What is it about?
In a survey of 275 asexual transgender adults in the US, those with more confidence in their own ability to cope reported less emotional distress. Staying on guard and mistreatment over gender expression were linked to more distress.
Featured Image
Photo by Gabriel Dalton on Unsplash
Why is it important?
To the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to use survey numbers to examine sources of strength among adults who are both asexual and transgender or gender diverse. These two groups overlap considerably: about 10% of respondents in a large national transgender survey identified as asexual, and about one quarter of respondents in a large asexual community survey identified as transgender or gender diverse. Despite this overlap, research has usually studied each identity separately. The study also looks at different sources of strength separately (personal coping, friends, and family) rather than treating resilience as a single quality. This showed that confidence in one's own coping was the source most closely linked to lower distress. The work is timely because researchers increasingly recognize that resilience has several parts and is shaped by social conditions, not only by the individual. The authors emphasize that personal strengths do not replace the need to reduce stigma, and they call for new measures designed specifically for asexual transgender people.
Perspectives
This article grew out of my doctoral dissertation and reflects a question I have carried through my research and clinical work: what helps people who are both asexual and transgender or gender diverse stay well? In my experience as a clinical psychologist, these individuals are often overlooked twice, in LGBTQ+ spaces that assume sexual attraction is universal and in asexual spaces where gender diversity may go unrecognized. Research has largely mirrored that gap by studying each identity on its own. I think this work matters for two reasons. First, it shifts attention from what harms this community to what supports it, and it offers clinicians a starting point: people's confidence in their own ability to cope was closely tied to lower distress. Second, I wanted to be honest about what the study cannot show. Personal strengths do not replace the need to reduce stigma, and the tools we used were not designed for asexual people. I hope this article encourages researchers to build better measures and to include asexual transgender people as a group worth understanding in their own right.
Dr. Jared William Boot-Haury
Kaiser Permanente
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Resilience and psychological distress among asexual transgender adults, International Journal of Transgender Health, October 2026, Taylor & Francis,
DOI: 10.1080/26895269.2026.2745721.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
