XVII Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association Symposium
31 October - 4 November 2001, Galveston, Texas, U.S.A.

Working with Families of Gender Variant People

LEV, ARLENE ISTAR U.S.A.

The families of transgendered and transsexual people have been neglected in the current treatment models. The success of the transition for the gender variant individual can be enhanced when taking place within the nurturing atmosphere of their loving family. HBIGDA guides the psychotherapist to educate family members, but more than education is necessary for integration of gender variant spouses and children within a family system. Spouses struggle with issues of betrayal, judgment, labile emotions, fear of exposure, shame and questions about their own sexuality; this is true within both homosexual and heterosexual relationships. Issues of sexual orientation become confusing as the sex configuration of the relationship change, but the sexual orientation of the partners may not. Parents struggle with gender variant children and adolescents who are treated with behavior modification and outdated psychoanalytic gender development theories, that often blame the parents, and pathologize the children. Parents of intersexed children have been given few useful guidelines for parenting their children, who have commonly been surgically altered. The issues and needs of adult intersexed people have been denied and neglected within clinical training programs. This workshop will outline the needs of spouses and children who are living in families with gender variant members, and suggest clinical tools that assist in the maintenance and healthy development of entire family system.