Gender minority stress, resilience, and coping experiences of trans women incarcerated in Australia

Background and AimTrans women in carceral settings are an identified "priority group" due to the significant stigma, discrimination, violence, sexual assault, harassment, and mistreatment they experience, resulting in a substantial mental health disparity compared to the general incarcerated population. In Australia, most incarceration settings continue to segregate persons based on their genitalia (i.e. sex characteristics) as opposed to their gender. This paper seeks to explore the ways in which trans management and housing policies in Australia effect and affect their experiences of psychological distress and the development of unique coping mechanisms, agency and resilience skills.MethodsDrawing upon the lived experiences of five formerly incarcerated trans women in Australia, and employing Testa, Habarth, Peta, Balsam and Bockting's Gender Minority Stress and Resilience Model alongside Matsuno and Israel's Transgender Resilience Intervention Model, this analysis explores how trans women use strong social support networks and bolster pride in their gender to navigate psychologically distressing, sex-segregated, and cisnormative carceral settings.ResultsThrough both inductive and deductive thematic analyses two themes were developed: (1) harms and stressors and (2) survival strategies. The two opposing themes demonstrate the harms and stressors experienced by incarcerated trans women as well as the survival strategies adopted by those women in order not only to negotiate the carceral system, but to build resilience within it. The second theme of survival strategies offer novel insights to the current trans carceral debate and reflects a focus on viewing incarcerated trans women as agentic, rather than merely victims of an oppressive and subjugating system.ConclusionsThis analysis contributes new and nuanced understandings of how trans women incarcerated in Australia use unique coping mechanisms and displays of resilience and agency to navigate carceral settings.