Trans Communities Research Articles

The Vital Role of Trans-led CBOs in Public Health Research and Efforts: An Example from TransSOCIAL, Inc.

Transgender and gender diverse individuals experience high rates of economic marginalization, mental health concerns, substance use, and health issues.1 These disparities do not occur in a siloed manner, but rather, are interconnected and are driven by oppression, discrimination, and stigma. In other words, health equity for this community relies on multi-level intervention with heavy focus on sociostructural factors (e.g., housing, access to services, education, economic stability). These factors both produce and exacerbate health disparities.2 Public health programs and policy to address such drivers of health depend on data, and specifically, from samples that accurately represent the community and reflect their needs. Additionally, implementation of programs and services depend on community knowledge, reach, and uptake. Community based organizations (CBOs) specifically led by Trans and gender diverse community members are in a unique position to fulfill both data collection and implementation needs for public health programs to be most successful.

India's Third Gender and Visual Politics

Despite the Government of India’s official recognition of “third gender” in 2014, the right to gender self-determination remains contested. Over one million transgender women in the country face discrimination and continue to live on the fringes of society. Discrimination and stigma force them to resort to prostitution, begging on city streets, and performing at village festivals. While transgender women are venerated during religious rituals and festivals, they are excluded from employment and higher education. This article outlines the cultural and social conditions facing the trans community in India, as well as the illiberal attitudes of society toward it, through the prism of visual analysis.

From Necropraxis to Necroresistance: Transgender Experiences in Latin America.

Latin America is one of the deadliest regions for trans communities. Scientific research generated in the region has reported that trans people live through a complicated panorama shaped by multiple forms of oppression, extreme violence, and micro-aggressions. Although necropolitics, as a theoretical approach, has been useful to understand how State policies negatively affect trans individuals, it does not fully account for informal dynamics within groups and among individuals that are potentially lethal for this population in Latin America. To account for this gap, the author proposes two novel concepts: necropraxis (a pattern that manifest itself in everyday social interactions, through which gradual small doses of death are delivered to eliminate, symbolically and/or literally, trans people); and necroresistance (the ways in which trans people defy the threats imposed by necropraxis through "ordinary" acts manifested in their everyday life). The main objective of this article is to put forth definitions for these two concepts and identify how they apply in the context of trans communities in three countries of the region: Guatemala, Argentina, and Chile. To achieve the latter, the author relies on her ethnographic work in these contexts. Data were gathered through parcipant observation, in-depth interviews with trans persons (N = 11) and informal conversations with individuals during the site visits. A deductive qualitative analysis was conducted. Results evidence how the manifestation of necropraxis and necroresistance were highly influenced by the historical, political, economic and sociocultural context of each country. This study provides valuable information to help both policymakers and other stakeholders understand the problem's magnitude in the region and the ways necropraxis is experienced in everyday relations between trans individuals and others. Similarly, through the understanding of what constitutes necroresistance and its value, the proposed framework could help them outline prevention and management strategies to strengthen trans communities in different countries.

“Missing” Racialized Violence, Disturbing Continuities: Countertopographies of Violence in the Bruce McArthur Murders

This article argues that media coverage of the 2010–17 Toronto gay village homicides avoids one of the central patterns in the case: the murderous aggression of a white gay man, Bruce McArthur, against racialized men, most of them from the Middle East or South Asia. It argues that even coverage that is sensitive to intersectionality tends to treat race, class, and immigration status as secondary to sexual orientation, making racialized queer migrants a “sub-group” of a normatively white lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and queer community. The article calls for sustained engagement with the specific, racialized character of much of the violence in the McArthur case. With inspiration from queer diasporic, transnational feminist, and feminist geographical methods, it points to continuities between McArthur’s racialized violence and the effects of Canadian white supremacy, imperialism, and capitalist inequality on Afghan and Sri Lankan refugees across diasporas. These effects notably include Canada’s 2002–14 role in the occupation of Afghanistan and the 2010 detainment of Sri Lankan Tamil passengers on the MV Sun Sea. The article concludes that critical reckoning with racialized violence as racialized violence is crucial to any hope of reparation in the wake of the McArthur case.

Trans Revolutionaries

Photo essay, and accompanying article, exploring the historical and cultural landscape of the Trans community in Havana, Cuba. Models, captured in their domestic setting, allow photographer Olga Chagaoutdinova and writer, Morag Shackerley-Bennett, an intimate insight into an unseen world. The juxtaposition of progressive medical policy and poor legal structure in Cuba has left many of its Trans population unsure not only of their future, but that of Cuban LGBTQ2I+ rights also.

The promise of an intersectoral network in enhancing the response to transgender survivors of sexual assault.

ObjectivesThis study explores the promise of an intersectoral network in enhancing the response to transgender (trans) survivors of sexual assault.MethodsOne hundred and three representatives of healthcare and community organizations across Ontario, Canada were invited to participate in a survey. Respondents were asked to: 1) identify systemic challenges to supporting trans survivors, 2) determine barriers to collaborating across sectors, and 3) indicate how an intersectoral network might address these challenges and barriers. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize quantitative data and qualitative data were collated thematically.ResultsSixty-seven representatives responded to the survey, for a response rate of 65%. Several themes capturing the challenges organizations face in supporting trans survivors were identified: Lack of knowledge and training among providers, Inadequate resources across organizations and institutions, and Limited access to and availability of appropriate services. Barriers to collaborating across sectors considered important by the overwhelming majority of respondents were: Lack of trans-positive service professionals (e.g., a paucity of sensitivity training), lack of resources (e.g., staff, staff time and workload, spaces to meet), and Institutional structures (e.g., oppressive policies, funding mandates). Four ways in which a network could address these challenges and barriers emerged from the data: Center the voices of trans communities in advocacy; Support competence of professionals to provide trans-affirming care; Provide the platform, strategies, and tools to aid in organizational change; and Create space for organizations to share ideas, goals, and resources.ConclusionOur findings deepen our understanding of important impediments to enhancing the response to trans survivors of sexual assault and the role networks of healthcare and community organizations can play in comprehensively responding to complex health and social problems.

Turkish Delights with an Aftertaste

Abstract Hop-Çiki-Yaya Polisiyesi is a Turkish crime novel series by Mehmet Murat Somer that appeared between 2003 and 2004. The series is set in the trans world of Istanbul, and the hero/heroine is a gender-nonbinary sleuth. The present essay explores the paradox at the heart of this series, which on the one hand offers an affirmative portrait of a sex-positive and sociopolitically mobile trans world, and on the other hand exposes the reality of trans murders and the necropolitics as well as bare life politics in practice against the trans community in Turkey. The publication of these novels coincided with the emergence of an LGBTQ+ politics in Turkey but also with the rise to power of the Islamist Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (Justice and Development Party). Drawing on crime fiction theories, trans studies, and recent Turkish history, this essay draws out the significance of this series and its place in the trajectory of LGBTQ+ life in Turkey.

‘A point of reference’: the insider/outsider research staircase and transgender people’s experiences of participating in trans-led research

Transgender (heretofore shortened to ‘trans’) people remain largely excluded from involvement and leadership in the research conducted with their communities. As a result, few trans insiders (i.e. trans people who are also researchers) are ever in the position of designing, conducting, and disseminating knowledge from trans research. As such, social narratives of trans experiences are often inaccurate, lacking nuance, or directly damaging. This paper argues that insider–outsider IO research exists on a value ‘staircase’, moving from no involvement to full leadership. Using this staircase model, the researchers suggest that elevating and empowering trans people to consult in, conduct, and lead trans research benefits both the trans and research communities. Meaningful trans involvement in research provides more in-depth data, builds more constructive rapport with community members, and produces more effective research than the norm of purely outsider research in the field. The paper then details the results from a study of 6 trans women’s experience of undergoing IO-led trans research, with Shoshana as the main researcher and interviewer. The study identified three main themes: ‘The Impact of Trans-Led Research,’ ‘Constructive Approaches to the Research Process,’ and ‘Community-Controlled Narratives as a Priority’. This paper concludes that IO-led research facilitates an empowering research process for participants, communities, and researchers, and that future research in the area should consider trans representation and control as a priority.

Science, Context, and Gender Fluidity in Public Policy

This interdisciplinary essay combines science, social sciences, and the humanities to argue in favor of a less rigid understanding of the traditional gender binary of male and female. Relying on recent scientific studies on the sex/gender of the body (internal organs like the brain and chromosomal constitution, for example), this essay mentions results of scientific studies that challenge the binary understanding of gender. These studies point to a much more fluid biological spectrum of the binary male/female—to a trans fluid nature of gender. A less rigid understanding of the nature of gender of all human beings–not just those identified as trans sexual–might help in eradicating prejudices that lead to discrimination and harassment towards the trans community. As the public policy literature reviewed in this article documents, even with laws and policies to protect them from discrimination and harassment, the trans community is still subjected to both. One reason is that laws and policies are still subjected to the interpretation of policy makers and administrators whose decisions, consciously or not, are not immune to biases and prejudices. To further illustrate the scientifically proven trans fluid nature of gender, I will analyze two recent cultural products: One is from Latin America, the Chilean film “Una mujer fatástica,” and the second is an autobiographical essay by a transgender Chicano Professor of Women and Gender Studies—Francisco J. Galarte’s “Transitions: The Dolorous Return of a Chicana/o Transfronterizo.” By analyzing these two cultural products, my aim is to illustrate how these works illustrate gender fluidity in everyday life.

Recomendaciones para la investigación psicológica con personas transgénero: Una aproximación desde una experiencia en Chile

Prejudice and discrimination have important effects on the well-being and quality of life of trans people. Hence, investigating with said population implies, in addition to actions to obtain relevant and truthful information, having the necessary actions to attend to their needs and peculiarities. These are populations that are difficult to access (hard-to-reach), stigmatized, in which there is no defined sampling frame, that have physical and mental health indicators lower than those of any other group with which we have worked and that, therefore, it is necessary to take extreme the precautions not to reproduce types of relationships that may be harmful or offensive. The purpose of the present article was to systematize part of our field experience with transgender people, so that it can be useful for those who study with this population. These recommendations aim to provide some conceptual, methodological and ethical guidelines, useful throughout the research process. In particular, we made a series of recommendations that cover from the moment of taking conceptual decisions about the design of the study, through contact with the organizations, until the completion of the field work and subsequent stage of dissemination of results. In particular, a series of recommendations are made regarding: specifying the definition of the group with which one works, recording the variety of gender identifications as people present them, using to sampling methods for hard-to-reach populations or hidden populations, deliver a retribution for the participation (consider participants as experts to be compensated for their work), including activists as experts in every stage of the study (study design, field work, data analysis and dissemination of results), piloting the instruments in specific population, preferably opt for group applications modality and continue with a debriefing, have specific assistance for participants during the application (special needs derived from their age, educational level, reduced mobility, among others), use non-stigmatizing and inclusive language, call together with trans organizations (in order to establish greater trust in the population), attend to a mobility of the population (so as not to replicate the sample in different places), carry out a committed listening and contemplate referral protocols (if necessary given the type of situations described by the participants and their current degree of elaboration), consider different trajectories of transition, conduct inter-analysis sessions and disseminate appropriately within the transgender population. These propositions are discussed in terms of their effects on trans communities, their usefulness and ethical scope, their articulation with the general requirements of all research, and their implications for activism. On the other hand, these recommendations can serve as criteria for evaluating the ethical dimension of research projects with trans people. It may therefore be important to project reviewers, editors, and reviewers of manuscripts submitted for publication. The perspective that we assume in this work is aligned with those called "evidence-based activism", which implies articulating a variety of knowledge, scientifically accredited and of an "experiential" type, in order to explore situations in which the team members Research staff are part of networks that involve them personally in their study topics. It is precisely the relationship with groups that work for the rights of minorities, activists and members of these groups is essential, since they have knowledge acquired through their experience as part of discriminated groups and they can contribute to the mobilization of knowledge in the governance of health issues.

"It just feels right": Perceptions of the effects of community connectedness among trans individuals.

Trans individuals (e.g. trans men and women, non-binary, gender fluid) are at higher risk for mental health concerns, in part due to marginalization. Previous work has documented the effects of social support and community engagement on health outcomes. However, individuals' perceptions of community engagement effects may point to opportunities for intervention. This mixed methods study examines trans individuals' perceived effects of participating in trans communities on health outcomes. Semi-structured in-person interviews were conducted with 20 individuals, and 60 individuals participated in cross-sectional online surveys. Perceived discrimination had a strong negative association with self-assessed mental health. Effects of participation included a) positive: contextualization and normalization of experience, self-appraisal, safety, and relief; and b) neutral/negative: energy drain and stigmatization. Effects of not participating included loneliness, depression, isolation, hiding identity, and losing resources. Both discrimination and non-participation in trans communities had negative effects on mental health. Though community participation is often discussed as positive for marginalized populations, it may be important to include possible negative effects (such as energy drain) in research.

The Use of Non-Surgical Injectable Procedures Among Transgender Communities

Each year, millions of Americans undergo non-surgical injectable procedures to rejuvenate, add volume, and shape the face. These minimally invasive procedures are routinely performed by licensed medical professionals including plastic surgeons and dermatologist using FDA approved substances. Because these procedures alter physical appearance, non-surgical injectable procedures may compliment gender-affirming procedures that some transgender (trans) individuals undergo to affirm their gender identity. However, severe marginalization and discrimination towards trans communities often leaves formalized medical settings inaccessible. Indeed, anecdotal reporting and medical literature indicate that there is a market for performing these procedures in unregulated medical settings using dangerous non-FDA approved materials outside of safe medical settings. The practice, referred to often as “pumping”, happens particularly within trans communities, largely because of social and political factors that make formalized medicine inaccessible. Even though pumping can be an affirming experience for trans individuals, an unfortunate number of those who undergo non-FDA approved non-surgical injectable procedures experience uncorrectable adverse outcomes including death. Despite indications that trans individuals may benefit from FDA approved non-surgical injectable procedures and the growing literature detailing irreversible outcomes of non-FDA approved non-surgical injectable procedures, the medical and scientific communities do not fully understand how trans individuals conceptualize and engage with non-surgical injectable procedures. A brief overview of factors that may contribute to this underground practice is presented in this narrative review and synthesized to inform suggestions for future socio-behavioral and epidemiological approaches that ultimately aim to expand access to safe and affirming healthcare settings for trans individuals.

Improving Cervical Screening in Trans and Gender-Diverse People.

Trans and gender-diverse people with a cervix experience difficulties accessing cervical cancer screening because of structural, interpersonal, and individual barriers. The aim of this study was to explore issues with cervical cancer screening participation, awareness, and healthcare provider recommendation for trans and gender-diverse people. A national Australian survey was conducted in 2018 to 2019. Participants included 196 trans and gender-diverse people with a cervix. Data were analyzed using descriptive and multiple regression analyses. Two awareness items related to cervical cancer screening, healthcare provider recommendation, and cervical cancer screening participation were assessed. Four variables associated with cervical cancer screening were included in the regression: age, healthcare provider recommendation, like for body, and gender. The sample was young; half (52.6%) were aged 20 to 24 years. Almost half (44.6%) had never had a healthcare provider recommend cervical cancer screening to them. Around half (48.0%) had never participated, with 21.9% reporting that they are regular screeners. More than a quarter (27.5%) of people who had screening had an abnormal result. The most common reasons for not participating in screening were that it is emotionally traumatic for them (55.3%) and inability to find a healthcare provider with whom they are comfortable (38.3%). Trans and gender-diverse Australians with a cervix are unlikely to be regular participants in cervical cancer screening. To continue reducing cervical cancer rates, healthcare providers must address underscreening in this community. Gender diversity training needs to be provided to healthcare providers. In addition, healthcare providers need to promote participation in cervical screening in this trans and gender-diverse community.

Managing Gender Care in Precarity: Trans Communities Respond to COVID-19

Transgender (trans) people always already live with health care precarity, particularly concerning gender transition. During a pandemic, this precarity is heightened. Trans people find themselves without access to necessary cross-sex hormones or isolated with unaccepting or hostile family members. As a result, some engage in tactical technical communication, using the Internet to source knowledge and supplies to manage their transition. This article analyzes these do-it-yourself forms of tactical technical communication that support gender transition in the time of COVID-19.

Sexual Fantasy of Cisgender and Nonbinary Individuals: A Quantitative Study

Sexual fantasies typically represent sexually arousing mental imagery and, thus, are thought to play a role in sexual activation and sexual desire. They are also related to sexual and personal satisfaction. Differences between cisgender men and women’s imagery are widely reported in the literature. In contrast, research on sexual fantasies among the trans community is scarce, especially when it comes to nonbinary identified people. The aim of the present study is to explore similarities and differences in the sexual imagery of cisgender women and men and nonbinary individuals, through a checklist of sexual fantasies, the Italian version of the Sexual Fantasy Questionnaire (SFQ). Results highlight that nonbinary individuals rate almost all categories of SFQ fantasies as sexually non-exciting, unlike cisgender men and women. The differences between cisgender men and women only partially confirm the results reported in the literature. In particular, the higher tendency to fantasize about dominance in men and passivity in women is not found in the present sample. Results are discussed in the light of the sexual script theory.

Forgotten Wishes: End-of-Life Documents for Trans People with Dementia at the Margins of Legal Change

AbstractLiterature on the topic of trans older adults has documented a few anecdotal cases in which some trans people living with dementia forgot they transitioned and reidentified with their sex assigned at birth (“detransition”). Trans communities and their allies have encouraged trans people to engage in end-of-life planning, including the preparation of legal documents that state their wishes regarding gender identity and expression in the event of “incapacity” caused by dementia. While useful, we contend that end-of-life planning is often implicitly based on cisnormative and cognonormative (normative system based on cognitive abilities) assumptions. Such planning is founded on a stable notion of gender identity throughout the life course (“post-transition”) and assumes that the pre-dementia self is better equipped to make decisions than the “demented” self. We conclude by encouraging, based on an intersectional, trans-affirmative, crip-positive, and age-positive approach, respect for the agency of trans people with dementia.

Monopoly and Power Implications for Trans Health Care Specialists Working in a Centralised Setting: A Qualitative Study

<p>In the last decade, the range and number of people accessing trans health care has increased at a faster rate than previously. Globally trans health care is commonly used as a requirement for trans people to access legal gender recognition. In Europe, trans health care is often provided within centralised health systems by a limited number of specialist teams placed in monopoly positions. Through a qualitative study, we sought to understand the relationship and role these teams have with legal gender recognition. We conducted in-depth interviews with a team located in Central and Eastern Europe and consulted with local key informants working in trans health advocacy outside the team. After applying qualitative content analysis emerging themes comprised three sections: the team in context; conceptions of trans health care; and beyond the clinic.</p><p>Findings indicated that the team conceived trans identities and clinical needs in a medical framework that correlated with the process for legal gender recognition. This followed a similar historical progression across Europe. As the few respected specialists in the country, the team influenced care regulations within the ministry and held a monopoly position. While reform of some regulations was seen as needed, they were met with challenges within the health system and field. These challenges were, however, found to reflect trans health care globally rather than the team itself. Our findings suggest comparisons could be drawn to similar positioned teams throughout Europe regarding decision making, power, and influence. Increased transparency and cooperation between local trans communities and health care providers will be vital.</p>

“Building a Person”: Legal and Clinical Personhood for Autistic and Trans Children in Ontario

AbstractIn the 1960s and 1970s, psychologists at the University of California, Los Angeles, operated two behaviour modification programs: one aiming to eliminate “feminine” behaviours in male-bodied children (“conversion therapy”), and one targeting autistic children’s so-called problem behaviours (applied behavioural analysis or ABA). The head of the autism program referred to his work as “building a person.” Decades later in Ontario, a radically incommensurate legal context sees conversion therapy banned while ABA receives millions of funding dollars. Drawing on legislation, case law, media, and clinical literature, I argue that the process of trans communities wresting themselves out from under conversion therapy involved discursively shifting fromhavinga condition tobeinghuman—a process of “building a person”—still incomplete for autistic communities. While legal reforms protect some trans youth from harmful therapies, this does not extend to autistic trans youth, leading us to question at whose expense a rights-bearing trans person was built.

Lost in Transition? Digital trans activism on Youtube

ABSTRACT This article intends to contribute to a novel research area - the construction of critical transgender narratives on Youtube – examining how some Spanish trans youtubers shift the focus from the ‘fleshy metamorphosis’ [Barnett, J. T. (2015). Fleshy metamorphosis: Temporal pedagogies of transsexual counterpublics. In L. G. Spencer & J. C. Capuzza (Eds.), Transgender communication studies: Histories, trends, and trajectories (pp. 155–172). Lexington], to becoming trans ‘media-bodies’ [Raun,T. (2010). Screen-births: Exploring the transformative potential intrans video blogs on YouTube. Graduate Journal of Social Science, 7(2), 113–130]. We examine the channel Lost in Transition, by Spanish transgender advocate Elsa Ruiz Cómica. In contrast to other trans youtubers, who focus mostly on ‘passing’ as the ultimate trans achievement, Elsa creates alternative narratives. We will argue that her practices emerge as a new political subject, disobedient to the legal and biomedical framing of transgenderism as a disorder. Our main conclusion is that Youtube is a site of ‘digital trans activism’ [Raun, T. (2016). Out online. Trans self-representation and community building on YouTube. Routledge.], where non-binary youtubers can perform the nonconforming subaltern body [Platero, R. L., & Rosón, M. (2019). ‘Neithermale or female; just Falete’: Resistance and queerness on Spanish TV screens. Catalan Journal of Communication & Cultural Studies, 11(1), 135–143. doi:10.1386/cjcs.11.1.135_1] that would otherwise be invisible. This has implications for the public debate on transrights, as it lifts the issue of transition out of the medical sphere and puts it at the center of abroader cultural debate on gender identity.

Formation of an intersectoral network to support trans survivors of sexual assault: A survey of health and community organizations

Background To address the growing international recognition of the inequities faced by transgender (trans) persons and the lack of services that attend to the specific concerns of trans sexual assault survivors, we undertook the development of an intersectoral network of hospital-based violence treatment centers and trans-positive community organizations to enhance available supports. Aims To examine anticipated involvement of organizations in the network and determine network activities, deliverables, and values. Methods We developed a survey with guidance from an advisory group of trans community members and their allies. Items on the survey related to network activities, deliverables, and values, which were also informed by key insights from earlier network planning meetings, were rated on a 5-point Likert scale for their importance (1 = not important at all, 5 = very important). Results Sixty-four out of 93 organizations invited responded to the survey, giving a response rate of 69%. The highest prioritized network activities were: improve access to support services for trans survivors, educate trans survivors on their rights/what to expect when seeking supports and information on organizations, provide ongoing education/training for service providers on trans-affirming care, and inform guidelines on appropriate and sensitive standards of care/better practices for trans survivors (means = 4.6). The highest prioritized deliverables were: provision of standardized sensitivity training on violence against trans persons for professionals and development of an online directory/resource list of trans-affirming service providers and organizations that is continuously updated (means = 4.5). Trauma- and violence-informed and trans-guided were the most highly rated values (means = 4.8). Conclusion These findings have implications for healthcare and community leaders seeking to collaborate across sectors to address the inequities faced by trans persons experiencing sexual assault.