Gender Born, Gender Made Raising Healthy Gender-Nonconforming Children

by Ehrensaft PhD, Diane; Menvielle MD, MSHS, Edgardo

• ISBN13: 9781615190607
• ISBN10: 1615190600
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-05-17
• Publisher: The Experiment

Summary

Gender Born, Gender Made is a comprehensive guidebook for the parents and therapists of children who do not identify with or behave according to their biological gender. Drawing on the case histories of several children, each "gender creative" in his or her own way, Dr. Diane Ehrensaft offers concrete strategies for understanding and supporting children who experience confusion about their gender identities. She also discusses the latest therapeutic advancements available to gender-variant children. Traditionally, psychologists have sought to "cure" gender variance by pressuring children to conform to typical gender behavior. From her perspective as both clinician and parent of a gender creative child, Dr. Ehrensaft advocates a new approach, encouraging caregivers to support gender-variant children as they explore their gender identities. Rather than offering a "cure" for gender variance, Gender Born, Gender Made facilitates improved understanding and communication about gender identity.

Author Biography

Diane Ehrensaft, PhD,is a developmental and clinical psychologist. At the University of California–San Francisco, she is the cofounder and director of mental health at the Child and Adolescent Gender Center, an associate professor of pediatrics, and an attending psychologist at the Benioff Children’s Hospital Child and Adolescent Gender Clinic. Her work with—and advocacy for—gender creative children has been widely covered, including by The New York Times, the Huffington Post, and NPR. She has been featured on the Los Angeles Times online, Wired online, and has appeared on Anderson, The Oprah Winfrey Show, and The Today Show.

EDGARDO J. MENVIELLE, MD, MSHS, is the director of the Gender and Sexuality Development Program and of the Gender and Sexuality Advocacy and Education Program in the Psychiatry Department of the Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C. He started a national outreach group for parents of gender-variant children in 1998, and later a gender and sexuality development clinic. He is also an associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at The George Washington University. An internationally recognized authority on childhood and adolescent gender and sexuality, Dr. Menvielle has been quoted in the New York Times and Newsweek. He lives in Washington, D.C