Abstract

Purpose:

Gender affirmation for transgender, non-binary, and/or gender diverse (“trans”) persons can include legal name and/or gender marker changes. Gender marker choice has become more com plex with increasing availability of a gender-neutral “X” marker. Yet, little research has characterized trans persons’ perspectives on legal gender affirmation, and its mental health impacts.

Methods:

Here we present qualitative research exploring trans individuals’ goals for and barriers from seeking gender-affirming legal care and perspectives on the “X” gender marker. We conducted one-hour semi-structured interviews with 54 trans persons in the U.S. and Canada.

Results:

Almost all participants were interested in legal name (had: 54%, want: 33%) and gender marker (had: 46%, want: 46%) changes. Most common barriers included: logistics, fearing violence/discrimination, cost, and legality; 24% reported only updating some identification documents. While some sought an “X” gender marker (had: 11%, want: 19%), 32% considered the “X” harmful, fearing lack of compatibility with other documents and increasing risk of gender-based violence/discrimination. Most reported anxiety and isolation from concerns over mismatched or inaccurate identification documents.

Conclusions:

This work offers insight into how legal gender affirmation influences mental health for trans persons, highlighting the importance of mental health providers exploring legal gender affirmation when treating members of the trans community.

中文翻译：

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“X”标志着越轨性别：法律性别肯定的定性探索

摘要

目的：

对跨性别者、非二元性别和/或性别多样化（“跨性别”）人士的性别肯定可以包括法定姓名和/或性别标记的更改。随着中性“X”标记的可用性不断增加，性别标记的选择变得更加复杂。然而，很少有研究描述跨性别者对法律性别肯定及其心理健康影响的看法。

方法：

在这里，我们提出定性研究，探讨跨性别者寻求性别肯定法律服务的目标和障碍，以及对“X”性别标记的看法。我们对美国和加拿大的 54 名跨性别者进行了 1 小时的半结构化访谈。

结果：

几乎所有参与者都对法定姓名（有：54%，想要：33%）和性别标记（有：46%，想要：46%）的变化感兴趣。最常见的障碍包括：物流、担心暴力/歧视、成本和合法性；24% 的受访者表示仅更新了一些身份证明文件。虽然有些人寻求“X”性别标记（拥有：11%，想要：19%），但 32% 的人认为“X”有害，担心与其他文件缺乏兼容性并增加基于性别的暴力/歧视的风险。大多数人表示因身份证明文件不匹配或不准确而感到焦虑和孤立。

结论：

这项工作深入了解了法律性别肯定如何影响跨性别者的心理健康，强调了心理健康提供者在治疗跨性别社区成员时探索法律性别肯定的重要性。