“Am I Doing the Right Thing?”: Pathways to Parenting a Gender Variant Child

Abstract

Gender variant (GV) children have a subjective sense of gender identity and/or preferences regarding clothing, activities, and/or playmates that are different from what is culturally normative for their biological sex. Despite increases in rates of GV children and their families presenting at clinics, there is little research on how raising a GV child affects the family as a whole or how families make decisions regarding their care. This study took an ecological-transactional framework to explore the question, “what is the experience of parents who raise a GV or transgender child?” Eight mothers and three fathers of GV male and female children (ages 5–13) referred through a GV support group participated in interviews. Transcripts were analyzed using an adaptation of grounded theory analysis. These parents attempted to pave the way to a nonstigmatized childhood for their GV child, typically through two pathways: rescuing the child from fear of stigma and hurt or accepting GV and advocating for a more tolerant world. Many participants used both pathways to different degrees or shifted paths over time, and the paths selected were related to parents’ own understanding of GV and their experiences and backgrounds as well as characteristics of the children they were parenting and the communities they inhabited. Limitations, clinical implications, and future directions are discussed.

A Mixed-Methods Evaluation of a Gender Affirmative Education Program for Families of Trans Young People

“…Within the interviews, parents emphasised the need for siblings of trans young people to have greater access to information and support. The experiences of siblings of trans young people has been explored in some studies (Cantner, 2012;Capous-Desyllas & Barron, 2017;Gray et al, 2016;Guditis, 2009). However, the role of trans-related education and information in their lives has TRANS FAMILY EDUCATION EVALUTION not been investigated to any great extent with one key exception.…”

“…TRANS FAMILY EDUCATION EVALUTION support and information for families (Gray et al, 2016;Ishii, 2017;Kuvalanka et al, 2014;Pearlman, 2006).…”

“…Furthermore, trans-related education and information may provide some families with the requisite knowledge and confidence to enable them to advocate for their trans family member (Gray et al, 2016;Menvielle & Hill, 2010;Rahilly, 2015). Such advocacy may take place within the wider family, with healthcare and education professionals, as well as within the wider community and society.…”

Editorial: Family Resilience

“…Today, considerable attention in our theories, science, and methods of clinical practice focuses on such collective family processes of resilience. It is remarkable, even within our own recent articles, how many emphasize the process of family resilience across diverse foci such as gender variance (Gray, Sweeney, Randazzo, & Levitt, ), Latino families (Killoren, Wheeler, Updegraff, Rodríguez de Jésus, & McHale, ; Updegraff & Umaña‐Taylor, ), having family members with schizophrenia (Olson, ), unmarried fathers (Marczak, Becher, Hardman, Galos, & Ruhland, ), living in nations at war (Charlés, ), preventing externalizing in teenagers (Holtrop, McNeil Smith, & Scott, ), and cardiac risk reduction (Sher et al., ). Most recent family treatment models typically also center on engaging family resilience (Dickerson, ; Imber‐Black, ; Liddle, ; Madsen, ; Roberts et al., ; Sexton & Datchi, ), in contrast to the earlier family deficit gestalt.…”

Editorial: LGBTQ families in the 21st Century

“…And, as early as 1972, Osman (1972) offered an article on helping lesbian parents in family therapy; yet, it was several years before there were other articles about LGBTQ families. Once it more broadly started to attend to these families, Family Process became a major source of information about them-constituting a part of that base of information that has become a corrective to the rumor mongering that somehow children in these families did worse than others or these marriages were less stable, and offering insights about helping these families (Armesto & Weisman, 2001;Elizur & Ziv, 2001;Gonzalez et al, 2013;Gray, Sweeney, Randazzo, & Levitt, 2015;Green, 1996Green, , 2000aGreen & Werner, 1996;Istar Lev, 2010;Krestan & Bepko, 1980;LaSala, 2000;Long, 1996;Malpas, 2011;Osman, 1972;Rostosky, Riggle, Brodnicki, & Olson, 2008;Rostosky et al, 2004;Spencer & Brown, 2007;Zacks, Green, & Marrow, 1988). Family Process' articles on LGBTQ families have ranged widely: exploring the evolution of LGBT over time (Gotta et al, 2011); the impact of family support (Elizur & Ziv, 2001;Rostosky et al, 2004); the positive impact of being a parent of an LGBT child (Gonzalez et al, 2013); LGBTQ headed families (Istar Lev, 2010); pathways with a gender variant child (Gray et al, 2015); patterns of closeness in LGBTQ families (Green & Werner, 1996;Krestan & Bepko, 1980); donor conception in LG couples (Goldberg & Allen, 2013;Van Parys et al, 2014); negotiated nonmonogamy in LG couples (Shernoff, 2006); transgender in families (Gray et al, 2015;Malpas, 2011); the evolving discourse about coming out (Green, 2000a;…”