Development and Validation of the Transgender/Nonbinary Identity Support From Partners Scale

Transgender and/or nonbinary (TNB) people often highlight romantic partners as a key source of social support related to their TNB identity. Accordingly, there is a need for validated measures to quantify TNB identity support in romantic relationships. We used a multi-phase process to develop and evaluate a multidimensional measure of TNB identity support from romantic partners. First, we generated items based on prior qualitative research, then used cognitive interviews with six TNB young adults (ages 18-30 years) to refine the items. Second, we piloted 59 items in a survey of 321 TNB people (16 years and older) reporting on current or recent romantic relationships. Using those data, we performed exploratory factor analysis to identify subscales, then selected 19 items based on factor loadings, item-subscale correlations, α-if-item-deleted, discrimination parameters, and item information curves. Third, we used weekly diary survey data from 299 romantically partnered TNB young adults (ages 18-30 years) to perform confirmatory factor analysis and assess reliability at the within- and between-relationship levels. Results indicate that the 19-item Transgender/Nonbinary Identity Support from Partners Scale (TISPS) is a reliable and valid measure of overall TNB identity support and five subtypes of support: Facilitation [of identity exploration], Identity Validation, Celebration, Allyship, and Understanding. The TISPS demonstrated strong psychometric properties at the between-relationships level, including a consistent factor structure, good full-scale and subscale reliability, and measurement invariance across key characteristics. The TISPS can be used in clinical and community settings and future research on the role of social support in TNB mental health.