Connection to communities is one of the strongest protective factors for transgender people.
While trans people (32%) are less likely than the general population (44%) to identify as having a religion or spirituality, almost a third of trans people have religious or spiritual beliefs, and may belong or have belonged to a faith-based community.
For those who have this type of belief, it is usually “somewhat important” to “very important”. More than quarter of participants in the Counting Ourselves (2019) transgender survey had left their spiritual or religious communities because of fear of rejection for being trans, especially Asian participants (52%).
Creating a resource
Gender Minorities Aotearoa is developing a resource to help faith-based communities be better for transgender people. The resource will be hosted on our website and shared with faith-based communities.
We have developed a short survey to help us better understand what needs to be included. We would like to hear about your experiences as a trans person, regardless of whether you (or other people) knew you were transgender at the time of your experience.
Your answers can be as long and detailed or a short and simple as you like.
We may use quotes from the answers you provide in this resource. Any quotes will be anonymous. If you’ve written anything that would identify yourself or others, we will remove this information.
The survey will run from December 2021 until early January 2022. It is currently open.