Implicit and Explicit Spirituality in the Lives of Transgender and Gender Expansive Older Adults

ABSTRACT

Religion and spirituality for transgender and gender expansive people (whom we refer to collectively as trans) are complicated by mainstream religions’ history of stigmatizing and marginalizing sexual and gender minorities. We conducted an interpretive content analysis of biographical interviews with 88 trans older adults from across the United States, applying six tenets of spiritual psychotherapy to their life narratives. Our findings suggest that some trans older adults’ spirituality is experienced both implicitly and explicitly. Implicit spirituality reflects the ways in which meaning, purpose, and connection in one’s life are nurtured with respect to one’s gender identity. Explicit spirituality reflects the process of consciously renegotiating one’s spiritual beliefs and religious practices to validate one’s gender identity and place in society. This knowledge is potentially helpful for gerontological social workers who seek to nurture trans people’s spirituality and well-being as they age.

KEYWORDS:

• Transgender
• gender expansive
• spirituality
• older adults

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ The term transgender refers to people whose gender identity does not match that which was assumed or assigned by others at birth.

² The term gender expansive refers to people whose gender expression falls outside of society’s current gender binary standards.

³ We use singular “they” pronouns in this manuscript when referring to each of the authors.

Additional information

Funding

Eleni Gaveras’ participation was supported by grant number [T32MH019960] from the National Institute of Mental Health.