Seth Abrutyn

Current depictions of transness are one-dimensional, flat, and lacking nuance. In particular, narratives about suffering and suicide pervade media representations and mainstream discussions about transgender people. How do trans youth feel when they are exposed to suffering narratives? What alternatives does this dominant narrative conceal? In this study, I center the voices of 16 transgender youth between the ages of 18 and 30 through one-on-one interviews to demonstrate that constant, repetitive, one-dimensional stories of risk, suicide, and suffering have detrimental effects. My results show how narratives that emphasize suffering can impede identity formation, erase humanity, conceal joy, and limit hope about youth’s futures. These findings suggest that foreclosing all dialogue about suicide is not the answer. Rather, changing the nature of discussions about suicide and risk and implementing new policies about how, when, and where this information is shared can improve the safety and well-being of transgender youth.

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Black students attending Canadian universities face a number of unique challenges and stressors that shape their experiences and mental health outcomes on campus. Utilizing 12 in-depth interviews with Black students at a large, metropolitan university in Western Canada, my findings show that Black students navigate instances of everyday racism on campus and in the classroom. Consequently, Black students experience negative mental health effects, forms of alienation, and social isolation. In response, these students adopt various coping mechanisms, such as modifying their behaviour to avoid discrimination and minimizing the importance of distressing interactions to negate feelings of anxiety and depression. More broadly, I illuminate the heterogeneity of Black student experience on campus, problematize current models of campus racial climate and outline culturally responsive equity and diversity initiatives that universities can implement in Black student populations.

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In this thesis, I investigate the assumption made by identity development theorist that individuals intentionally construct and maintain a culturally valued self as they consider identity relevant goals and beliefs. Though this logic makes sense for positive identities—doctor, parent, or scientist—it becomes questionable when applied to construction of negative, or stigmatized, identities, such as that of a drinker. By interviewing 16 members of a metropolitan recovery community, I focus on how marginalized identities of alcohol misuse form absent of goal-based intention. In doing so, I show how stress processes and negative messaging from guardians, peers, and community members produce persistent painful emotions that contribute to psychological distress, hinder positive identity formation, and steer individuals toward spaces of consumption. Through each lost socially valued role, the drinker identity becomes more salient, achieving more importance in daily life and becoming central to individuals’ lives. More broadly, I advance current theoretical assumptions that dominated intervention strategies and recovery policy for decades.

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