Gender Minority Stress and Resilience, Mental Health and Wellbeing in Transgender and Gender-Diverse Individuals: A Narrative Review

Abstract Purpose of Review Transgender and gender diverse (TGD) individuals experience disproportionate mental health burdens compared to cisgender heterosexual, lesbian, gay and bisexual populations. The Gender Minority Stress and Resilience (GMSR) framework explains how systemic prejudice drives these disparities. Our narrative review synthetizes recent expansions of the model, including novel psychological mediators, integrative frameworks and criticisms. Recent Findings The literature underscores the complex, socially embedded relationships between GMSR factors and mental health. Moreover, the distress related to gender incongruence may be reconceptualized as emerging from dynamic transactions between the social settings and the individual. Social invalidation, rejection and non-affirmation of gender identity in the developmental age can also impact wellbeing as forms of Gender Minority Stress. Summary Attributing mental health challenges to internal identity processes needs to shift toward systemic invalidation as a key driver, centering the diversity of TGD experiences, beyond narratives of suffering, as positive journeys of gender affirmation.