The Intersection of Gender and Sexual Identity Development in a Sample of Transgender Individuals

Background and Purpose:  Previous literature has argued for the importance of examining the developmental trajectory of transgender identity.  Recently, Pollock and Eyre (2012) found in young adult female-to-male transgender individuals a typical trajectory, where for most of their participants, a sense of gender and sexual non-conformity typically occurred with puberty, followed by an awareness of transgender identity and social adjustment to this, but there were individual differences in these trajectories, including a few participants who reported an awareness of their gender non-conformity in early childhood.  In contrast, Rankin and Beemyn’s (2012) large-scale study of both MTF and FTM transgender individuals found that most participants were aware of their own gender non-conformity during early childhood, with more pressure for MTF individuals to conform, but there were individual differences in developmental experiences.  Similarly, Floyd and Bakeman’s (2006) questionnaire study of lesbians, gay men, and bisexual individuals found important developmental differences in ages and sequences of gender vs. sexual identity awareness.  The current study examines the development of gender identity and sexual identity in a sample of transgender individuals and relating differences in age of awareness of gender non-conformity with the process of transgender identity formation. 

Methods: Eleven self-identified transgender individuals (4 MTF, 6 FTM, 1 intersex) were interviewed about the age at which they became aware of their non-heteronormative gender identity and about whether they recalled specific life events associated with their awareness of their gender identity.  Thematic analyses focused on whether there were differences in these experiences for those individuals who recalled a specific early childhood age of non-heteronormative gender identity awareness vs. those who recalled having such an awareness in adolescence or adulthood.

Results: Nine of the participants gave specific early childhood ages at which they became aware of their non-heteronormative gender identity.  Most of the transgender participants did not cite any specific event that made them aware of their gender identity, instead recalling that they just “knew they were different.”  Two of the FTM transgender participants, however, reported that their non-heteronormative gender identity awareness occurred in their teen years and beyond and that this gender identity awareness occurred in the context of their awareness of their non-heteronormative sexual identity.  When asked explicitly about whether their sexual orientation defined being male or female, both of these individuals were adamant in saying no, in contrast to the more equivocal responses of many of the other transgender participants.

Implications:  Researchers argue that, for LGBT individuals, gender and sexual self-identification are often intersectional, i.e., that self-understanding of non-heteronormative gender identity often involves self-understanding of non-heteronormative sexual identity and vice versa.  This is partly due to LGBT individuals’ experiences of societal oppression from any deviation from gender heteronormativity, whether of gender roles or sexual orientation.  This intersectionality explains the differences found here in the trajectories of transgender individuals’ transgender identity development, but also show how this intersectionality can act as a basis for non-gender heteronormative identity integration. This has important implications for working with LGBT individuals in counseling.