Non-binary Experiences Research Articles

“I’m trying to take the lead from my child”: experiences Parenting Young Nonbinary Children

BackgroundWhile research has emphasized the importance of parental support for LGBTQIA + youth wellbeing, there remains limited understanding of parental experiences with nonbinary children, particularly those prepubescent. This study aimed to explore how parents of nonbinary children ages 5–8 learn to support their child’s identity, examining initial reactions, emotional processes, supportive behaviors, societal responses, and associated challenges and rewards.MethodsA qualitative study was conducted using Reflexive Thematic Analysis (RTA) within a framework of ontological relativism and epistemological constructivism. Nine parents of nonbinary children aged 5–8 from the Northeastern United States participated in semi-structured interviews lasting 60–80 min. Questions explored various aspects of parenting nonbinary children, including the child’s gender identity, parental feelings, experiences sharing the child’s identity, and challenges and rewards of raising a gender-diverse child. The research team, comprising individuals who identify as trans, genderqueer, and nonbinary, employed collaborative coding and thematic development.ResultsFour main themes were constructed: (1) Parents hear and support their child’s nonbinary identity, this theme highlights immediate acceptance and efforts parents make to affirm their child’s gender; (2) Parents learn about ways cisnormative society harms their child, here, parents recognize the societal pressures and barriers their children face; (3) Parents take significant and proactive steps to affirm their child, this theme documents the actions parents take to support their child in environments that invalidate their identity; and (4) Gender is just one aspect of who my child is, this theme reflects on parental insights of gender as just one part of their child’s overall personhood.ConclusionsThis study provides insights into the experiences of parents supporting young nonbinary children, emphasizing the importance of affirming expressed identity, the parent-child relationship, and proactive support in navigating cisnormative societal structures. Findings highlight the transformative experience of parenting nonbinary children, with parents often challenging their own preconceptions of gender and coming to more nuanced understandings. These results can inform supportive interventions and policies for nonbinary children and their families, and we hope to contribute to a growing body of research that shifts narratives towards joy, resilience, and community in trans and nonbinary experiences.

Transgender, Gender-Diverse, and Nonbinary Experiences in Physical Therapy: A Descriptive Qualitative Study.

The objective was to explore experiences with and identify barriers and facilitators of utilizing physical therapy for people who identify as transgender, gender diverse, and nonbinary (TGNB). A qualitative descriptive design was employed using semistructured interviews conducted in New Zealand. Eligible participants were individuals who were 12years old or older, who self-identified as TGNB, and who had accessed physical therapy at a community-based clinic that also provides a gender-affirming service. Participants were recruited via email invitation to the clinic database. Interview data were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis. Demographics are reported descriptively. Seventeen individuals (15-64years old and identifying as 11 different genders) participated. All participants reported physical therapist experiences relating to 1 or more of the following 4 themes: challenging cisnormativity at policy, environmental, clinic, and therapist levels; safety and trust throughout the clinical experience, including clinic credibility for being a safe provider, clinic displays of TGNB inclusivity, implementation of safe clinic processes, and respectful therapist interactions; inclusive experiences in a clinic that provided affordable care and took active steps to understand and affirm TGNB identities and with physical therapists who had a high level of knowledge of TGNB-specific health issues and took a biopsychosocial approach to care; and sensitivity to body discomfort or dysphoria triggers. Barriers to and facilitators of care were identified at policy, environmental, clinic, and therapist levels. People who identify as TGNB face challenges to accessing safe and culturally sensitive physical therapy. However, there are achievable areas for improvement at policy, environmental, clinic, and physical therapist levels to gain trust and engagement in care for the TGNB community. This study provides a detailed exploration of TGNB physical therapist experiences and identifies specific areas of improvement for TGNB physical therapy care to provide clinicians and physical therapy clinics insights into the provision of safe and culturally sensitive physical therapy.

‘Like putting a puzzle piece in the wrong spot’: Transgender and non-binary experiences of physical education

ABSTRACT Whilst research examining transgender identities within educational contexts in recent years has increased, there is limited research focused specifically on transgender and non-binary (TNB) experiences in Physical Education (PE). PE is a context where dominant gendered ‘ideals’ raise the potential for exclusion for those who do not ‘fit’. This paper explores the reflective experiences of thirty TNB individuals (aged 18–25 years) and identifies the barriers to/facilitators of their participation in PE. It presents data collected from an online survey and semi-structured interviews with TNB young adults. Findings show that both the implicit and explicit curriculum are strongly binary, making it hard for students who do not conform to dualistic expectations to negotiate the setting. While these findings support the broader view that TNB young people can feel excluded from PE, there is much to learn from the participants’ experiences. The paper closes by discussing the implications for shaping more inclusive practice.

“You’re free from just a girl or a boy”: Nonbinary children’s understanding of their gender

Background In recent years, research on gender diversity in early childhood has increased significantly. However, much of the published literature still focuses on children whose experiences align with binary gender norms, inadvertently excluding nonbinary experiences from analysis. Aims We seek to explore how nonbinary children, aged five to eight, perceive and understand their gender modality and experiences. Methods Nine American nonbinary children were interviewed using a semi-structured approach, which included two book readings, a drawing activity, and approximately 23 pre-determined questions. Inductive reflexive thematic analysis was utilized for developing, analyzing, and interpreting patterns across a qualitative dataset. All authors engaged in various aspects of reflexivity throughout the process, including personal, functional, and disciplinary reflexivity. Analysis We constructed five themes, which were evident across the accounts of participating children. The first one, Being nonbinary has different meanings for different people, illustrates the diverse interpretations of nonbinary identities. Gender is hard to describe but my pronouns help me make sense of it, highlights the challenges of explaining gender, yet pronouns help participants lucidly put their and others’ gender into words. People can change their gender for good or just for a little while, reflect participants’ view of gender as dynamic and fluid. “I have the agency to decide who I am with a little help of others”: feeling, learning, choosing and telling, explores participants’ journey in adopting the label “nonbinary”. Lastly, Being nonbinary is both easy and hard: easy because I am myself, hard because of other people, depicts the multifaceted experiences of being nonbinary, from the affirmation to bullying. Discussion In an era marked by a contentious political climate and ongoing debates about trans/nonbinary individuals, these young children defy conventional norms and establish themselves as active architects of their identity narratives, driven by their agency and self-determination.

Trans and non-binary experiences of maternity services: cautioning against acting without evidence

Research into the experiences of trans and non-binary users of maternity services in England was recently commissioned by the Health and Wellbeing Alliance. It was conducted by the LGBT Foundation, culminating in the ‘improving trans and non-binary experiences of maternity services’ report, which made a range of recommendations for the NHS. This article argues that there are substantial problems with the framing, data collection and interpretation of data in the report, and that its findings and recommendations should therefore be viewed with substantial caution, and not be used as the basis of NHS policy. The authors further argue that caution should be taken before using the experiences of a very small minority of service users, such as those who identify as trans and non-binary, to inform policy for all service users, and instead suggest that personalised care may be the most suitable approach to meeting the specific needs of trans and non-binary maternity service users.

MANstruation: A cyberethnography of linguistic strategies of trans and nonbinary menstruators

Trans and nonbinary experiences of menstruation are subject to menstrual discourse that is deeply gendered. Terms such as “feminine hygiene” and “women's health” make trans and nonbinary people acutely aware that they fall outside of the ideal of the default menstruator. To better understand how such language affects menstruators who are not cis women and what alternative linguistic strategies they adopt, we conducted a cyberethnography of 24 YouTube videos created by trans and nonbinary menstruators, along with their 12,000-plus comments. We observed a range of menstrual experiences—dysphoria, tensions between femininity and masculinity, and transnormative pressures. Using grounded theory, we identified three distinct linguistic strategies vloggers adopted to navigate these experiences: (1) avoiding standard and feminizing language; (2) reframing language through masculinization; and (3) challenging transnormativity. The avoidance of standard and feminizing language, coupled with a reliance on vague and negative euphemisms, revealed feelings of dysphoria. Masculinizing strategies, on the other hand, navigated dysphoria through euphemisms—or even hyper-euphemisms—that showed an effort to reclaim menstruation to fit within the trans and nonbinary experience. Vloggers responded through tropes of hegemonic masculinity, using puns and wordplay, and sometimes relying on hypermasculinity and transnormativity. Transnormativity, however, can be polarizing, and vloggers and commenters who rejected stratification of trans and nonbinary menstruation challenged it. Taken together, these videos not only uncover an overlooked community of menstruators who demonstrate unique linguistic engagement with menstruation, but they also reveal destigmatization and inclusion strategies that can inform critical menstruation activism and research as a whole.

Devenir non-binaire en français contemporain. Sous la direction de Vinay Swamy et Louisa Mackenzie

‘J’avais l’impression de vivre ma vie comme une série de compromis linguistiques’ (p. 92), writes Blase A. Provitola, in their compelling and nuanced contribution to this rich, urgent, and timely collective volume. Born of a project motivated, initially, by a question posed by anglophone students of French in American classrooms (‘Comment dit-on “they” en français?’, p. 1), and following on from a symposium in 2018 and a special issue of H-France Salon in 2019, Devenir non-binaire offers an état présent on, and a call for further research into, a series of interconnected questions concerning queer, trans, and non-binary experiences and use of French language. In ten interventions in varying forms and disciplines, the contributors to this volume make visible and interrogate the kinds of compromises evoked by Provitola. As they do so, they unfold further questions as much as they offer prescriptive solutions on subjects ranging from (neo-)pronouns to the perception of voice, the range of adapted systems of orthography and/or punctuation often referred to by the umbrella term écriture inclusive, and political-professional-pedagogical strategies. Several of the contributions have been translated, or adapted, into French, and ‘translation’ in many forms is a recurring concern: between languages, cultures, and modes of existence. What we might consider a broad human question — ‘how do we translate ourselves through language?’ — is brought into sharp and sometimes painful focus by historical, institutional, and attitudinal resistance to non-binary forms of language (and, by implication, ‘the non-binary’, or ‘non-binarité’ (p. 3) more generally) in French and in France. Co-editor Louisa Mackenzie’s essay robustly counters the labelling of developments in gender theory in francophone contexts as a form of (North American) ‘colonisation idéologique’ (p. 155), arguing instead that traversings of borders and boundaries may be experienced as opening, on the contrary, ‘un espace créatif interlinguistique où français et anglais se côtoient ou divergent, pour créer une espèce d’“interlangue”’ (p. 160). The collected chapters of the volume present a diversity of overlapping perspectives: those of lived experience, scholarly research, and of academic professional and social life. Even at the level of the individual, these perspectives are shown to be in flux; at various stages, contributors reflect on the shifts in their own attitudes or uses of language over time. In this way, the print medium — far slower by nature than the online modes of discussion and community-building that the volume also reflects on and engages with — is able to offer a meaningful series of snapshots that heuristically embody the title’s all-important verb: devenir. From the very useful history and conspectus of the current state of polemic around language and gender in French that opens the volume, to the detailed interview with trail-blazing linguist Alpheratz and glossary of terms that conclude it, this polyphonic and vital collection of work will be of interest to students and scholars alike. Pragmatic and utopian by turns, it should be read widely, and could well become a landmark — perhaps better, a signpost — publication in its rapidly evolving field.

The struggle with transnormativity: Non-binary identity work, embodiment desires, and experience with gender dysphoria

I examine how non-binary people who have considered, or accessed, gender-affirming health care experience accountability to transnormativity using 12 in-depth interviews conducted between 2018 and 2019 in a midwestern American city. I detail how non-binary people who want to embody genders that are still largely culturally unintelligible think about identity, embodiment, and gender dysphoria. Using grounded theory methodology, I find that non-binary identity work around medicalization differs from that of transgender men and women in three primary ways: 1) regarding how they understand and operationalize gender dysphoria, 2) in relation to their embodiment goals, and 3) concerning how they experience pressure to medically transition. Non-binary people describe increased ontological uncertainty about their gender identities when researching gender dysphoria that is contextualized by an internalized sense of accountability to the transnormative expectation for medicalization. They additionally anticipate a potential medicalization paradox, where accessing gender-affirming care leads to a different type of binary misgendering and risks making their gender identities less, rather than more, culturally intelligible to others. Non-binary people also experience external accountability to transnormativity as pressure from trans and medical communities to think about dysphoria as inherently binaristic, embodied, and medically treatable. These findings indicate that non-binary people experience accountability to transnormativity differently than trans men and women. Since non-binary people and their body projects often disrupt the transnormative tropes that are the framework for trans medicine, they find trans therapeutics, and the diagnostic experience of gender dysphoria, uniquely problematic. Non-binary experiences of accountability to transnormativity indicate the need to re-center trans medicine to better accommodate non-normative embodiment desires and focus future diagnostic revisions of gender dysphoria to emphasize the social aspects of trans and non-binary experience.

"How Do I Exist in This Body…That's Outside of the Norm?" Trans and Nonbinary Experiences of Conformity, Coping, and Connection in Atypical Anorexia.

Addressing eating disorders (EDs) within trans and nonbinary (TNB) populations is a growing concern, as TNB individuals are two to four times more likely to experience EDs than cisgender women. This study explored the lived experiences of TNB people with atypical anorexia by examining how gender identity impacted experiences of ED illness and (potential) recovery. Nine TNB adults with atypical anorexia were followed for one year and completed semi-structured, in-depth, longitudinal qualitative interviews at baseline, 6 months, and 12 months. Interviews were coded using Braun and Clark's thematic analysis procedures. Four themes, along with subthemes, emerged regarding the intersection of gender identity and ED experiences: (1) Conforming, (2) Coping, (3) Connecting, and (4) Critiquing. In Conforming, participants highlighted how societal pressures around gender contributed to ED vulnerability. In Coping, participants explained that their EDs represented attempts to cope with the overlapping influences of body dissatisfaction, gender dysphoria, and body disconnection. In Connecting, participants described ED recovery as a process of connecting to self, others, and communities that welcomed and affirmed their diverse identities. In Critiquing, participants described how current ED treatment settings were often unwelcoming of or unprepared for non-cisgender patients. Overall, participants viewed their EDs as intricately linked to their gender identity and experiences of social pressure and discrimination. This study suggests the need for targeted ED prevention and intervention efforts within TNB communities, and the ethical imperative to meaningfully address the needs of TNB patients in ED treatment settings.

“How Do I Exist in This Body…That’s Outside of the Norm?” Trans and Nonbinary Experiences of Conformity, Coping, and Connection in Atypical Anorexia

“How Do I Exist in This Body…That’s Outside of the Norm?” Trans and Nonbinary Experiences of Conformity, Coping, and Connection in Atypical Anorexia

Factors that drive mental health disparities and promote well-being in transgender and nonbinary people.

Transgender (or trans) is an umbrella term for individuals who experience their gender differently from what is associated with the sex they were assigned at birth. Individuals who are nonbinary experience their gender outside binary conceptions of gender. Although research has predominantly focused on negative mental health outcomes for transgender and non-binary (TNB) individuals, an emergent literature has begun to explore protective and health-promoting factors and dimensions of psychological well-being. In this Review, we discuss the sociocultural context for TNB people, beginning with a brief history of TNB identity before highlighting frameworks for understanding the higher prevalence of certain mental health concerns among TNB individuals. Next, we summarize the predictive factors associated with higher rates of depression, anxiety, suicidality, trauma-related concerns, disordered eating behaviours and substance use. We also review TNB coping, resilience and resistance to anti-trans stigma, as well as psychological well-being, flourishing and gender euphoria. Tying these topics together, we discuss affirming interventions for reducing mental health disparities and promoting psychological health in TNB individuals and communities. We conclude by discussing future research directions.

“Anorexia Wants to Kill Me, Dysphoria Wants Me to Live”: Centering Transgender and Nonbinary Experiences in Eating Disorder Treatment

The present study focused on the lived experience of eating disorder (ED) treatment among trans and nonbinary (TNB) individuals. Forty-six participants answered open-ended prompts on how gender was incorporated into their eating disorder treatment in ways that were both helpful and unhelpful. Using thematic analysis, four themes were identified as helpful: 1) Processing Gender Dysphoria; 2) Normalizing Gender Diversity; 3) Unpacking Gender Role Expectations; and 4) Therapist Characteristics. Themes identified as unhelpful included: 1) Providers Not Knowledgeable; 2) Etiology Stereotypes; 3) (Hetero)cisnormativity; 4) Gender Not a Focus; and 5) Treatment as Gendered. Implications focus on improving the quality of ED treatment for TNB people.

Non-Binary Embodiment, Queer Knowledge Production, and Disrupting the Cisnormative Field: Notes From a Trans Ethnographer

In this article, I show how my non-binary embodiment, along with regularly being misgendered, shapes the questions I ask, the research I conduct, the data I can gather, how I understand my research and data, and the knowledge I produce. Through this interrogation of my body in relation to research methods and epistemologies, I illuminate how trans and non-binary scholars disrupt the cisnormative assumptions of ethnographic fieldwork, of sociology, and of academia. These disruptions generate queer forms of knowledge production that center trans and non-binary experiences and perspectives and that move us toward thinking anew about researchers, embodiment, and methods, and their epistemological effects.

“The whole point is that we're not supposed to look like anything”: non-binary (un)intelligibility and carving out space in gender's border-zones

Non-binary people exist in a world in which the conditions for their existence are foreclosed by the dominant cultural frames, a world in which the human can only be understood through membership of one of the two binary gender categories of male and female. This article explores the ways that non-binary participants articulated their experiences of non-binary gender identification through Butler’s concept of (un)intelligibility and Hale’s idea of gender’s border-zones. The participants exist within the discursive frame in which adhering to the binary gender system is a necessary condition for a liveable life. This article explores how those non-binary people who live within gender’s border-zones are forced to develop new discursive tools to carve out space for their inclusion within the realm of the intelligible. Drawing on interviews conducted with self-identified non-binary participants, this article explores the way that participants negotiated their non-binary gender, by exploring the ways they are both included and excluded from discursive spaces due to their non-binary gender. This article explores the way that gender unintelligibility opens up space for the multiplicities, contradictions, and ambiguities of non-binary experience, as well as how this same unintelligibility renders non-binary people vulnerable to violence. The violence articulated by the participants was specifically to do with their experiences of erasure—being included into the existing binary gender categories that do not adequately describe their experience—and physical or verbal abuse due to their exclusion from the binary gender system. This article argues that non-binary can be understood as a distinct gender category that has permeable borders, and that inclusion in this category through self-identification has material consequences for non-binary people.

Doing gender and being gendered through occupation: Transgender and non-binary experiences

Background Transgender people can face discrimination which can be reflected in and encoded by their occupational experiences. There is emerging research regarding those who are transgender but experiences of non-binary people remain under-explored. Purpose This study considered the occupational experiences of transgender and non-binary people and how gender expression related to engagement in occupations and space. Method Five transgender and non-binary people participated in repeat interviews, including a ‘walking interview’. Analysis was informed by new materialism. Findings Occupational engagement can re-enforce binary understandings of gender or facilitate creative expressions of gender identity. Within normative environments, occupational participation can offer assimilation, particularly for non-binary people. Some occupations provided emancipation from binary gender norms through expression such as clothing and creative activities which provided recognition and belonging. Symbolic and personal meanings of occupations shifted when participants were able to express themselves in a way that felt authentic. Conclusion ‘Occupational assimilation’ can bring safety from scrutiny for those who are transgender and non-binary but curtails authentic expression. Occupational therapists have a role in supporting transgender and non-binary people in accessing occupations which facilitate their authentic gender expression and need to improve critical awareness of the culturally encoded binary nature of many occupations and environments.

Non-binary genders: navigating communities, identities and healthcare

Recent years have seen a growing and increasingly sensationalist media interest in trans and non-binary identities throughout many parts of the world. This has been only exacerbated by a growing moral panic over what it might mean to question the notion of binary distinctions between female and male, especially in terms of policing access to gendered spaces and healthcare services. Amidst a wave of concerned op-eds and social media furore, the actual everyday lives and needs of trans and non-binary people are rarely explored. Where documentaries, news stories and fictional accounts do explore trans and/or non-binary experiences, these often focus on a particular person’s journey, perspective or encounters with discrimination in isolation. In Non-Binary Genders, Ben Vincent offers a refreshing alternative to individualistic narratives of being, focusing instead on non-binary experiences of community and healthcare institutions. Drawing on qualitative findings from diary elicitation and interviews with non-binary people living...

No one will touch your body unless you say so

This piece will use literary accounts of Australian Indigenous trans experience to problematise the epistemological centrality of normativity in white and settler understandings of queer and trans identity. It will look at the poetic work of the writer Ellen van Neerven (Yugambeh Mununjali), who identifies as trans and non-binary, alongside the oral history text of sistergirl Brie Ngala Curtis (Arrente, Luritja, and Warlpiri) from Alice Springs. These authors provide representations of Indigenous trans and non-binary experience in which bodily autonomy is respected and normalised within the Indigenous community. In these recently published stories, gender is marked onto Indigenous bodies with intention, collaboration, and mutual agreement, demonstrating a nuanced and communal relationship with gendered embodiment in which everyone participates.

Super Fluid/Super Black: Translations and Teachings in Transembodied Metaphysics

Abstract“Super Fluid/Super Black: Translations and Teachings in Transembodied Metaphysics” was originally commissioned as a keynote lecture for the 2020 Collegium for African Diaspora Dance (CAAD) conference, Fluid Black::Dance Back. It is a hybrid text that centralizes Black Transgender and Nonbinary experiences in a conversation of futurity in African Diasporic spirituality, dance traditions, and performativities. Furthermore, “Super Fluid/Super Black” interrogates beingness through an exploration of astrophysics and global attempts at Black erasure in an attempt to uncover new strategies of collectivizing under dance that dismantle cisheteronormativity at their core.

You Keep Using That Word

CSCW researchers have long inquired into the ways that identity informs, and is informed by, the design of technological systems. Gender is a regularly considered aspect of identity, with extensive work documenting and exploring gendered experiences and designs with the aim of addressing inequalities in, or through, design. Recent work has questioned the way that we conceptualise and "measure" gender, advocating more nuanced classificatory schemes to avoid silencing or obscuring trans and/or non-binary experiences. Building on and extending this research, our work examines how gender is conceptualised more broadly. Drawing from a range of theoretical perspectives in gender studies, feminist and postcolonial theory, we argue for the treatment of gender as "multiplicitous" when we conceptualise and interpret research, in order to avoid unintentionally perpetuating silencing and inequality even as we work to tackle it. Illustrating our argument with examples from both within and without CSCW, we suggest both new research directions for CSCW scholars inquiring into gender, and sensitising questions that scholars can use when constructing and evaluating studies.

Experiences and Perceptions of Trans and Gender Non-Binary People Regarding Their Psychosocial Support Needs: A Systematic Review of the Qualitative Research Evidence.

People who identify as trans and gender non-binary experience many challenges in their lives and more interest is being paid to their overall health and wellbeing. However, little is known about their experiences and perceptions regarding their distinct psychosocial needs. The aim of this systematic review is to critically evaluate and synthesize the existing research evidence relating to the unique psychological and social experiences of trans people and identify aspects that may help or hinder access to appropriate psychosocial interventions and supports. The PRISMA procedure was utilized. A search of relevant databases from January 2010 to January 2021 was undertaken. Studies were identified that involved trans people, and addressed issues related to their psychosocial needs. The search yielded 954 papers in total. Following the application of rigorous inclusion and exclusion criteria a total of 18 papers were considered suitable for the systematic review. Quality was assessed using the MMAT instrument. Following analysis, four themes were identified: (i) stigma, discrimination and marginalization (ii) trans affirmative experiences (iii) formal and informal supports, and (iv) healthcare access. The policy, education and practice development implications are highlighted and discussed. Future research opportunities have been identified that will add significantly to the body of evidence that may further the development of appropriate health interventions and supports to this population.