3-093 - Risk and Protective factors among Transgender Youth

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Current research is revealing concerning outcomes for some transgender youth. However, findings from European studies, and some North American studies, suggest that having a transgender identity is not in and of itself predictive of risk for negative outcomes. To better understand the pathways to wellness for transgender identified youth, the three included studies take an approach of examining variability within the transgender population using predominately North American samples. Each study considers two basic sources of resiliency- those in the immediate context and those within the self. Transgender youth experience very different contexts at home, in school, and in the community, with some youth having accepting parents, stable housing, and schools with policies to protect them; while other youth have rejecting families, unstable housing, and school policies that isolate or stigmatize them. These variations in context, based on the included studies, clearly contribute to variability in well-being for transgender youth. Additionally, youth have and engage variable internal processes or behaviors to improve their own functioning, and this varies within the population of transgender youth as within all populations. The included studies expand on notions of context to consider individuals’ responses to those contexts as predictors or indicators of well-being. We seek to integrate these studies into a framework to extend our understanding of resiliency to incorporate those with a minority gender identity. To that end we incorporate discussion from a scholar embedded in the field of adolescent development and accomplished in research focusing on resiliency for sexual minority youth.

Sub Unit

• Sex, Gender

Chair

• Jenifer Kristine McGuire, Univ of Minnesota

Discussant

• Stephen T Russell, University of Arizona

Individual Presentations

• Profiles of Internal and External Assets Among Transgender Youth: An Examination Using Latent Class Analysis - Presenting Author: Russell B Toomey, Kent State Univ; Amy K. Syvertsen, Search Institute

• Resilience among transgender youth who experienced homelessness prior to age 18 - Presenting Author: Jenifer Kristine McGuire, Univ of Minnesota; Jory Catalpa, University of Minnesota; Sasha Davison, Arizona State University

• Risk & Resources: The Role of School Policies & Practices in the Well-being of Transgender Youth - Presenting Author: Emily Greytak, GLSEN; Neal Andrew Palmer, GLSEN