Quarantine and questioning: gender identity journeys through the pandemic

Striving to understand who we are is an important part of growing up. Yet, as personal as this feels, identity doesn't develop in a vacuum — where we live, who we interact with, and the historical events we live through all shape how, and when, we come into a sense of ourselves.

The Covid-19 pandemic is a clear example of how a global event can influence personal identity. Writing recently in the British Journal of Developmental Psychology, Sydney Hainsworth and colleagues turn their attention to how trans and gender diverse young people experienced this period. Their research reveals that the pandemic and lockdowns played a significant role in shaping gender identity development — often in unexpectedly positive ways.

Participants were 295 trans, non-binary, or otherwise non-cisgender US-based youth aged between 13 and 22 years old. Most identified as non-binary or transmasculine (trans women and non-binary people considered male at birth were underrepresented in the study). The team itself was also made up of researchers with a variety of different gender identities; co-authors variously described themselves as non-binary, transmasculine, and queer.

As well as sharing the terms they use to describe their gender identity, sexual orientation, and race, participants responded to one open-ended question: "how has the Covid pandemic changed or affected your own understanding of your gender identity?" Analysis of these answers revealed that, while 30% of participants said that Covid-19 and the subsequent lockdown did not affect their understanding of their own gender identity, most experienced significant changes.

The most common theme, present in 56.3% of responses, was that lockdown provided participants with the space and time to reflect on their own identity. Some wrote that the period helped them gain a deeper understanding of their transgender identity, while others said that it helped them feel more confident and comfortable: "I fully came to peace with [my identity] during the pandemic," one young person wrote. Elsewhere, participants reported finally having the "time and resources" to investigate information about gender identity, increasing their understanding of themselves and their community.

Practically speaking, lockdown also gave many people the opportunity to experiment with their appearance in ways that helped them feel gender affirmed, with around 8% of participants saying they had felt this benefit. This was not the case for everyone, however; some participants explicitly shared they had "no room" to try to express themselves, particularly around unsupportive or unaware parents.

About 12% of participants also referenced specific elements of lockdown that helped them feel more secure. Around 6% reported feeling a "break from social pressures", and protective masks were also welcomed, with others sharing that face coverings gave them more control over how others saw them.

Many also saw those acute stages of the pandemic as a time of increased visibility and connection more widely. As one participant stated, during lockdown, "seeing other trans people on social media talking about their experience helped me identify as trans because I could tell that we went through and thought a lot of the same things…". Another felt that the pandemic period "allowed me more time to speak to individuals who are also non-binary and gain knowledge with their experiences; I already had the time on my own to explore my identity."

In another interesting change, the pivot to online learning helped some participants feel more able to be seen as their gender, with Zooms offering space to clearly present their preferred pronouns as part of their screen name. The normalisation of this allowed youths to passively remind others of their pronouns which, as the authors note, can be difficult in offline spaces.

However, though many of the responses were positive, this wasn't true across the board. As with participants who felt they couldn't express themselves at home, some reported "increased confusion and pain" during this time. One wrote that a shift in their gender identity, from trans man to genderfluid, during the period had made it "much more confusing to understand how I see myself... I don't know how to see who I am, and it's painful." The team notes that while this theme represented a small proportion of responses (4.4%), shifts in some participants understood their identity during the acute pandemic certainly brought uncertainty and discomfort to some.

The authors' work overall suggests that the lockdown period provided a "protective barrier from societal stigma", allowing young people to explore their identities in a largely safer, more private space. This space also gave many people greater autonomy in expressing their gender, without the immediate fear of judgement.

Read the paper in full:
Hainsworth, S., Toomey, R. B., Abreu, R. L., & Zhao, Z. (2024). Exploring the impact of the COVID‐19 pandemic on the identity of trans and gender diverse youth. British Journal of Developmental Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjdp.12536

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