Where do you guys think the biggest gaps are in psychology research regarding trans issues? I want to do said research when I do grad school, so I wanted your opinion on what areas could really use the research. Thank you guys for all your hard work!
If i had all the money in the world, i’d love do send grants out to a lot of corners of the research world! I’m definitely opening this to readers for additional suggestions, but personally,
I would like to see studies that talk about what motivates people to detransition, including long-term follow-ups for detransitioned folk. (detransition is a touchy subject- my hypothesis is that a majority of this group is detransitioning not because they are not trans but because of specific pressures to not appear trans; when or if these pressures are relieved in the long term, they may eventually re-transition.)Eating disorders and trans people (is there actually an increased prevalence or does it just seem like it?)Best practices for mental health care working with sex workers, qualitative study. (when trans sex workers seek mental health care, what works well, what works poorly, in their own words). motivators for drug/alcohol use in the trans community (we have hugely increased rates over other LGB+)Who else has other suggestions?mod mayhem
[special interest activation noise]
I think that as a whole, psychology needs to pull its head out of its ass, because I literally still have “gynephilic/androphilic” as a legitimized diagnostic distinction in many of my textbooks. Books that were written and published within the past five years, well within current knowledge of why that’s a hideously inappropriate and stigmatizing label to apply, fully endorsing Blanchard’s typology. We’re in an incredibly uncomfortable position right now where our knowledge as trans people, plus our community’s knowledge of lived experiences and the nuances of gender identity, is all completely out of step with the scientific understanding. So before we can have a broad social impact with psych research, the actual psych community needs to be brought up to speed on, honestly, the most basic 101-type understanding of what “transgender” is.
However! Putting aside that much broader issue, I would be really interested in academic-backed research on depersonalization and dysphoria, following some of what Zinnia Jones lays out here. Specifically, I’d be interested in qualitative analysis of common factors underlying depersonalization in trans people and how it might logically follow from experiences of dysphoria, possibly with an expansion into the broader dissociative spectrum.
Also if you can metaphorically flip Blanchard off and come up with that delicious No Correlation evidence for lack of fetishistic typology in trans people, specifically trans women and AMAB transfeminine people, I’ll personally send flowers to your house. (Joke, but born from real desire for this to exist in a format we can point at instead of saying “this is bullshit because literally every trans person can see how bigoted this is”, which doesn’t always fly academically.)
And I think that there’s a need in our current scientific climate to examine childhood dysphoria and “rates of desistance”, which is a loaded way of saying “how often do young children who say they’re trans go on to inhabit a trans identity as an adult”. This has come up a lot recently with the ROGD pseudoscience—the rash of transphobic parents claiming that their children’s trans identities came out of nowhere and were “caused” by interaction with other trans people. In a research context, I would like to approach this longitudinally, but that might be outside the bounds of a grad degree.
OH and while there’s been significant research already into gender differences in neurology, I desperately want that to be examined from a trans POV, integrating the effects of gendered socialization in a similar way to how Cordelia Fine’s done it in Delusions of Gender but including nonbinary people in the equation from the get-go.
(Also, you and I should link up, because I’m also applying to grad schools for psych in the next couple years, and while I’m not intending to directly focus on trans people as a population the specific kind of research I want to do involves us. Imagine me doing a goofy finger wiggle at the screen.)
