In partnership with researchers at Barry University and Harvard University: Beyond the Binary: Searching for Gender Affirming and Trauma Informed Gym Spaces

The purpose of this study is to explore how transgender and gender-diverse (TGD) persons experience weight lifting as a healing intervention for trauma and navigate the spaces where they lift using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). IPA was selected due to its idiographic nature and natural alignment with oppression and social justice (Smith et al., 2009), often experienced by TGD persons. An interpretivist paradigm asserts that every individual person constructs their own reality and truth (Creswell & Poth, 2018). As such, this study explored the participants‘ understanding of their experiences and how they have made meaning from these experiences. Additionally, the researchers explored the influence of power, privilege, and oppression on the lives of the participants, and how various contextual factors influenced their experiences and interpretations of their experiences.