The Experience of Parents Who Support Their Children's Gender Variance

Abstract

This article details the findings of a qualitative action research project with parents of gender-variant children in Montreal, Canada. Through a unique methodology, the project aimed at understanding the issues and challenges facing parents in the process of supporting their children, as well as offering them support and an empowering platform for effecting change around them. The article explores how parents understand their children's experiences, the various challenges they themselves cope with in supporting their children, and the solutions they believe would improve their lives and the lives of their offspring. Recommendations for practice conclude this article.

KEYWORDS:

• Gender identity
• gender nonconformity
• gender variance
• invisibility
• parenting
• participatory action research
• social action methodology
• stigma

Notes

¹Purposive sampling (Sarantakos, 1993) is a sampling technique that is based on inviting participants who fit the criteria for recruitment. For this research, the inclusion criteria were self-identification as parents or caregivers of gender-variant children and their willingness to share experiences with parenting these children. To achieve purposive sampling in this research, we sent out an invitation to participate that appeared in paper and electronic format in organizations serving gender-variant teens and same-sex families, a transsexual peoples’ association, and organizations that fight bullying and homophobia in schools in the Greater Montreal area.

²The “gender creative” child was a concept first introduced by Diane Ehrensaft in her 2011 book Gender Born, Gender Made.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Annie Pullen Sansfaçon

Annie Pullen Sansfaçon is an associate professor at the School of Social Work at Université de Montréal, Canada. Her research interests include social work ethics, gender nonconformity in children, and social action and self-directed groupwork as antioppressive methodologies in intervention and research.

Marie-Joëlle Robichaud

Marie-Joëlle Robichaud is a PhD candidate at the School of Social Work at the Université de Montréal. She was one of the two cofacilitators on the project and participated in the preliminary data analysis and research report writing, as well as the literature review of the article.

Audrey-Anne Dumais-Michaud

Audrey-Anne Dumais-Michaud is a PhD candidate in at the Department of Sociology at the Université du Québec à Montréal. She was one of the two cofacilitators on the project and participated in the preliminary data analysis and research report writing, as well as the literature review of the article.