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MINI REVIEW article
Front. Pain Res.
Sec. Abdominal and Pelvic Pain
Volume 6 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpain.2025.1546526
This article is part of the Research TopicUnpacking the Gender Pain Gap: Pain Prevalence, Perception, and Treatment Disparities by Gender, Including Transgender PopulationsView all 4 articles
Psychosocial Influences on Transgender Pain 1 Psychosocial Influences on Pain in Transgender Individuals
Provisionally accepted- Illinois State University, Normal, United States
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Pain is an unpleasant and unavoidable part of the human experience, but the prevalence and impact of pain disproportionately impacts marginalized groups, including transgender and gender-diverse people. While there are many bases of pain, psychosocial variables, including cognitions (e.g., outcome and interpersonal expectations, social gender norms), affect (e.g., negative affectivity, emotional distress), and social factors (e.g., social exclusion) may be particularly relevant in the pain experiences of transgender individuals. The coalescence of these factors is discussed in this review, where authors specifically consider how these cognitive, affective, and social factors may contribute to pain disparities seen in transgender individuals.Patient-centered communication is presented as a potential avenue to directly mitigate the effect of these psychosocial variables on pain in transgender individuals by reducing feelings of social exclusion transgender patients may experience in the medical office, and the authors call for additional experimental research and the development of educational interventions for providers.
Keywords: transgender (binary and non-binary), Pain, exclusion, social pain, Cognition, Affect
Received: 17 Dec 2024; Accepted: 10 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Clemens, Matkovic, Odelson, Strain and Wesselmann. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Kelly S Clemens, Illinois State University, Normal, United States
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.