Co‐occurring daily minority stressors and dissociation among trauma‐exposed sexual minority women, transgender, and nonbinary people
Published online on April 25, 2026
Abstract
["Journal of Traumatic Stress, EarlyView. ", "\nAbstract\nSexual minority women, transgender people, and nonbinary (SMW/TNB) people experience disproportionately high rates of traumatic stressors (e.g., child abuse, sexual violence), which are associated with adverse trauma‐related mental health outcomes, such as dissociation. SMW/TNB people also experience ongoing stressors related to their minoritized sexual and/or gender identities (e.g., discrimination). Dissociation has been associated with minority stressors in studies primarily using single–time point, cross‐sectional approaches. Reliance on single–time point approaches may obscure how minority stressors and trauma‐related outcomes, like dissociation, covary within individuals and unfold over time. We conducted a secondary analysis of data from a 14‐day daily diary study with trauma‐exposed SMW/TNB participants (N = 57) to examine whether variations in daily minority stressors were associated with same‐day fluctuations in dissociation. Results indicated minority stressors and dissociation significantly covaried over the 14‐day study period. Multilevel models showed that participants’ reports of higher‐than‐average daily minority stressors were associated with same‐day reports of higher‐than‐average dissociative symptoms, B = 0.24, 95% CI [0.07, 0.41], p = .007. Participants also reported small decreases in dissociation levels over the study period, B = −0.05, 95% CI [‐0.08, ‐0.02], p = .004. The findings highlight the importance of considering the health impacts of consistent state elevations in dissociation associated with minority stressors for SMW/TNB people. Future time‐varying approaches should investigate temporal sequencing of minority stressors and dissociation, assess whether minority stressors relate to dissociation independent of trauma exposure, and explore whether trauma exposure characteristics (e.g., identity‐relatedness of trauma) moderate this association.\n"]