“Bigender is just a Tumblr thing”: microaggressions in the romantic relationships of gender non-conforming and agender transgender individuals

Abstract

This study focuses on the microaggressions that gender non-conforming and agender identified transgender individuals receive from their romantic partners. While microaggressions have been studied in the romantic relationships of transgender individuals, gender non-conforming and agender individuals' experiences of microaggressions have not been the focus. Participants included 390 adults who identified as gender non-conforming (n = 200) and agender (n = 190) and who were either currently or formerly (within the past five years) in a romantic relationship. Results were analyzed via thematic analysis and resulted in three relationship salient themes: 1) identity parsing; 2) binary assumptions; and 3) transition-dependent. Discussion of the results focuses on the way microaggressions are shaped by normative assumptions of gender/sex and sexuality. Clinical implications for sexual and relationship therapy are discussed.

Keywords:

• Transgender
• gender non-conforming
• agender
• romantic relationships
• microaggressions

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1 Following van Anders (2015), we use gender/sex to reference a concept that cannot be understood as only biologically or socially constructed.

2 While this definition is what is typically utilized to define the term transgender, we understand that this definition supports alignment normativity (van Anders, 2014), wherein a person whose gender aligns with their assigned sex is seen as more normative than someone whose gender does not align with their assigned sex.

3 We use the singular they pronoun in place of his or hers in order to be inclusive of non-binary identities.

4 dead-name refers to the name (given at birth) that an individual no longer identifies with (Gratton, 2016).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lex Pulice-Farrow

Lex Pulice-Farrow is a doctoral student at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville's department of Counseling Psychology. Their research focuses on the experiences of gender and sexual minorities.

Sebastian B. McNary

Sebastian B. McNary is an undergraduate student of Psychology and Media and Communication Studies at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. His research interests include LGBTQ+ studies and the role and effects of diversity in psychology.

M. Paz Galupo

M. Paz Galupo is Professor of Psychology and Director of the Sexual & Gender Identity Lab at Towson University. Paz’s research interests focus on understanding the intersection of sexual orientation and gender identity, with a particular focus on bi/plurisexual and transgender experience.