Complicating constructions: middle-class parents of transgender and gender-diverse children

Abstract

ABSTRACT Recent years have seen an increase in the visibility of transgender and gender-diverse (TGD) children in the public sphere. Jack Halberstam [(2018). Trans: A Quick and Quirky Account of Gender Variability (Vol. 3). University of California Press] is very critical of middle-class parents of TGD children, arguing that much of their activism is based on a normalizing model of individual rights as opposed to a more transformative activism that might de-stabilize gender-power systems that are restrictive for everyone. Following this pronouncement, this paper takes up the opportunity to inquire further into the everyday negotiations of middle-class parents of TGD children. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with twelve middle-class parents of TGD children aged 5–13 in Ireland, this paper provides in-depth insight into the classed, precarious, gendered, disruptive and arduous nature of parents’ work as they negotiated schools and laboured to follow a child-led parenting philosophy amidst the judgement of others and rigidly gendered worlds. Ultimately, this paper’s argument is two-fold – it alerts us to social class inequality in parenting TGD children but it also complicates the figure of the middle-class parent of a TGD child, offering in-depth insight into the shape and effects of child-led parenting with TGD children.