“Many transgender people talk about their resilience in terms of self-defining their own gender experience, resisting oppressive gender norms, developing critical consciousness about the systems they are living in, and developing hope for the future,” Puckett explained. “However, there are no resilience scales currently that measure this more expansive conceptualization of resilience that are actually based on the lived experiences of transgender people.” - Dr. Jae Puckett

Drs. Puckett, Matsuno and Galupo will also be utilizing an intersectional approach to examining resilience among these communities, recognizing that experiences may vary among differing groups. “It was important for us to ensure that the experiences of trans and nonbinary folx of color were considered at every level of project development,” said Dr. Galupo. “We made an intentional decision to evaluate the psychometric properties of our scale for trans people of color and not just assume that findings from white participants would generalize to all people.” -Dr. Galupo

The study will be launching this fall 2024 and it will be conducted until summer 2026.