Title: Surviving a Gender Variant Childhood: The views of transgender adults on the needs of gender variant children and their parents
Authors: Ms. Elizabeth Anne Riley PhD, Lindy Clemson, Dr. Gomathi Sitharthan & Milton Diamond PhD
Published in: Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, DOI: 10.1080/0092623X.2011.628439. Available online February 9th, 2012
http://www.hawaii.edu/PCSS/biblio/articles/2010to2014/2012-surviving-gender-variant-childhood.htmlABSTRACT
Adults with gender variant childhoods have often lived traumatic lives due to the attitudes and limited understanding of the people in their environment. This study explores the childhoods of transgender adults with a view to understanding their gender-related difficulties as children, in order to determine the needs they had as children as well as the needs of their parents. Method: A semi-structured survey was conducted with 110 transgender adults in order to explore their retrospective childhood experiences. Responses were analysed through content and thematic coding. Results: Their needs most commonly identified as children were for educated authority figures, acceptance and support to discuss their gender variance, freedom of identity expression, validation, and recognition. The needs most commonly allocated to their parents were access to information, education to increase other's awareness, peer support and access to educated professionals.
Transgender adults often report traumatic life experiences having been subjected to marginalization, discrimination and/or abuse over the course of their lives (Grant et al., 2010; Whittle, Turner, & Al-Alami, 2007). It is precisely these issues that have caused transgender adults great distress and have impacted their self-esteem and quality of life (Grant et al., 2010; Whittle et al., 2007). The impact of bullying, violence and shame on transgender individuals' lives is well documented (Grant et al., 2010; Matos & Pinto-Gouveia, 2010; Nuttbrock et al., 2009; Whittle et al., 2007; Wyss, 2004) and has been shown to be a significant contributor to suicidal ideation (DiStefano, 2008; Roeger, Allison, Korossy-Horwood, Eckert, & Goldney, 2010). Moreover, a transgender adult identification has been shown to be correlated with cross-gender behaviour in childhood (Singh et al., 2010) and childhood gender role nonconformity as an indicator of adult suicidal ideation (Plöderl & Fartacek, 2009). Therefore understanding the childhood experiences of transgender adults within their families, social networks and environment would help contribute to the knowledge of how to support gender variant children and their parents with the aim of preventing the reported debilitating outcomes for transgender adults.
This report is well worth reading, contains lots of good quotes from interviews!Z
