Background Transgender and gender nonbinary (TGNB) people display an elevated risk for mental health concerns compared to cisgender individuals, in part due to heightened minority stressors. Minority stressors may prompt alienation from one’s body and decreases in social safety due to highlighting discordance between one’s body and gender identity. Disruptions in interoceptive accuracy, closely associated with distress in cisgender samples, are understudied in transgender populations.Aim This study explored relationships between minority stress, interoceptive awareness, social safeness, and psychological distress among TGNB individuals. We hypothesized that distal and proximal minority stressors would predict psychological distress, and that this relationship would be mediated by interoceptive awareness and social safeness.Methods Two hundred and thirty-three TGNB-identifying participants completed measures assessing minority stress, interoceptive awareness, social safeness, and psychological distress. Structural equation modeling was utilized to test hypothesized relationships.Results Path analyses associated distal and proximal stressors with increased psychological distress. Decreased interoceptive awareness and social safety mediated the relationship between proximal stressors and psychological distress. Interestingly, distal stressors were linked to heightened interoceptive awareness, which in turn predicted psychological distress.Discussion Study findings highlight changes in interoceptive awareness and social safeness as detrimental effects of minority stressors. Immediate distal stressors were associated with bodily hypervigilance, while lingering proximal stressors were associated with bodily avoidance. Similarly, proximal stressors were associated with decreased feelings of interpersonal safeness, a protective factor for TGNB individuals. Findings underscore the potential benefit of incorporating interventions which enhance social connections and bodily awareness in the treatment of psychological distress in this population.
Broekhuijse et al. (Wed,) studied this question.