The Gender Euphoria Scale (GES): Development of a tool to measure gender euphoria

Gender euphoria is a concept that arose from within the trans and gender diverse (hereafter trans) community to describe positive feelings associated with gender identity, expression, and affirmation. Despite its importance within the trans population, there is currently no consistent, valid or reliable way of measuring gender euphoria. Accordingly, this article describes the development and validation of a tool to measure gender euphoria in trans individuals.

An initial 121-item pool for the scale was developed based on qualitative research and a review of existing tools measuring related psychological constructs in trans adults. Trans researchers and experts in trans health reviewed and revised the items, enabling development of a preliminary scale which was pilot tested with a trans community advisory group before being further refined and administered to a larger cohort of trans individuals. A subgroup of individuals within the cohort repeated the scale two weeks following the initial completion to assess for test-retest reliability.

The preliminary scale was undertaken by 664 trans participants aged 16-79 years (median = 32 years, IQR = 25, 43). Exploratory factor analysis produced a final 26-item Gender Euphoria Scale (GES) comprising three subscales: social affirmation, self-affirmation, and community connection. The GES was found to have excellent internal consistency (α = .97), strong test-retest reliability (r = .88), and some evidence of discriminant and convergent validity.

The GES is a reliable and consistent tool to measure gender euphoria in trans individuals and is likely to be of value in both research and clinical settings.