Abstract
Transgender and gender diverse (TGD) people in the United States face high rates of minority stressors, such as social rejection, homelessness, discrimination, and identity-based violence (James et al., 2016). Transgender and gender diverse service members are also exposed to unique military-specific stressors such as discriminatory military policies, combat stress, and military sexual trauma (Tucker et al., 2019). However, little is known about TGD troops’ experiences of resilience when navigating stress and trauma exposure during their military service. A transaffirmative participatory research design and interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) analytic method were used to explore how troops made sense of their experiences of oppression and resilience. Researchers interviewed TGD service members (N = 40) about their gender identity and military service. Superordinate themes included: (a) understanding oppression; (b) survival strategies; (c) individual stress and resilience factors; and (d) collective resilience factors. Results suggest that both intrasubjective and intersubjective factors impacted how TGD troops made sense of their experiences of oppression and resilience.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 382-396 |
| Number of pages | 15 |
| Journal | Psychological Services |
| Volume | 20 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Nov 10 2022 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2022 American Psychological Association
Funding
Funding for the Transgender Military Service study was provided by the Palm Center, the American Psychological Association Society for the Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity, and the World Professional Association for Transgender Health. Special thanks to the members of the Transgender Military Service Lab and associated researchers who contributed to this project: Ahmad Washington, Ali Sommer, Amanda Mitchell, Brynn Tannehill, Chere Hunter, Danielle Alexander, Genevieve Ard, Hanna Tripp, Hayden Myers, Jessica Dowell, Julianne Sutton, Kinton Rossman, lore dickey, Mac McEachin, Mel Lesch, Rebekah Eleazer, Sebastian Barr, Stephanie Budge, Stephanie Waterhouse, and Yen Nguyen. Author pronouns are as follows: Jacob R. Eleazer (he/him), Landon Marchant (they/them), Amber Kizewski (she/her), Georgina Gross (they/them), Allison Warren (they/she), and Laurie McCubbin (she/her).
| Funders |
|---|
| American Psychological Association Society |
| Laurie McCubbin |
Keywords
- collective resilience
- military
- minority stress
- oppression
- transgender
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Clinical Psychology
- Applied Psychology
