Review articleTransgender stigma and health: A critical review of stigma determinants, mechanisms, and interventions
Section snippets
Stigma at multiple levels
Stigma has the ability to affect transgender health at multiple levels. Using an applied ecological model, this section reviews transgender stigma at the structural, interpersonal, and individual levels.
Direct health effects of stigma
The negative health impact of multiple forms of stigma are summarized in the gender minority stress theory (Hendricks and Testa, 2012). Derived from minority stress theories applied to other stigmatized statuses (e.g., SES, Dohrenwend, 2000; race, Williams et al., 1997; sexual minority status, Meyer, 2003b), gender minority stress theory proposes that added stressors related to the stigma attached to one's discordant gender identity/expression adversely affect health and accounts for health
Interventions to reduce stigma and its negative health impact
To prevent the onset of adverse health outcomes in diverse transgender populations, interventionists need to reduce the factors that cause stress and intervene directly to help transgender people mitigate stress responses. Stigma interventions have been developed to change attitudes and improve coping at the individual-level, reduce the perpetration of stigma at the interpersonal-level, and change the norms, policies, and systems that perpetuate stigma at the structural-level. This section
Summary and future directions
Changing attitudes have allowed transgender people to become more visible in society. However, the increased visibility of transgender people also highlights the high prevalence of adverse health outcomes that exist in some transgender communities –- health inequities linked to the societal stigma attached to gender nonconforming identities and expressions. While recent US non-discrimination policies may reflect greater acceptance of transgender people, widespread interpersonal stigma
Acknowledgments
Jaclyn White Hughto is supported by grants T32MH020031 and P30MH062294 from the National Institute of Mental Health.
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