Session: Using the Life History Calendar to Examine Young Transgender Women's Trajectories of Violence, Mental Health, and Protective Processes (Society for Social Work and Research 29th Annual Conference)

Transgender women experience high rates of interpersonal violence victimization, including physical and sexual child abuse and mistreatment, intimate partner violence and sexual assault, and transgender-related community violence. Experiencing multiple forms of interpersonal victimization is associated with a range of adverse mental health outcomes. Life course approaches such as the life history calendar (LHC) are useful for examining trajectories of victimization and associated mental health outcomes. However, this method has not yet been used to examine transgender women's victimization trajectories. This research is critical, as a clearer understanding of the timing, sequence, intersection, and etiology of multiple forms of interpersonal violence, as well as help-seeking and attainment of supportive services, can improve the relevance and effectiveness of violence prevention and mental health interventions for transgender women.

This symposium features three presentations drawn from an National Institutes of Health-funded mixed methods study that utilized the LHC to address this gap by examining transgender women's trajectories of interpersonal violence victimization, mental health, and seeking and attaining help (N = 103, ages 18-35). The study was conducted in two phases; in the first, transgender women in Chicago and Milwaukee were recruited to participate in LHC interviews. Informed by findings from the first phase, n=25 participants from Phase 1 were invited to participate in follow up, in-depth qualitative interviews to further explore victimization experiences, help-seeking and attainment.

The first paper details our iterative and collaborative process to adapt existing LHCs that have been used in studies on victimization among cisgender women, to ensure relevance for transgender women. We also share findings from a qualitative exploration of participants' feedback on the acceptability of the calendar and interview process. The second paper presents prevalence and co-occurrence of victimization across the life course based on quantitative LHC data. This paper highlights high prevalence rates across the life course, urging for more violence prevention and victim services for transgender women. The third paper examines help-seeking and attainment experiences using mixed methods data from LHC interviews and follow up, in-depth qualitative interviews. Barriers were noted across the interviews in accessing survivor services. These results indicate that strengthening existing services to be more inclusive and welcoming, while also designing new programs specific to transgender women are critically needed.

Across the three papers, we demonstrate that our results have critical implications for future research on victimization among transgender women and other members of the LGBTQIA+ community, as well as trauma-informed social work interventions for transgender women who have survived interpersonal victimization. This symposium will share key findings from developing a LHC for transgender women, which provides an innovative and responsive methodology to studying victimization. Finally, the symposium will conclude with a discussion about disseminating these research findings in academic and community spaces.