Mental Health Contributors Among Transgender People in a Non-WEIRD Society: Evidence From China

Abstract

Transgender people face numerous social hurdles and consequently report elevated rates of mental health problems. However, little research has examined whether established mental health findings generalize to experiences of transgender people outside of Western contexts. In an analysis of the 2017 Chinese Transgender Population General Survey ( N = 1,106), we examined how discrimination and environmental support in a school context related to mental health and self-harm among transgender people. We found that more frequent school discrimination was associated with worse mental health and increased self-harm. Further, perceived environmental support was associated with better mental health but was unrelated to self-harm. These relations did not differ based on whether people were “out” about being transgender at school or between men and women. These findings highlight nuance in the experiences of transgender people outside of Western contexts and hold implications for developing effective social interventions.

The relationship between non-suicidal self-injury and childhood abuse in transgender people: a cross-sectional cohort study

“…The survey was administered in Mandarin since it is the primary language of the study population. This was done to ensure Childhood abuse questionnaire (CAQ) Spielmann et al (2022) Revised Childhood Abuse Questionnaire was used. The questionnaire consists of five dimensions, emotional abuse, emotional neglect, sexual abuse, physical abuse and physical neglect, with entries rated on a 5-point scale from 1 (never) to 5 (always) and some entries on a reverse scale, with a total score between 15 and 75.…”