Eating Disorders, Trauma and Trans Bodies: Contributing factors across trans lives
Introductory 
Service Providers What factors impact experiences with eating disorders in trans and nonbinary communities? In this clip, Ryan Sallans covers the impacts of puberty (and puberty blockers), life transitions, social media, and minority stress on eating disorder experiences.
Eating Disorders, Trauma and Trans Bodies is a webinar designed to support services providers – advocates, therapists, healthcare professionals, sexual assault and intimate violence service providers, and others –navigate how to better serve transgender clients/survivors with eating disorders. The webinar will cover the different forms of eating disorders currently identified within the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5-TR). Ryan will then take attendees through special considerations when serving transgender individuals, with a specific focus on how trauma disrupts the central nervous system, can influence if or how survivors seek support, and the role eating disorders might play in healing from trauma. He will close the webinar with his own reflections as a transgender man diagnosed with anorexia nervosa in 1999 before opening it up to attendees for questions.
Recorded February 27, 2025.
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Ryan Sallans, MA is a speaker, writer and consultant who specializes in gender and orientation development. Over the past 20 years, he has served corporations, healthcare institutions, federal agencies, universities, and community. An internationally utilized gender subject matter expert, Ryan interweaves personal narrative storytelling with scientific research and cultural studies.
From 2008 to 2020, Ryan served as a consultant, Lead Author and Subject Matter Expert for an extensive range of e-learning courses used around the nation to train healthcare professionals and staff seeking continuing education around serving gender and sexual minority patients.
His academic publications include personal narratives and viewpoints for peer-reviewed journals including the Journal of Ethics (2023, 2020, and 2016), Journal of Ethics in Mental Health (2015), and Contemporary Sexuality (2012).
Ryan graduated from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln where he graduated Sigma Tau Delta Honors Society with a Bachelor of Arts in cultural anthropology and English, a Master of Arts in English, and a Master of Arts in educational psychology.
Ryan has authored the books Second Son (Scout Publishing, 2012), Transforming Manhood (Scout Publishing, 2019) and Finding Me: Finding We (forthcoming).