ABSTRACT
The proposed research will focus on understanding the role of resilience in addressing mental health
disparities for transgender and gender diverse (TGD) individuals. Clinical and scientific understandings of TGD
health have been conceptualized primarily through the minority stress model (Brooks, 1981; Meyer, 1995;
2003; Testa et al., 2015) which disproportionately focuses on deficit and risk. In contrast, resilience moves
beyond risk identification and has the potential to inform the development of interventions to help protect TGD
people from minority stressors and heal from the consequent harm (Meyer, 2015). Matsuno & Israel (2018)
recently proposed the Transgender Resilience Intervention Model (TRIM) as an expanded version of the
minority stress model (Meyer, 2003; Testa et al., 2015). TRIM presents a promising theoretical framework from
which to understand the role of resilience in mitigating the impact of minority stressors on mental health for
TGD individuals. However, current measures do not provide a comprehensive way to assess TGD resilience
as outlined in the TRIM. Our preliminary work significantly broadens the conceptualization of resilience and
provides an important starting point from which to develop items for our proposed Multidimensional TGD-
Resilience Scale. We incorporate findings from our review (Puckett et al., 2022) with recent research and
preliminary data from each of the MPIs in order to map onto NIMHD’s health disparities research framework.
We will use this framework as a conceptual map for developing initial items for our Multidimensional TGD-
Resilience Scale that reflect individual, interpersonal, community, and societal levels of influence. In order to
broaden the utility of our measure to address the unique needs of TGD POC, we propose a fifth level of
influence related to intersectional resilience. In this 4-year MPI project, Drs. Puckett, Matsuno, and Galupo will
work with expert and community panelists to develop and evaluate initial scale items for our Multidimensional
TGD-Resilience Scale (Aim 1), psychometrically investigate our novel measure (Aim 2), and investigate the
protective function of resilience in relation to TGD health disparities using a longitudinal design (Aim 3). This
project is poised to broaden our conceptualization and measurement practices for TGD Resilience, reframe the
overall approach to TGD health to incorporate a strengths-based focus, and inform the development of
targeted mental health interventions to bolster resilience. This application is in response to PAR-22-072, which
calls for research on measures and methods to advance research on minority health and health disparities-
related constructs. The factors influencing TGD health disparities are under-researched and there are no
measures that reflect multidimensional manifestations of resilience or the unique characteristics of resilience
for TGD people. Our focus on protective factors directly aligns with NIMHD’s areas of interest and our
community-participatory approach provides an avenue for future research to better reflect TGD people’s lives.
