Transgender and nonbinary (TNB) people follow different paths and encounter specific challenges during transition. Post-transition adaptation is nonlinear and poorly understood due to confounding factors and limited follow-up, though growing numbers of TNB individuals now use social media to express concerns and build community connections.
This study aimed to explore differences in adaptation and coping during gender transition among various gender identity online groups, focusing on detransition, resilience, stigma, mental health, vulnerabilities, identity, sexuality and sexual health, and gender-affirming interventions.
We utilized a comprehensive guided structured topic analysis pipeline leveraging advanced machine learning techniques to extract, cluster, and analyze topics and sentiments from a large corpus of online public textual data posted over the last 12 years. A large dataset of social media posts (N = 71.307) from five groups (transgender men and women, non-binary and detransitioners) was examined. Linear mixed-model analyses were conducted with JAMOVI to test group differences in the frequency of the examined variables and their associated sentiment
To our knowledge, the current study is the first to use a mixed design to convert original qualitative texts into quantitative data from large TNB online communities. Results suggests that Ideological influences in detransitioners' communities appear linked to fewer resilience-related factors, with external threats reported less often than in prior studies. Discrepancies between binary and nonbinary identities were observed in relation to vulnerability and stigma, highlighting the need for further research. Therefore, the nonbinary group exhibited distinct features. The current findings offer a perspective over the realm of various TNB groups by highlighting the voices of people who express different aspects of their lives on social media. These findings may inform future research and psychological practice by addressing transition-related factors that often remain overlooked in typical study conditions or early interventions.