Spirituality among People Who Are Transgender: A Nationally Representative Examination and Comparison with Members of the Public.

Abstract

Spiritual practices are important strengths for many members of the general public, but little is known about practices among transgender people. To address this gap in the literature, this study investigated the frequency with which self-identified transgender adults participate in a diverse array of spiritual practices and compared their level of participation with that of members of the general population. To conduct this nationally representative study, data were abstracted from the National Religion and Spirituality Survey 2020. Frequencies are reported for 17 spiritual practices, and logistic regression was used to determine differences in participation. The results indicate transgender adults participate in spiritual practices at levels equal to, or greater than, that of other adults. Transgender adults were significantly more likely than other adults to participate in 10 spiritual practices: yoga, meditation, tarot cards/fortune telling, fasting, attending other spiritual/religious groups, art, being in nature, writing, acts of protest, and teaching in a spiritual/religious setting. With one exception, moderate to large effects were observed across all 10 spiritual practices. The results highlight the importance of administering spiritual assessments with transgender clients to identify potential spiritual practices that might be operationalized to assist clients cope with or ameliorate problems.