support had the strongest correlations with symptoms of anxiety and depression (r ϭ Ϫ.31 and Ϫ.37, respectively, p Ͻ .01) and was the only form of support associated with resilience when controlling for other forms of support. Latent profile analyses revealed 4 groups based on levels of social support from family and friends and community connectedness. Notably, Class 1 (n ϭ 323; 47.1%) had high levels of support from family and friends and high levels of community connectedness. This class had lower levels of depression and anxiety symptoms and higher levels of resilience compared to other classes (Class 2, n ϭ 276, 40.3%, high friend/community, low family; Class 3, n ϭ 47, 6.9%, low support; Class 4, n ϭ 39, 5.7%, high family, low friend/community). This study highlights the importance of examining support from a more holistic approach and provides insight into unique associations between familial social support and resilience.
Internalized binegativity (IB), negative attitudes and beliefs about one's own bisexuality, can develop from chronic exposure to binegative discrimination and prejudice and is associated with several negative mental health consequences. We developed and tested an online intervention following the Releasing Internalized Stigma for Empowerment (RISE) model (Lin, Israel, & Ryan, 2018) to reduce IB and to offer a novel means to access and treat bisexual people. We analyzed data from 641 bisexual adults recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) who were randomly assigned to the intervention or active control condition and asked to complete pretest and posttest measures. Four modules tailored for bisexual people, based on a review of relevant literature and expert feedback, comprised the intervention. The modules included: (a) a true/false quiz that challenged negative bisexual stereotypes with research evidence, (b) an activity where participants identified external sources of their binegative beliefs, (c) a biaffirming video and a writing exercise to express support for a bisexual person, and (d), presentation of positive aspects of being bisexual and biaffirming images. We used a posttest-only randomized controlled design with the intervention as the between-subjects factor. A series of one-way analyses of covariance (ANCOVAs), controlling for covariates of identity concealment and self-esteem, revealed that the intervention was efficacious in reducing IB at a small effect size in addition to influencing related constructs. These results offer a promising contribution to accessible and targeted intervention efforts for reducing bispecific minority stressors. Future directions include examining acceptability, feasibility, implementation, and replication issues. Public Significance StatementResults from our randomized controlled trial demonstrated that 4 online modules-comprised of activities using social psychology principles-conferred statistically significant and practically meaningful (e.g., effect sizes) changes in IB and related constructs compared with a control condition, supporting the efficacy of the intervention. Our findings demonstrate the viability of using online platforms to access and serve bisexual people, as well as the importance of considering bispecific aspects of minority stress when working with this highly vulnerable population.
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