Research Participation: Adaptive Appearance Investment In Trans And Gender Diverse People
Hi there,
This project has ethical approval, HRE26-022.
Project explanation
This project is being conducted by Dr Joe Doley (they/them) and Masters student Ms Renae Brown (she/her) from Victoria University.
We are looking for trans and gender diverse adults to participate in interviews about how you experience adaptive appearance investment. Adaptive appearance investment is defined as the positive ways we express our identity and self through appearance. This can include things like clothing, tattoos, haircuts/styles, and we are also particularly interested in whether trans and gender diverse people experience gender affirming medical care as part of adaptive appearance investment.
Adaptive appearance is distinguished from maladaptive appearance investment, which refers to the ways people change or present their appearance to conform to external pressures. We want to conduct this particular study because we are interested in how appearance investment (e.g., what is helpful and what is harmful) might need to be defined differently for trans and gender diverse people compared with cisgender people, based on some findings from a paper we wrote together recently.
We support gender affirming care in all forms (including medical) and want to centre trans and gender diverse perspectives in this work. We’re grateful to anyone who takes the time to read, share, or participate, and hope that this project will help researchers and clinicians better understand wellbeing and positive body image in trans and gender diverse people.
Link: https://vuau.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9AiVyGOFT2xVnQG?Q_CHL=qr