Psychological well-being and level of outness in a population of male-to-female transsexual women attending a national transgender conference

This study examined the relationship between psychological well-being variables (i.e., depression, anxiety, self-esteem) and level of outness in male-to-female (MtF) transsexuals. Participants were 105 MtF transsexual attendees at an annual transgender conference held in Atlanta, Georgia. Participants completed seven questionnaires, including the Demographics Questionnaire, the Outness Demographics Questionnaire, the Outness Attitude Scale, the Openness Scale, the Beck Depression Inventory-II, the Beck Anxiety Inventory, and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale.Acanonical correlation was conducted with psychological well-being variables as the predictor and the outness variables as the criterion. Results indicated that psychological well-being variables are related to outness. Treatment implications, limitations, and suggestions for future research are discussed.