The interplay of religion, spirituality, and attitudes towards trans and bisexual identities: Insights from health and social science students

The relationship of religion, spirituality and individuals self-identifying as transgender or bisexual is a complicated one, while religious beliefs tend to inform attitudes towards trans identities and bisexuality. This study takes the latter as its starting point and explores the extent to which religion, religiosity and spirituality predict negative attitudes toward trans identities and bisexuality. With a probability sampling technique, 597 health and social science students were recruited. The hierarchical regression analysis of the data showed that religious attitudes, age, and political opinion have a significant predicting effect on attitudes toward trans identities and bisexuality, as well as indirect effects of attitudes towards trans and bisexual identities. The study also showed that the effect of religion and religiosity on the attitudes toward trans identities also affects the attitudes toward bisexuality, and vice versa. These findings add to the current body of literature but separate trans identities and bisexuality as worthy areas of direct exploration and not categories merged with the overall umbrella of gender and sexual diversity, commonly referred to by the variations of the acronym LGBTQIA+.