The Transgender Child: A Handbook for Families and Professionals

Stephanie Brill

Jun 2008 · Simon and Schuster

About this ebook

This comprehensive first of its kind guidebook explores the unique challenges that thousands of families face every day raising their children in every city and state. Through extensive research and interviews, as well as years of experience working in the field, the authors cover gender variance from birth through college. What do you do when your toddler daughter’s first sentence is that she’s a boy? What will happen when your preschool son insists on wearing a dress to school? Is this ever just a phase? How can you explain this to your neighbors and family? How can parents advocate for their children in elementary schools? What are the current laws on the rights of transgender children? What do doctors specializing in gender variant children recommend? What do the therapists say? What advice do other families who have trans kids have? What about hormone blockers and surgery? What issues should your college-bound trans child be thinking about when selecting a school? How can I best raise my gender variant or transgender child with love and compassion, even when I barely understand the issues ahead of us? And what is gender, anyway? These questions and more are answered in this book offering a deeper understanding of gender variant and transgender children and teens.

Ratings and reviews

"No one yet knows what makes some people transgender" is an outright lie as is the attempt to make a distinction between "intersex" people and transgenders. Book is written by a misinformed idiot or an overt liar. Either way, save your money and your time, waste neither one on this flawed book.

Recommended by our therapist, I read this book only weeks after my son came out as transgender. There is so much information and resources and research -it really is a must have

This was the best book I have read for anyone that is dealing with transgender. I have been transgender for as long as I can remember however I didn't transition until I was an adult. This book was still very applicable to me.

About the author

Stephanie Brill is the founder of Gender Spectrum Education and Training which provides education, resources and training to create a more gender sensitive and supportive environment for all children. She founded and runs the Children’s Hospital Oakland Support Group for parents of gender variant and transgender children and teens. She also co-produces a national conference, Gender Odyssey Family, for families with gender variant and transgender children. Rachel Pepper is the coordinator of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Studies at Yale University and is an award winning journalist and editor for many publications including Curve, The Advocate, and Out magazine. The Transgender Child "For any parent or professional entering this world for the first time, this book is indispensable. Beyond providing a necessary lifeboat for parents, it helps the professional develop empathy for those who are growing up transgender and the families that love them." —Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry "Pepper and the mothers in this book have created what will certainly be an invaluable resource for countless parents and future parents. In that, perhaps they have made the world just a little bit better for transgender people themselves." —Windy City Times