Understanding the impact of gender identity nonaffirmation: The mediating role of psychological needs thwarting

Lloyd, Joda; Frasca, Keely J.; Thompson, Miles; Stewart, Jay; English, Cara

Abstract

Transgender and gender nonconforming (TGNC) people report high levels of violence, discrimination, and stigma, and this has repeatedly been linked to mental health problems (Testa et al., 2015). However, research examining the general psychological processes underpinning these relationships is in its infancy. Combining understanding from the gender minority stress and resilience model (Testa et al., 2015), Hatzenbuehler’s (2009) integrative mediation framework and basic psychological need theory (Ryan & Deci, 2017), we investigated psychological needs thwarting (i.e., thwarted competence, relatedness, and autonomy) as intermediary variables in the relationship between a specific type of TGNC discrimination—gender identity nonaffirmation— and psychological distress and life satisfaction outcomes.We based this model on a two-wave longitudinal panel design where datawere obtained from 454 TGNC people living in England, who participated in surveys on twomeasurement occasions, 12months apart. Autoregressive analysis revealed that thwarted competence mediated the relationship between gender identity nonaffirmation and depression (β= .05, SE= 0.02, p= .021), stress (β= .05, SE= 0.02, p= .021), and life satisfaction (β=−.05, SE= 0.02, p=.034); thwarted autonomy mediated the relationship between nonaffirmation and depression (β=.03, SE=0.02, p= .049) and life satisfaction (β=−.04, SE= 0.02, p= .049); and thwarted relatedness mediated the relationship between nonaffirmation and depression (β=.05, SE= 0.02, p= .039).We discuss practical and theoretical implications for the fields of gender minority stress, basic psychological need theory, and TGNC mental health.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Apr 4, 2024
• Online Publication Date: May 16, 2024
• Deposit Date: May 17, 2024
• Publicly Available Date: May 17, 2025
• Journal: Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity
• Print ISSN: 2329-0382
• Electronic ISSN: 2329-0390
• Publisher: American Psychological Association
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1037/sgd0000740
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/11998428