Trans Mental Health during COVID

“Transgender Mental Health during COVID-19: Digital World Building in Alberta,” was a qualitative, community-based project that began November 2020. It traced the impacts of the pandemic on Two-Spirit, transgender, non-binary, and gender nonconforming people (2TNG) in Calgary, Edmonton, smaller cities, and more rural locations in Alberta. This research also investigated the 2TNG community’s use of digital platforms for resilience and activism during isolation. 

Project Overview

About the Research

This project emerged from the urgency presented by the pandemic in March of 2020. From the beginning, it could be easily assumed that COVID-19 would disproportionately harm many marginalized communities – especially those, for example, who worked unreliable or underpaid service jobs, who were houseless or precariously housed, who faced restriction to competent or unprejudiced healthcare, and those who carried high rates of mental health issues, stigmatization, social rejection, and violence. Transgender people are often underrepresented in research, or even misrepresented in LGBTQ research that lacked trans competency. In-depth interviews were undertaken to better understand the impact of the pandemic on 2TNG Albertans’ mental health.
Download the Research Paper Here
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Trauma-informed
qualitative interviews

Open-ended conversations with community members explored their identity, experiences of the pandemic, impacts on mental health, and use of online platforms for world building and resistance.

2TNG

Two-Spirit, Trans, Nonbinary, and Gender Nonconforming Albertans

The research design sought to amplify the experiences of individuals who carry diverse marginalized identities, including those who are Indigenous, Black, People of Colour, disabled and neurodivergent people, intersex people, sex workers; working class, poor, houseless, precariously housed people, and individuals who live rurally. 2TNG interview participants ranged in age from 15 to 59 and lived in both urban and rural locations all across Alberta.

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Trans and Two-Spirit
Council Members

An intersectional feminist approach was threaded throughout the research team, including sustained consultation with a Trans Research Council made up of 2TNG-identified Albertans holding diverse marginalized identities, as well as sustained consultation with a Two-Spirit Council and Indigenous Elders.

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Copies of a 61-page, full colour research zine distributed across Western Canada

Drawing from the interview data and solicited visual art from our participants, the research team assembled and printed a zine (self-published short book) titled “Transcending the Narrative: Quotes from Two-Spirit, Trans, Nonbinary, and Gender Nonconforming people during COVID.”

Community Based Output

Creation of the Zine

As a community-based project, knowledge mobilization initiatives focus upon accessible and community-driven outputs that have a direct, positive impact on 2TNG people. Drawing from the interview data and solicited visual art from our participants, the research team assembled and printed over 350 copies of a stunning 61-page, full colour “zine” (self-published short book) titled “Transcending the Narrative: Quotes from Two-Spirit, Trans, Nonbinary, and Gender Nonconforming people during COVID.” This collection of art and quotes captured 2TNG mental health and digital worlding during the COVID pandemic, showcasing diverse experiences of restriction, refuge, reconnection, resistance, and resilience.

Download Here
If you download the free zine, consider making a donation to Skipping Stone

Zine Gallery

“So that’s kind of how I realized that like gender fluidity was ancestral because I would see these TikTok videos about these Nawa people who would they like they were, they were genderless…seeing other people like to me on the internet literally just being themselves and being like “Oh, this is how I usually get treated in the world.” I’m like “ ‘Oh, so it’s not just me!’” [Laughs]… like there’s so many people, we’re just kind of spread out”

Natal Rox (they/them)
“And that’s what COVID as taught me as a, as a person navigating the world…you don’t know as much as you think you know because you are just a receiver of information…And if they can change it to manipulate Black Lives Matter movement from people trying to fight for rights to people fighting on the road, they can do anything they want to anything at all”
Anonymous (he/him)
“A really important part of that experience of transness that like being reflected and seeing, seeing yourself reflected, like in how people interact has…The loss of being able to interact with people, like, as whatever they see me as, has felt like a real loss.”
Burton (he/him)

“And I know a lot of people will be very glad when we can go back to not being online. I’m just disappointed that already things that helped disabled people are sliding back into, ‘Well, the rest of the world doesn’t need it so why should we give it to you?’”

S. Toffan (he/they)
“We were meeting every two weeks, we’d meet at a coffee shop and just chat and socialize. And having that torn away was really hard because I was meeting new people constantly. I was, you know, getting to know more people. I was making friends. And I was starting to form my chosen family. And then the pandemic kind of ripped that away.”
Rhys Pugatschew (he/him)

“[As a] trans nonbinary person, and as a person of colour, um… I have already kind of needed to find sources like of connection other than in-person, like… And so it wasn’t something new to get used to, right? Like a lot of my interacting with like community has historically been online, right?… So I don’t know if I would have necessarily been as used to having to seek out like my own niche community if I was not marginalized”

Phantasma (they/he)
“At the very beginning of this, I mentioned that I am becoming more comfortable saying that I’m trans in public. Not going to bars means, because they’ve all been closed, and not going to restaurants, means that I don’t have to worry about going to the bathroom. We’re not out in public very much. I don’t have to worry about my kids hearing something awful if my partner and I are holding hands. All of those negative experiences…”
JB (he/him)
“I’m guessing the Trans Lifeline is like over… overwhelmed or whatnot. So they’re like here post on a Facebook or post on a Reddit or post somewhere else. It’s like, I need someone to help me talk me down from this, ‘cause I’m about to do something I don’t wanna do. And… it’s very rare a day goes by I don’t see at least one of those. So people will jump in and be like, hey, I’m PMing you, or hey, feel like you could PM me, or even just talking down in public, like helping to talk down the person.”
Kain (he/him)
“The pandemic really helped me to not drink because all these AA meetings appeared. There were a lot of queer and trans meetings but it was a lot of white people. And my most, the most regular group I go to, and I still go to it, is for Black and mixed-race women and nonbinary people. I think I’m the only person who’s nonbinary/ trans in that group. But I think it says a lot about where I feel like I fit in, depending on what I need.”
Ray (they/them)

“That’s like fitting myself into these long, long processes of colonialism. And understand, understanding that like, oh, like the fact that my family’s like Métis and Cree is not insignificant in terms of like how difficult growing up was. [Sigh]. So, so I guess you cannot address a problem unless you can articulate the problem in the first place.”

Fox (she/her)

“And, you know, I suppose it meant not getting dressed, you know, for, for an office environment, pretty much living in cut-offs and a tank top and flip-flips for a year [Laughs]. But it was affirming for me because I never… felt like I was trying to be somebody I wasn’t. I remain, you know, alone, I remained who I am, and who I thought, you know, believed I was”

ES (she/her)
Distribution

Rural Knowledge Mobilization

With support from a SSHRC Connection Grant for rural knowledge mobilization in Western Canada, we printed and distributed 250 copies of this community-based research zine in rural communities across Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, Northwest Territories, Saskatchewan, and Yukon. We sent bundles of 10 zines to 22 different rural community “hub” locations, accessing rural communities from a combination of 105 cities, townships, hamlets, and counties. Rural hubs served rural folks in several surrounding areas. For example, one location in Medicine Hat, Alberta reported reaching community members all around southern Alberta in places such as Redcliff, Desert Blume, Dunmore, Hilda, Irvine, Schuler, Seven Persons, Suffield, Veinerville, and Walsh. This group, the Pride Association of Southern Alberta, even had cross-provincial community members that came in from Swift Current, Maple Creek, and Leader, which are all rural locations in Saskatchewan. In total, we secured 13 hub locations in Alberta, 2 in British Columbia, 2 in Manitoba, 1 in Saskatchewan, 3 in Yukon, and 1 in Northwest Territories. You can access an interactive map of this outreach here.

Interactive Distribution Map
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Zines printed
and distributed

We reached out to rural 2TNG communities across Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, Northwest Territories, Saskatchewan, and Yukon, making the zine accessible.

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Hub
Locations

Our distribution included 13 hub locations in Alberta, 2 in British Columbia, 2 in Manitoba, 1 in Saskatchewan, 3 in Yukon, and 1 in Northwest Territories.
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Cities, townships, hamlets, and counties were reached

We prioritized making the zine obtainable to 2TNG people across Western Canada living in a variety of settings.
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Quotes from participant’s
interviews

All participants from the original study had a quote included in the zine, and we invited them to submit additional art.
Team

Collaborators & Acknowledgements

The research team for this project was made up of Dr. Tobias Wiggins (he/him) Principle Investigator; Dr. Melissa Jay (she/her) Collaborator and Two Spirit Council member; and Juliana Kaneda (they/them) Research Assistant and lead on the zine project. We also worked closely with Gabe Calderón (they/them) as an Indigenous consultant and Two Spirit Council member. The research team included a larger Two Spirit Council made up of four members including Blue Waters (they/them), Gabe Calderón (they/them), Cheyenne Mihko Kihew (they/them), and Melissa Jay (she/her); as well as a Trans Council made up of 7 members, including B Adair (they/he), Mateo Huezo (they/them/he/him), Cheyenne Mihko Kihew (they/them), and others.

This research was generously supported by Athabasca University’s “COVID-19 Special Funds Grant” “Academic Research Fund,” and “PDF Exchange for Knowledge Mobilization.” We also received financial support from the SSHRC Connection Grant for rural knowledge mobilization in Western Canada.