The Gender Affirmative Model
Available formats
This warm and timely book provides mental health professionals with a guide to the gender affirmative model, the leading approach for working with transgender and gender expansive children and their families.
Using an easy-to-follow framework, readers will learn how to enable children to live as their authentic gender with the necessary social supports.
The authors describe how to ease distress and build resilience within children and families, while also strengthening therapists' awareness of the complex interplay of cultural factors with gender. They also address the multifaceted psychological, social and community challenges faced by transgender and gender expansive children, as well as the potential mental health struggles that can arise as a result of bullying and more subtle forms of societal discrimination.
Contributors
- Introduction to the Gender Affirmative Model
Colt Keo-Meier and Diane Ehrensaft - The Unfolding and Exploration of Gender From a Gender Affirmative Perspective
Erica E. Anderson - Exploring Gender Expansive Expressions Versus Affirming a Gender Identity
Diane Ehrensaft - Culturally Responsive Practice With Children of Color
Eb. (Ebony) Brown and Kobi Mar - Addressing Mental Health Conditions Often Experienced by Transgender and Gender Expansive Children
Karisa Barrow and Demetry Apostle - Gender-Related Trauma
Amy Tishelman and AndreAs Neumann-Mascis - Child and Family Assessment
Dianne Berg and Laura Edwards-Leeper - Helping Families Move From Distress to Attunement
Deb Coolhart - Building Resilience in Transgender and Gender Expansive Children, Families, and Communities: A Multidimensional Family Approach
Jean Malpas, Elizabeth Glaeser, and Shawn V. Giammattei - Working With Parents and Caretakers When Conflicts Arise
Robert J. McLaughlin and Robbie N. Sharp - Creating a Network of Professionals
Randi Kaufman and Amy Tishelman - Collaborative Treatment Across Disciplines: Physician and Mental Health Counselor Coordinating Competent Care
Arlene I. Lev and Carolyn Wolf-Gould - Where Do We Go From Here?
Diane Ehrensaft and Colt Keo-Meier
Index
About the Editors
Colt Keo-Meier, PhD, is a clinical psychologist whose expertise is in clinical work, research, and training in the health of transgender people of all ages.
He is an assistant professor in the Menninger Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences of Baylor College of Medicine, lecturer and researcher in the psychology department at the University of Houston, and is completing his MD at the University of Texas Medical Branch, where he is a student scholar in the John P. McGovern Academy of Oslerian Medicine.
He maintains a small part-time private practice in the Houston/Galveston area of Texas.
Dr. Keo-Meier is a cofounder and board member of Gender Infinity, an organization dedicated to promoting justice, hope, and equity through the advancement of relationships, knowledge, and resources that empower transgender and gender expansive individuals.
He helped develop the National Association for School Psychologists' (NASP) and APA's joint Resolution on Gender and Sexual Orientation Diversity in Children and Adolescents in Schools (PDF, 99KB)opens in new window, the NASP Position Statement on Safe Schools for Transgender and Gender Diverse Students, and the APA and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's report on Ending Conversion Therapy: Supporting and Affirming LGBTQ Youth.
He is a chapter work group member for the hormone therapy chapter for adolescents and adults of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health Standards of Care Version 8.
His research has focused on understanding the mental health effects of hormone therapy and the experiences of parents of young transgender people.
Dr. Keo-Meier is a transgenderqueer White man who has thrived because of his experience of acceptance and unconditional love from his parents, Cambodian American genderqueer spouse, and long-time family and friends.
Diane Ehrensaft, PhD, is a developmental and clinical psychologist, associate professor of pediatrics at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF), and director of mental health of the Child and Adolescent Gender Center, UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital.
She specializes in research, clinical work, training, and consultation related to gender expansive children, and she publishes and lectures nationally and internationally on this topic, as well as making media appearances.
Dr. Ehrensaft is presently coinvestigator in a four-site National Institutes of Health grant studying the effects of puberty blockers and masculinizing and feminizing hormones in gender expansive and transgender youth.
In addition to being the coeditor of this volume, she is the author of The Gender Creative Child; Gender Born, Gender Made; Mommies, Daddies, Donors, Surrogates; Building a Home Within (coedited with Toni Heineman); Spoiling Childhood; and Parenting Together.
She is a chapter work group member for the World Professional Association for Transgender Health Standards of Care Version 8 and also is on the board of directors of Gender Spectrum, an organization providing education, advocacy, and support to families, schools, and community to build gender inclusivity.
Dr. Ehrensaft is a founding member, board member, and senior clinician of A Home Within, a national organization that offers pro bono psychotherapy and serves the emotional needs of children and youth in foster care.
This essential guide will give medical and mental health professionals, educators, and families the tools to provide individual as well as systemic gender affirmative care to trans and gender expansive youth. The authors support their assertions with research and their own clinical experience, and the numerous case studies provide complex yet representative examples of concerns practitioners encounter when working with this population and their families. This is a must-have resource!
—Daniel K. Phillip, PsyD
Licensed Psychologist, DKP Counseling+Consulting, Washington, DC
A primer for anyone seeking to grow their awareness, knowledge, and skills of working with trans and gender expansive children. Keo-Meier and Ehrensaft challenge readers to shift practices with trans and gender expansive children, their families, and their caregivers to not only support their resilience and thriving but also to change the world in which they live.
—Anneliese A. Singh, PhD, LPC
Professor and Associate Dean of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, College of Education, The University of Georgia, Athens
