This book offers essential guidance to parents of transgender and non-binary teens to help them support and understand their children. It alleviates common concerns parents have and gives advice on hormones and surgery, use of pronouns and how to transition socially. It also includes sample family letters, case studies and further reading.

Going through puberty and adolescence presents unwelcome changes for many transgender youth, and this book provides advice to parents of transgender teens to help them understand what their child is experiencing and feeling during this challenging time. Addressing common fears and concerns that parents of transgender teens share, the book guides them through steps they can take with their child, including advice on hormones and surgery and how to transition socially. It addresses the recent increase in teens presenting with non-binary identities, and reflects major legal, social and medical developments regarding transgender issues. The author's insights are gained from his professional experience of providing psychotherapy regarding gender identity. He provides resources and further reading to help parents expand their knowledge. Although aimed predominantly at parents, this book is useful for anyone working with teenagers and young adults as it provides many answers to common questions about adolescent gender identity.

What do you do when your son announces he is transgender and asks that you call her by a new name? Or what if your child uses a term you’ve never heard of to describe themselves (neutrois, agender, non-binary, genderqueer, androgyne…) and when you didn’t know what they meant, they left the room and now won’t speak to you about it? Perhaps your daughter recently asked you not to use gendered pronouns when referring to ‘her’ anymore, preferring that you use “they”; you’re left wondering if this is just a phase, or if there’s something more that you need to understand about your child. There is a generational divide in our understandings of gender. This comprehensive guidebook helps to bridge that divide by exploring the unique challenges that thousands of families face every day raising a teenager who may be transgender, non-binary, gender-fluid or otherwise gender-expansive. Combining years of experience working in the field with extensive research and personal interviews, the authors cover pressing concerns relating to physical and emotional development, social and school pressures, medical considerations, and family communications. Learn how parents can more deeply understand their children, and raise their non-binary or transgender adolescent with love and compassion.

A groundbreaking guide to caring for children who live outside binary gender boxes We are only beginning to understand gender. Is it inborn or learned? Can it be chosen—or even changed? Does it have to be one or the other? These questions may seem abstract—but for parents whose children live outside of gender “norms,” they are very real. No two children who bend the “rules” of gender do so in quite the same way. Felicia threw away her frilly dresses at age three. Sam hid his interest in dolls and “girl things” until high school—when he finally confided his desire to become Sammi. And seven-year-old Maggie, who sports a boys’ basketball uniform and a long blond braid, identifies as “a boy in the front, and a girl in the back.” But all gender-nonconforming children have one thing in common—they need support to thrive in a society that still subscribes to a binary system of gender. Dr. Diane Ehrensaft has worked with children like Felicia, Sam, and Maggie for over 30 years. In Gender Born, Gender Made, she offers parents, clinicians, and educators guidance on both the philosophical dilemmas and the practical, daily concerns of working with children who don’t fit a “typical” gender mold. She debunks outmoded approaches to gender nonconformity that may actually do children harm. And she offers a new framework for helping each child become his or her own unique, most gender-authentic person.

Using case studies as examples, explains how hermaphrodites and transgendered individuals can have different gender identities than those assigned at birth and describes the legal and surgical options open to them.

There are growing numbers of youth who identify as transgender, and as a result, clinicians and counselors are in need of an informed resource that covers the basics of gender identity and expression. This book responds to that need by setting out clear advice and support on working with transgender and non-binary youth with regard to their identity, mental health, personal and family life and their medical and social transition as well as offering additional resources and reading lists. Along with the basic information needed to understand transgender clients, Irwin Krieger applies this general knowledge to work with transgender teens at what can be the most critical and problematic stage in a trans person's life. Specifically, issues of gender identity awareness and expression for youth along with the mental and physical challenges that puberty presents are discussed. This guide will inform counselors and therapists to support transgender teens in their practice, while providing the necessary tools for opening up the conversation on transgender issues in families and schools.

A guide that helps LGBT teens come out to friends and family, navigate their new LGBT social life, figure out if a crush is also queer, and rise up against bigotry and homophobia.