Family Boundary Ambiguity Among Transgender Youth
| Published date | 01 February 2018 |
| Author | Jory M. Catalpa,Jenifer K. McGuire |
| Date | 01 February 2018 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/fare.12304 |
J M. C J K. MG University of Minnesota
Family Boundary Ambiguity Among Transgender
Youth
Objective: To explore family boundary ambigu-
ity in the parent–child relationships of transgen-
der youth.
Background: Transgender youth may perceive
a lack of clarity about whether parents will
accept their authentic gender expression, con-
tinue to support them physically and emotion-
ally, and regard them as a member of the family.
Uncertainty about being in or out of the fam-
ily and whether family relationships endure is
stressful and can lead to psychological distress,
a sense of ambiguous loss, and frozen grief.
Method: Ethnographic content analysis was
conducted based on interviews with 90 trans-
gender youth recruited from community centers
in 10 regions across 3 countries.
Results: Narratives revealed that transgender
youth experienced family boundary ambiguity
related to relational ambiguity, structural ambi-
guity, and identity ambiguity. Each experience
of ambiguity obscured whether participants
remained in the family and interpersonally
connected to their parents.
Conclusion: Transgender youth actively nav-
igated complex and ambiguous parent–child
relationships whereby participants attempted
to reconcile their need for authentic gender
expression combined with their need for family
connectedness and acceptance.
Department of Family Social Science, University of Min-
nesota, 290 McNeal Hall, 1985 Buford Avenue,St. Paul, MN
55125 (catal026@umn.edu).
Key Words: Adolescent development, boundary ambigu-
ity, gender development, LGBT issues & relationships,
parent–child relationships.
Implications: Family clinicians, educators, and
policymakers are urged to consider family and
transgender resilience througha lens of ambigu-
ous loss and to promote a gender-afrmative
life-span approach to clinical care for transgen-
der individuals and their families.
Within the social sciences, transgender experi-
ences are often subsumed under an umbrella of
lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT)
scholarship, with little to no attention given to
gender as a multidimensional construct or to
trans youth’s family experiences (Kuvalanka,
Allen, Munroe, Goldberg, & Weiner, 2018;
Reisner et al., 2015; Ryan, Russell, Hueb-
ner, Diaz, & Sanchez, 2010). A developing
evidence base demonstrates the importance
of family support and acceptance for mental
health and well-being among transgender young
adults (Grossman & D’Augelli, 2007; Simons,
Schrager, Clark, Belzer, & Olson, 2013). For
example, studies have shown that parental
acceptance predicts reduced depression (Bariola
et al., 2015; Bockting et al., 2013; Simonset al.,
2013), whereas rejection and verbal and phys-
ical abuse predict suicidal ideation (Grossman
& D’Augelli, 2007), anxiety, and depression
(Budge, Adelson, & Howard, 2013). Although
the scholarship on transpersons within the con-
text of family is burgeoning, a need remains
for studies that explore gender complexity and
within-group gender identity variation among
transgender youth (Diamond, Pardo, & Butter-
worth, 2011). This need is consistent with Fish
and Russell’s (2018) suggestions for queering
88 Family Relations 67 (February 2018): 88–103
DOI:10.1111/fare.12304
Family Boundary Ambiguity Among Transgender Youth 89
methodologies such that research is conducted
for queer families, which was done here.
Heterogeneity in the transgender popula-
tion points to considerable variation in gender
identity development and how families react to
gender variance. Variation in gender identity
can get lost in the use of umbrella terms such
as (a) transgender to represent a broad cate-
gory of individuals with varying experiences
of incongruence between assigned sex at birth
and internalized sense of gender identity and
(b) genderqueer to be inclusive of a spectrum of
individuals who do not identify within the gen-
der binary (Bockting, 2014; Diamond, Pardo,
& Butterworth, 2011). Similarly, families’ reac-
tions to gender identity development vary based
on several factors, such as age of onset of gender
variance, transgender identity disclosure, plans
for and length of social and medical transition,
and parent–child relationships outside of the
context of gender identity.
Ryan et al. (2010) examined how families
were challenged by the presence of a LGBT fam-
ily member and found that accepting and reject-
ing behaviors co-occurred as families adjusted
to learning about their child’s minority iden-
tity, somewhat similar to the grounded the-
ory of coming out presented by Jhang (2018).
Additionally, Rahilly (2015) noted that parents
deployed different mechanisms of navigating
gender nonconformity with children, including
attempts to alter authentic gender expression, as
well as instances of engaging with more inclu-
sive and less binary understandings of gender.
The presence of both rejecting and accepting
behaviors may create the possibility for uncer-
tainty and stress as all family members negotiate
transgender identity development.
Parents and youth negotiate transgender iden-
tity within the context of cisnormativity (i.e.,
the notion that assigned sex and gender iden-
tity are congruent, xed, and binary; Bauer et al.,
2009; Kuvalanka et al., 2018) and heteronor-
mativity (i.e., the belief that heterosexuality,
opposite-gender attraction, is natural; Oswald,
Blume, & Marks, 2005). Oswald et al. (2005)
set forth a framework to queer heteronormativity
and deconstruct heteronormative assumptions
within family research. Decentering heteronor-
mativity as a framework requires understanding
how three separate components—sex, gender,
and family—operate in tandem to produce het-
eronormativity. Heteronormativity is centered
on the belief that one’s biology determines his
or her sex and gender, which in turn determines
an attraction to, and desire to procreate with,
the other sex and gender. Underlying heteronor-
mativity is the concept of cisnormativity, which
dismisses transgender identity based on the pre-
sumption that all people are cisgender (i.e., the
sex assigned at birth is congruent with their
gender identity; Few-Demo, Humble, Curran, &
Lloyd, 2016).
Cisnormativity disallows the possibility of
transgender individuals in families. As such, a
transgender family member is unanticipated and
presents a stressful situation for families who
are unprepared for the reality of having a trans
family member (Bauer et al., 2009). Transgen-
der persons may experience a state of uncer-
tainty as family members take time to adjust
to changes within the family. For example, pre-
vious scholarship has shown that family mem-
bers may struggle to make meaning about child-
hood gender variance, transgender identity dis-
closure, transition changes overtime, and how to
restructure relationships across gender identity
development and transition (Norwood, 2012).
Meaning-making for families with a transgen-
der family member involves reection on tran-
sition and intentionally redening family roles,
which is indicative of family resilience (Dierckx,
Mortelmans, Motmans, & T’Sjoen, 2017).
However, from clinical observations, Ehren-
saft (2011) described that some parents could
overcome gender-related obstacles, whereas
other parents continued to struggle with gender
variance. Clinicians have reported that families
may experience a variety of negative emotions
when their child discloses a transgender identity
(Ehrensaft, 2011). Norwood (2012) reported
that family members had difculties assessing
whether their post transition, transgender family
members were the same or a different person
from the person they knew before the transition.
Scholars have reported that loss and grief are the
main roadblocks to family resilience and family
support of transgender family members (Lev,
2004; Zamboni, 2006). Although research has
examined family members’ experiences, little
research has examined transgender youth’s per-
ceptions of family relationships in the context
of ambiguity and ambiguous loss.
In terms of transgender youth’s experiences
with parents’ reactions to transgender iden-
tity disclosure and restructuring relationships,
scholarship has focused heavily on the negative
health consequences suffered by transgender
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