Transgender Community Inequalities and the Importance of Perceived Social Support

Abstract

There exists in society a huge gap in amount of social equality for transgender populations when compared to their cisgender counterparts. I intended to look at amounts of perceived social support in three main categories (family, significant others, and friends) between cisgender and transgender samples, trans men and trans women, and how perceived social support fluctuated during early, middle, and late medical transition stages. I analyzed these issues with an online survey via a demographics section, the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support, and a medical transition timeline questionnaire. I found statistically significant results for only my first hypothesis concerning cisgender and transgender samples. The cisgender samples reported significantly higher amounts of perceived social support than transgender respondents. Transgender respondents also reported the lowest amount of social support coming from their families. Transgender individuals also reported the most social support coming from their friends. Transgender individuals perceive themselves as having less social support than cisgender individuals. The lack of family support is indicative that some kind of intervention and access to education is imperative to turning the tide of social inequalities that transgender populations experience.