Distal Gender Minority Stress and Psychological Well-Being Among Transgender and Gender-Nonconforming Adults: The Mediating Role of Psychological Flexibility

Abstract

On top of general life stress, transgender and gender non-conforming (TGNC) people experience gender minority stress (GMS), contributing to mental health disparities in this population. Using an international sample of 73 self-identified TGNC adults, the present study aimed to examine whether psychological flexibility (PF) mediates the association between experiences of external prejudice events (i.e., distal GMS) and psychological well-being. Furthermore, semi-structured interviews were conducted with seven participants from this sample to qualitatively explore their lived experiences of GMS. Mediation analysis was performed to test the hypothesized relations using Model 4 of the PROCESS macro tool in SPSS. Results indicated that distal GMS was negatively related to psychological well-being and PF, whereas PF was positively related to psychological well-being. Notably, the mediation analysis demonstrated that PF significantly mediates the relationship between distal GMS and psychological well-being. The findings highlight that prevention and treatment strategies for improving PF may possibly protect the mental health and well-being of TGNC adults against the actual experiences of GMS.