Male-to-Female Transgender Individuals Building Social Support and Capital From Within a Gender-Focused Network

Abstract

The literature on male-to-female transgender (MTF) individuals lists myriad problems such individuals face in their day-to-day lives, including high rates of HIV/AIDS, addiction to drugs, violence, and lack of health care. These problems are exacerbated for ethnic and racial minority MTFs. Support available from their social networks can help MTFs alleviate these problems. This article explores how minority MTFs, specifically in an urban environment, develop supportive social networks defined by their gender and sexual identities. Using principles of community-based participatory research (CBPR), 20 African American and Latina MTFs were recruited at a community-based health care clinic. Their ages ranged from 18 to 53. Data were coded and analyzed following standard procedure for content analysis. The qualitative interviews revealed that participants formed their gender and sexual identities over time, developed gender-focused social networks based in the clinic from which they receive services, and engaged in social capital building and political action. Implications for using CBPR in research with MTFs are discussed.

Interpersonal Relationships and Social Support in Transitioning Narratives of Black Transgender Women in Detroit

“…Particularly among small populations, such subdivisions are likely to limit access to the protective benefits of group affiliation. Even in the midst of such factions, trans participants identified friends and mentors in their communities as an important support system in transitioning, similar to the findings of other studies (Pinto et al, 2008).…”

“…Initial close association with the gay community was also alluded to by a cohort of African American and Latina MtF transgender individuals in New York City (Pinto et al, 2008). Coming out as gay appeared to act as a pilot for coming out as transgender vis-a-vis the confusion of parents and other family members about the differences between and intersections of gender and sexuality.…”

“…Though marginalized identities have most often been conceptualized as sources of stress, affiliation of marginalized individuals with marginalized groups has been associated with protective group solidarity and cohesiveness (Graham et al, 2014;Jones et al, 1984). Previous work in transgender communities suggests that access to transgender peers is critical in facilitating selfrecognition of one's transgender identity and provides assistance in navigating transitioning (Pinto, Melendez, & Spector, 2008). For transgender individuals, the mechanisms to and impact of peer minority support is particularly complex given the desire of many individuals to "pass" and the resulting invisibility or separation from trans communities (Gagne et al, 1997).…”

A cross-sectional study of associations between casual partner, friend discrimination, social support and anxiety symptoms among Chinese transgender women

“…Social support was a consistent and robust predictor of anxiety symptoms, and it could ameliorate symptoms of anxiety symptoms. This was in agreement with the review indicating that social support seemed to reduce the risk of anxiety symptoms in transgender women (Budge et al, 2013;Pinto et al, 2008). While, less social support was associated with an increased vulnerability to mental health problems, especially for anxiety symptoms.…”

The buffering role of social support on the associations among discrimination, mental health, and suicidality in a transgender sample

“…Social support has been identified as an important mechanism to learn about medical resources and use social networks to identify other important resources among trans individuals (Pinto, Melendez, & Spector, 2008), with social support related to lower depressive symptoms (Boza & Nicholson Perry, 2014; Nemoto et al, 2011), anxiety (Pflum, Testa, Balsam, Goldblum, & Bongar, 2015), non-suicidal self-injury (Claes et al, 2015; Davey, Arcelus, Meyer, & Bouman, 2016), and suicidal ideation and attempts (Bauer et al, 2015). …”