“I love you as both and I love you as neither”: Romantic partners’ affirmations of nonbinary trans individuals

Abstract

Background: Transgender microaffirmations are subtle endorsements of a person’s gender identity through both verbal acknowledgements and behavioral gestures. Microaffirmations positively impact individuals who identify as transgender by acknowledging their gender identity and by communicating a sense of support and validation.

Aims: This study focuses on microaffirmations specifically directed toward nonbinary transgender individuals within romantic relationships.

Methods: Participants included 161 adults who identified as nonbinary: 85 who identified as gender nonconforming and 76 who identified as agender. These participants were either currently in a romantic relationship or had been in a romantic relationship within the past 5 years. Participants completed an online survey and provided examples of the microaffirmations they experienced from their romantic partners.

Results: Responses were analyzed via thematic analysis, resulting in four overarching themes: (1) Identity Validations, acknowledgement and acceptance of nonbinary identity; (2) Identity Endorsements, active endorsements of nonbinary through language or behavior; (3) Active Learning, self-education about nonbinary identities; and (4) Active Defense, interruptions of others’ negative actions directed at nonbinary partners.

Discussion: Discussion of the results focuses on understanding how microaffirmations operate to complicate binary notions of gender/sex and positively influence nonbinary transgender individuals in interpersonal relationships.     

“Melancholic? Naturally!”: Impulses for Cultural Transformation from Queer-Ecological Worldmaking,Activism, and Art in a Western Context

Abstract

Although ecological grief is a common psychic response to socioecological losses, there are no shared spaces to engage with it in Western cultures—a symptom of the problematic way they conceive Nature as external and subordinate to humans. Seeking subversive impulses for paradigmatic transformation, this research centers queer-identifying eco-activists and -artists, and their practices of queer-ecological worldmaking. Arts-based research and interviews reveal the potential of melancholic grieving to create an understanding of interdependencies with the more-than-human world, as well as communities for healing. Impulses toward a joint liberation entail the extension of empathy and agency to the more-than-human world.