21.4 Appreciating Differences: Navigating Intersectionality in Working With Gender-Expansive Youth and Their Families

Abstract

Like all families, the families of gender-diverse youth present with beliefs, values, and patterns of interacting with others stemming from their lived experience of community, culture, and ethnicity. Appreciation of a family’s background and values can play an important role in helping family members to find common ground and enable them to provide the affirmation and support that is so important for improving mental health outcomes for gender-diverse youth. This can represent a significant challenge for child and adolescent psychiatrists, who often receive little training in incorporating cultural, ethnic, and religious differences in family therapy techniques and may struggle to address culturally based beliefs about gender identity and sexuality that differ from their own.