Measurement of Family Gender Environment (FGE) in Transgender and Cisgender Young and Middle Adolescents and Their Parents

• In Event: 1-101 - Measurement Validation and Equivalence in LGBTQ Youth Research: Examples and Recommendations

Integrative Statement

A measure of Family Gender Environment (FGE) has been developed and tested to examine family supportive and rejecting behaviors of gender expression, specifically focused on support for non-conforming gender behaviors and identities (McGuire & Catalpa, 2017; McGuire & Fish, 2018). As written, the items measure Open Communication, Advocacy and Resources, Accepting and Inclusive Behavior, Explicit Care and Support of Gender Expression, Exclusion and Abuse, The View of Gender Expression as Morally Wrong, and Attempts to Change Gender Expression. Early examinations with adults have shown that supportive construct factors better independently from the rejecting construct, and there are some distinctions in the constructs among populations (e.g. genderqueer vs. transgender; McGuire & Catalpa, 2017); further, the rejecting subscales predict later mental health symptoms but the accepting scales appear not to (McGuire & Fish, 2018). The existing studies are all retrospective report by young adults based on memory of adolescent family context. The current project seeks to extend this work by adding assessments for adolescents and parents to examine elements of the environment in real time, and explore whether similar elements are salient for youth and parents. We modified the measures for reading level and acceptability to young adolescents, and shifted the parent questions to be more oriented to parents and to remove elements of social desirability. Two pilot studies were conducted, one of independently recruited transgender and cisgender early adolescents (n=50, ages 8-14), and one of parents and adolescents participating in a therapy group at a local gender clinic (n = 25, ages 13-17). Both samples were predominately white (90-96%). The independent group included 23 transgender and 27 cisgender young people with one parent, while the therapy group included 13 transgender young people each with one or two parents. In both studies we see evidence of divergent realities. For each of the four scales of support, parents report higher levels of support than youth. For all of the rejection scales, both parents and youth report almost floor levels. This pattern holds true in both cisgender and transgender youth.

In study two we find that parents and youth change differently in response to a group intervention designed to promote open communication. Adolescents reported improvements in open communication, advocacy and resources, while parents remained stable overtime. Parents saw themselves as engaging in more open communication and providing more advocacy and resources than youth reported experiencing. Parents report almost no exclusionary or rejecting behaviors although adolescents do report that these behaviors sometimes occur.

In both samples, there was a clear floor effect for rejecting behaviors for the parents and a near floor effect for the youth, suggesting that the measure may not be sensitive enough to capture variability within this generally quite accepting subset of parents. Likewise, scores for the acceptance scales are high among both parents and adolescents. Continuing analyses may identify items that are sensitive within this population. Follow up interviews may help to delineate a higher range of the scale in both acceptance and rejection.

Authors

• Jenifer McGuire, University of Minnesota
  Presenting Author

• S Okrey Anderson, University of Minnesota
  Non-Presenting Author

• Catherine Schaefer, The Pennsylvania State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jennifer Connor, University of Minnesota
  Non-Presenting Author

• Dianne R Berg, University of Minnesota
  Non-Presenting Author