Table 4 Best Practice for Transgender and Gender Diverse (TGD) Research Methods (N = 28)
Research Methods | Survey bias in measures (e.g., quality of life scales focused on negative spectrum) | 1. “Everybody was kind of nudging at this a little bit earlier and even just now, but there is a -- there’s like a scale for depression…I fill out this thing when I come into my PCP… there’s no inverse of that, you know what I mean? There’s no elation. [laughter] And I -- when you say we’re going to measure quality of life, I want to know how happy people are, you know?” -Boston 2. “Also, the thing about that is like I always feel like every single time I have to go to a PCP, I have to -- when I hand the tablet or whatever back to the nurse, I have to head it off with like, “I know this looks like I’m severely more depressed than I am.”” -Boston |
Specimen collection as optional with consent for specific usage | 3. “at the very least say, “if we’re going to do something on it, we will come back to you and ask for that specific consent,” to say, “this is specifically what we’re going to do,” instead of being like, “take my DNA,”” -Boston 4. “it’s plasma; we’re not going to miss it much. But I guess…probably like clarity of purpose, or like communicating ideas of what you intend to do with it would probably be a better call.” -Boston 5. “about the blood collection…if you had just had it separated in two different parts, so it’s like, people that give blood and then people that don’t give blood.” -Boston | |
Interviews/focus groups as candid conversation | 6. “It was a cisgender man who identified as gay, and then me, I identify as genderfluid, and it was just, like, a candid conversation. We had never met each other, and it was us talking about health care and how we thought that things should change.” -New York | |
Disseminating research findings back to the TGD community | 7. “Right, and you’re left wondering, “what were the results of that study?”” -Boston | |
Having a diverse sample | 8. “I think other kinds of diversity is important. Not just like oh, it’s all trans people. Making sure it’s not all the same trans person. That it really represents the diversity of who we are.” -New York 9. “Well, you’d want to be able to get to multiple neighborhoods…for it to be a study that’s got meaning, you can’t be drawing from one strata, whether that means income strata, or one skin color…you’ve got to try to hit all those different rainbow colors…The people who are least likely to be able to be a part of this study are the people who you probably should want the most, in my opinion.” -Boston |