[Research] Aging with Affirmation: A study to examine the social service experiences and needs of older transgender and gender diverse adults in Canada

In this study, our research team hopes to better understand how older transgender (trans) and gender diverse (TGD) experience social services in Canada, and what could be done to strengthen social services intended for their use. We use the term "social services" broadly to mean any formal support that addresses psychological and social well-being (including counselling/psychotherapy), as well as practical needs related to housing, food, and income security, and other social issues.

Our work is led by a trans researcher, Hannah Kia, who is an Assistant Professor at the University of British Columbia’s School of Social Work, in partnership with Egale Canada*, a national 2SLGBTQI+ advocacy organization.

You can check out the community report, which contains a detailed summary of our research process and findings (egale.ca/awareness/aging-with-affirmation/). For folks who prefer videos, there's a recorded webinar that you can check out on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OU6VqJKOKBw). Finally, for readers who are curious to know about the study in great detail, read the flagship peer-reviewed manuscript, which is available as an open-access article in the Journal of Applied Gerontology (https://doi.org/10.1177/07334648241295570).