Said Trump wanted to ‘rigidly’ define sex based on biology
President Donald Trump’s election in 2016 and his subsequent support for the male-female sex binary caused mental health problems for LGBT people, according to a new paper out of Northwestern University.
The paper in the Bulletin of Applied Transgender Studies looked at the “Impact of Sociopolitical Events on Transgender People in the US ” by using a “snowball” method of recruiting participants.
“There were 158 participants across Oregon, Michigan, Tennessee and Nebraska,” according to the study. These participants were recruited “through in-person and virtual outreach to community organizations, snowball sampling and social media,” the authors wrote.
“Snowball” refers to participants recruiting other people to participate in a study, as opposed to the higher quality research method of using randomly recruited individuals.
The academic paper “examined how key societal events impacted the health and well-being of trans people living in four states in the US.” These three events were the 2016 and 2020 US presidential elections and the October 2018 memo leak that “threatened trans exclusion by rigidly redefining sex and gender at the federal level.”
“Participants reported decreased positive experiences (e.g., hopefulness) and increased negative experiences (e.g., fear) after these events,” the authors reported.
The College Fix reached out to thirteen of the sixteen listed authors with identifiable email addresses in the past two weeks, but none responded, including Zachary DuBois, assistant professor in the department of anthropology at the University of Oregon and Jae Puckett, assistant professor in the psychology department at Michigan State University. DuBois is the listed contact for questions.
The Fix asked if methods were used to eliminate political bias when interviewing the participants and whether party affiliation or voting habits were questioned.
The journal reported “since former President Donald Trump’s election in 2016, there has been a marked and on-going increase in anti-trans rhetoric and legislation that negatively impacts transgender and gender diverse (trans) people throughout the United States.”
The Fix asked for specific details on the rhetoric and legislation. The paper did cite some examples, such as prohibitions on males who are confused about their gender competing against women in sports.
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“Trans people are continually faced with … erasure,” the journal said. Additionally, the journal used the phrase, “targeting trans people’s rights and very existence.” The Fix asked for an explanation of this wording.
The researchers also wrote the “most alarming is the fact that nearly a quarter of participants in this study experienced an extreme increase in exposure to hate speech targeting trans people following the 2016 election of Donald Trump.” The Fix asked where this exposure came from and asked what the specific hate speech was.
“Baseline data were collected Fall 2019-Spring 2020 followed by a year of monthly surveys,” the paper reported. “Analyses presented here draw on data from baseline and one of the monthly surveys to detail descriptive data about participant experiences of three key events that reflect structural-level factors and inequalities.”
The Fix asked how the survey accounted for someone’s feelings about the 2016 election if it was taken several years later.
“[O]verall, our findings expose the powerful impact structural stigma can have on trans people’s lives and highlight how certain key events can threaten trans quality or equality of life,” the academics wrote.
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