Social Categories, General Theories, and Identity-Specific Predictors of Dissociation in Transgender Adults

Transgender and nonbinary (i.e. trans) people commonly report dissociation as a survival strategy in hostile sociopolitical contexts, and initial studies have identified childhood trauma, transphobic marginalization, and gender incongruence as potential predictors of trans dissociation. However, more research is needed to establish transtheoretical explanatory factors using an intersectional lens. We thus sought to use an intracategorical complexity intersectional approach to assess whether social categories, general factors (i.e. childhood trauma, fantasy proneness, cognitive failures, sleep disturbance), and trans-specific factors (i.e. transphobic marginalization, gender congruence, gender dysphoria) would be related to dissociation. A cross-sectional online survey was administered to N = 203 trans adults who were diverse in gender, sexuality, SES, disability status, age, and state of residence, but were mostly White (73.4%). More frequent dissociation among trans men, nonbinary, gender non-conforming, younger, lower-SES, and disabled participants suggests important intersections of cissexism with classism and ableism. All general and trans-specific factors were significantly correlated with dissociation at the bivariate level, except for a non-significant trend with gender congruence; general factors explained additional variance in dissociation above social categories, but trans-specific factors did not. More research is needed to explore interactions of general and trans-specific factors, intersectional marginalization, temporal distinctions, and direct assessment of the unique gender dissociation identified in prior qualitative studies. The current findings may inform decolonized, affirming, intersectional marginalization trauma-informed mental health care, as well as social justice advocacy to reduce exposure to childhood trauma and transphobic marginalization in the current sociopolitical climate.