Legislation that impacts or discriminates against transgender and gender-diverse individuals can cause more psychological distress than personal experiences of discrimination, according to new Virginia Commonwealth University research published in the journal American Psychologist. The study also found that individuals with those identities experienced psychological distress from anti-transgender laws even if they lived in a state with legislation that is friendly toward transgender and gender-diverse individuals.
"We found that above and beyond everything else in the model, including active experiences of discrimination, that anti-trans legislation anxiety was driving psychological distress," said Catherine Wall , Ph.D., an assistant professor of psychology in the College of Humanities and Sciences and the study's lead author.
Over 2,000 laws that directly or indirectly discriminate against transgender and gender-diverse individuals have been proposed at both the state and federal level since 2020, many of which limit access to healthcare, public facilities and sports leagues. The researchers used survey data from 346 transgender and gender diverse adults in the United States, collected in early 2024, to assess participants' anxiety levels around anti-transgender legislation, their experiences with discrimination based on their identities, their level of support and community connection, and other related statistics.
Through quantitative data analysis, the researchers found a strong relationship between psychological distress and anti-transgender legislation anxiety, and a moderate relationship between news anxiety and news exposure. The researchers also found that those with less community connectedness and familial support experienced greater psychological distress.
Notably, the study found that familial support and community support had equally strong relationships to an individual's level of psychological distress, suggesting that non-familial friendships and connections can be just as strong as familial bonds in supporting a transgender person's mental wellness.
"It's not just enough to look at trans people within the light of deficit," Wall said. "We also need to look at strength and resiliency factors as well."
Anti-transgender legislation creates an environment of fear
The researchers also performed a qualitative analysis of the participants' survey responses in order to better understand the sources of participants' psychological distress. They found that many participants had experienced or feared that they would experience difficulty accessing gender-affirming care, or difficulty living openly as a transgender person. Many also noted increasing discrimination and violence associated with the rise in anti-transgender legislation, and an increase in fear for their safety and well-being, regardless of whether they lived in a state with anti-transgender legislation.
"You would think that if an individual lived in a state that had laws that were preventing discrimination, that they might have lower levels of psychological distress," Wall said. However, she said, participants' perception of a national-level threat likely influenced their feelings of distress.
Many participants also reported that they had left or intended to leave their home state for states with transgender-friendly laws, while others wrote that they feared visiting relatives in states with anti-transgender laws. Still others expressed worry that their state could pass anti-transgender laws at any time, or reported that they felt privileged to either live in transgender-friendly states or to be able to present as cisgender in public. The participants generally noted profound psychological distress and anxiety around being discriminated against for being transgender or being targeted in a violent act.
"In a lot of ways, our participants who were talking about fear and expressing fear were viewing a lot of the anti-trans legislation as an existential threat," Wall said. "So, a threat to their very existence, threats to their very lives and threats to the lives of all trans people around them."
Individual support can help, but societal support is needed
Overall, Wall said, the analysis found that individual support systems were deeply important for the participants' psychological well-being.
"Understanding the potential beneficial role of social support on resilience is something that is incredibly important," she said. "The role that social support plays can be really beneficial as trans people are navigating this overarching sociopolitical environment."
But, she added, such overwhelming psychological distress needs societal solutions, especially as anti-transgender legislation spreads: "It's not going to be enough in the long term to just focus on that individual-level resiliency factor."
