Adolescent Gender-Related Abuse, Androphilia, and HIV Risk Among Transfeminine People of Color in New York City

Abstract

Public health research has indicated extremely high HIV seroprevalence (13%–63%) among low-income transfeminine people of color of African, Latina, and Asian descent living in the U.S. This article combines two data sets. One set is based on an ethnographic study (N = 50, 120 hours of participant observation). The other set is based on a longitudinal quantitative study (baseline N = 600, N = 275 followed for 3 years). Transfeminine people of color are much more likely to be androphilic and at high HIV risk. A greater understanding of adolescent gender-related abuse and trauma-impacted androphilia contributes toward a holistic conceptual model of HIV risk. A theoretical model is proposed that incorporates findings from both studies and integrates sociostructural, interpersonal, and intrapsychic levels of HIV risk.

KEYWORDS:

• androphilia
• childhood abuse
• developmental
• diachronic analysis
• gender identity
• gender-related abuse/violence
• HIV risk
• life course perspective
• low-income
• mental health
• people of color
• poverty
• re-traumatization
• sex work
• sexual health
• social determinants of health
• social ecology
• transgender
• transwomen of color
• victimization

Notes

1. 1. “Cisgender men” refers to men who were born anatomically male/assigned male at birth, self-identified and were perceived as boys, and who currently self-identify and are perceived as men. This distinguishes them from other groups who self-identify as men, such as transmen and certain intersex individuals.

2. 2. Thus, the MSM category comprises of two subgroups: one group is men who have sex with men and women (MSMW), and the other group is sometimes referred to as MSMO (men who have sex with men only). The category MSM by itself does not solely imply men who have sex only with men, as it is sometimes misunderstood.

3. 3. We utilize sex/gender here as they are understood within many indigenous sex/gender systems as compared to Euro-Western sex/gender systems. In many indigenous sex/gender systems, anatomy alone does not and cannot determine “sex”; “sex” is fully manifested only within sociality, and thus “sex” and “gender” are closely related. This is in contrast to Euro-Western systems where anatomy solely determines “sex,” and “sex” is always already anatomical whereas “gender” is manifested in sociality. See Hwahng (2011) for further discussion.

4. 4. All names are pseudonyms.

5. 5. See Rostila (2011) for discussion of thick trust vs. thin trust social networks and health.

6. 6. Kulick (1998) discusses how the boyfriends of travestis are feminized through their economic dependence on travestis. Within U.S. poverty-class POC communities, it has become normalized that cisgender women, not cisgender men, often support families (Ricketts, 1989). Thus, the economic dependence of male partners on transfeminine POC is not necessarily seen as an overtly feminized position and/or this feminization through economic dependency contributes to the remarginalization and resubordination of poverty-class masculinity of color.

7. 7. Although we acknowledge that a truly complex and inclusive model would also show interactions and associations between the two models, this type of highly complex mathematical modeling is beyond the scope of this article.