Radical Hope in Parents of Transgender and Gender Diverse Youth in the United States

Parental support is crucial in the well-being of transgender and gender diverse (TGD) youth. Research shows that parents of TGD youth often experience stigma and negative mental health outcomes as a result of being exposed to cissexist settings as they advocate and seek services for their child. Yet, there is a lack of research on the experiences of parents of TGD youth in the United States. This study explores the reported hopes of 990 parents (M-age = 48.6 years; SD = 6.7; 88.1% White; 67.3% heterosexual; 89.4% cisgender women) of TGD youth for their children (youth ages 3-18 years) in the United States. Radical hope framework is applied to unpack narratives of hopes by parents of TGD youth as a critical component of resistance and motivation toward healing from oppression. For this study, the following open-ended question was analyzed using thematic analysis: What is your greatest hope for your child? Four main themes and 11 subthemes of parental hopes emerged: (1) living authentically (freely expressing themselves, developing self-love, living a happy and normal life), (2) interpersonal connections (finding community, building social networks and friendships, developing romantic relationships, building their own family, and loved by others), (3) meeting life milestones (career and employment, achieving goals and dreams, and becoming an advocate), and (4) acceptance by society. We provide clinical recommendations grounded on the tenets of radical hope such as collective ways in which parents of TGD youth can engage in both resisting systemic oppression and building strong loving relationships with their child.