Gender minority stress, sleep disturbance, and sexual victimization in transgender and gender nonconforming adults.

Abstract

The current study examined facets of gender minority stress (nonaffirmation, internalized transphobia) and protective factors (community connectedness, transgender identity pride) as potential moderators of the relationship between sexual victimization and sleep disturbances among transgender and gender nonconforming (TGNC) adults. TGNC adults (n = 191) were recruited through Amazon's Mechanical Turk. The average age was 30.28 years old (SD = 7.09; range 18-71) and the majority (55%) identified in the transfemale spectrum. Results demonstrated a significant two-way interaction between sexual victimization and internalized transphobia, such that sexual victimization was more strongly related to sleep disturbances when internalized transphobia was low (β = .14, p = .017) relative to high (β = -0.09, p = .221). This study is the first to establish the relationship between sexual victimization and sleep disturbances in TGNC individuals. Additional research is needed to replicate these findings longitudinally.