“A little shiny gender breakthrough”: Community understandings of gender euphoria

Abstract

Background

Gender euphoria is an important experience and concept for many, especially transgender and/or nonbinary individuals, but has not received much attention from psychological and clinical research. In contrast to gender dysphoria, which originates in psychiatry, the term “gender euphoria” has been mobilized by some LGBTQ people to describe the powerfully positive emotions that can come from one’s gender/sex. As such, researchers and clinicians may benefit from conceptual clarity as to what gender euphoria is and what kinds of experiences might result in gender euphoria.

Aim

We aimed to better understand how trans community members and others conceptualize the term “gender euphoria,” including its relationship to gender dysphoria, as well as the contexts and behaviors that elicit gender euphoria.

Method

We administered an online qualitative survey to participants (N = 47) of diverse sexualities and gender/sexes (including transgender, cisgender, and/or nonbinary participants) who had heard of or used the term “gender euphoria.” Participants answered open-ended questions about where they had heard the term being used, how they would define gender euphoria and gender dysphoria, the relation between these terms, and their gender euphoric experiences.

Results

Analyses resulted in five themes: (1) gender euphoria describes a joyful feeling of rightness in one’s gender/sex, (2) gender euphoric experiences can be external, internal, and/or social, (3) “gender euphoria” originated in and circulates in online and in-person gender/sex minority communities, (4) dysphoria describes a negative feeling of conflict between gender/sexed aspects of one’s self, and (5) the relationship between euphoria and dysphoria is complex.

Discussion

These results can inform qualitative and quantitative research, gender affirmative clinical practice, political fights for transgender rights, and understandings of gendered experiences for people of all identities.

Keywords:

• Gender dysphoria
• gender euphoria
• LGBTQ
• positive psychology
• qualitative survey
• transgender

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Harley Dutcher, Sara McClelland, and Abby Stewart for their assistance in thinking through this study’s research design and analyses. We also thank the anonymous reviewers for their insightful suggestions.

Conflicts of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Notes

1 “Gender/sex” refers to the complex entanglement of gender (sociocultural features) and sex (bodily features) evident in many people’s lived experiences (van Anders, 2015; van Anders & Dunn, 2009). “Assigned gender/sex” refers to the sex assigned at birth (usually female or male) and the gendered expectations that are associated with that sex (e.g., that newborns assigned female will identify as girls or women).

2 We use “gender/sex minority” to refer to people who have been minoritized on the basis of their gender/sex, such as transgender, nonbinary, and intersex people, rather than simply referring to a statistical minority (van Anders, 2015).

3 Wording for these questions were changed slightly for those who answered maybe: e.g., “Can you describe a time when you might have experienced gender euphoria…”

Additional information

Funding

This research was undertaken, in part, thanks to funding from the Canada 150 Research Chairs program to SMvA and the Ontario Women’s Health Scholar Award awarded to SEMG. The Ontario Women’s Health Scholars Award is funded by the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care. The views expressed in the publication are the views of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care.