Project Stages

In 2018, we interviewed 30 trans/nonbinary young adults about their experiences with romantic relationships. Based on these interviews, we proposed the “Identity Needs in Relationships Framework,” a new way of understanding how trans/nonbinary young adults build supportive romantic relationships in the context of interpersonal and structural marginalization (e.g., cisgenderism, racism, sexism, heterosexism, and ableism).

This work was part of the B*SHARP Project, a broader mixed-methods research project with trans/nonbinary young adults led by Dr. Allegra Gordon (Boston University School of Public Health) and funded by the Boston Children’s Hospital Aerosmith Endowment Fund.

From our in-depth interview participants, we learned that support related to one’s identities—including one’s trans/nonbinary identity—can be an important part of a healthy romantic relationship. Accordingly, we wanted to explore how this type of support might affect young adults’ health and wellbeing. However, because there hasn’t been much research on trans/nonbinary people’s romantic relationship experiences, there wasn’t an existing tool we could use to measure this support quantitatively.

To overcome this roadblock, we’ve been working to develop the Identity Needs in Relationships Scale, a series of questions that assess what kinds of identity-related support a trans/nonbinary person is receiving from a romantic partner. This multi-step measure development process started with brainstorming questions based on interviewees’ experiences. We tested and revised those questions in “cognitive interviews” where 6 trans/nonbinary young adults answered the questions and told us what they found to be irrelevant, confusing, or missing as well as what they found resonant and thought-provoking. We incorporated their valuable feedback, then pilot-tested the revised questions in a survey with 300 trans/nonbinary people of all ages. Based on their responses, we are now finalizing the scale and analyzing its psychometric reliability and validity—in other words, whether it’s an accurate scientific tool for measuring trans/nonbinary identity-related support in a romantic relationship.

Our pilot measure development research was made possible by a seed grant from the Yale University Women Faculty Forum.

The third phase of the project is a groundbreaking study of trans/nonbinary people’s romantic relationship experiences relate to their health and wellbeing over time. In this study, 300 trans/nonbinary young adults are completing nine weekly surveys asking about their romantic relationship experiences, their experience with cisgenderism and other forms of marginalization, their mental health, and their use of substances like cannabis and alcohol. The final participants will finish the study in May 2024.

This study represents a major step forward in research on trans/nonbinary people’s romantic relationships. While a few previous studies have captured negative romantic relationship experiences related to being trans/nonbinary, this study will be among the first to quantitatively assess romantic partners’ support related to being trans/nonbinary. Furthermore, most previous studies on this topic have been cross-sectional, meaning that they surveyed participants only once. Cross-sectional studies can be valuable, but they can’t show whether some experiences happened before others, making it hard to tell whether one experience actually caused another. By asking participants about their experiences every week for nine weeks, we can paint a much clearer picture of how romantic relationships may affect trans/nonbinary young adults’ health and wellbeing.

This work is funded by the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (K99AA030601; PI: Murchison).

Based on what we learn from the weekly diary survey, we’ll develop an interactive online resource that trans/nonbinary young adults can use to reflect on their romantic relationship values, priorities, and experiences. We’ll create this resource through a “user-centered design” process with trans/nonbinary community stakeholders. We expect to begin this stage of the project in 2024-5.