Engendering support: transgender youth's interpretations

Increased visibility of transgender communities is generating a unique moment in history to create supportive environments for transgender individuals — especially for youth. Typical definitions of social support remain inadequate for transgender youth whom endure individual and structural discrimination, harassment, and violence within many different environments. How do transgender youth access, define, and interpret social support? What do transgender youth consider supportive behaviors, actions, words and environments? Semi structured qualitative interviews with nine self-identified transgender young adults are used to describe their experiences and interpretations of social support. Environments defined as typically supportive, including therapy and support groups, were interpreted by some participants as non-supportive. Transgender youth perceive both supportive and non-supportive responses within environments depending on whether the behavior, action, and words affirm or rejects their identity. Based on transgender youth’s experiences, this study illustrates the complex interactions and interpretations social support that occur within homes, schools, and organizations.