Gender Minority Stressors and Psychological Distress Among Chinese Transgender and Gender-Diverse People: Pride as a Protector and Community Connectedness as a Compensator

The past decade has witnessed a gradual improvement of sociocultural climate toward gender minorities, but gender minority stressors (GMS) still remain pervasive and considerable. Nevertheless, many transgender and gender-diverse (TGD) people are still able to survive and thrive in psychological well-being. Therefore, it is important to identify resources at different ecological levels that protect TGD people against the negative mental health consequences of GMS and promote their resilience, especially in cultural contexts that have been historically dominated by conservative traditions toward gender minorities. Echoing this claim, we examined the associations of GMS in three major forms (i.e., internalized transphobia, transphobic prejudice events, and nonaffirmation of gender identity) with Chinese TGD people’s psychological distress (PD). In particular, two theoretically potential resilience factors were tested as moderators: pride and community connectedness. Survey data from Chinese TGD people (N = 410, M_age= 22.33, SD = 4.27) were used. Results of path analyses demonstrated that three forms of GMS were positively associated with PD above and beyond each other. Further, pride moderated the positive link between transphobic prejudice events and PD, such that when pride was high, this association became nonsignificant (i.e., a protective effect). In contrast, although no moderating role of community connectedness emerged, it was negatively associated with PD above and beyond the effects of GMS (i.e., a compensatory effect). Our findings provide evidence supporting the distinctiveness of three GMS and highlight pride and community connectedness as promising intervention targets to facilitate TGD people’s resilience in the face of GMS.