Mood reactivity to daily family stressors among transgender and nonbinary parents during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic disproportionately affected transgender and nonbinary (TGNB) parents due to long-standing disparities and disruptions in gender-affirming care. Heightened stress related to stigmatized gender identity during the pandemic may have generalized to additional stressors in their daily family life, such as parental stress and interparental conflict, which in turn may predict TGNB parents' daily mood. However, little is known about how identity-based stigma relates to TGNB parents' daily mood responses to family stressors. Using daily diary methods, this study examined whether parental stress and interparental conflict were associated with parental negative mood at both the between-person and within-person levels during the pandemic and whether lifetime gender identity microaggression exposure moderated mood reactivity to these family stressors. Data were drawn from 79 TGNB parents (Mage = 40.61, SD = 9.35; 85.90% White) in the United States who completed a baseline assessment and an 8-day follow-up daily diary survey from May to June 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. Multilevel modeling results showed that both family stressors were associated with parental negative mood at the between-person and within-person levels. Within-person associations were contemporaneous only, with no evidence of prospective next-day effects. Cross-level interactions revealed that lifetime gender identity microaggression exposure attenuated the mood reactivity to interparental conflicts, such that interparental conflict only predicted daily increases in parental negative mood for TGNB parents with lower to moderate lifetime exposure to gender identity microaggressions. These findings identify daily family stress processes as potential intervention targets to support TGNB-parent families' well-being during public health crises. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).