Working with trans youth and their families - Part 1: Basic Concepts

Summary

In this enlightening webinar by the Canadian Association of Social Workers, Dr. Annie Poland discusses foundational concepts for supporting trans youth and their families. She emphasizes understanding the difference between sex, gender identity, and sexual orientation, and urges the application of anti-oppressive practices in social work. Dr. Poland explains how the gender affirmation model can significantly enhance the lives of transgender youth by acknowledging their authentic identities. Moreover, she addresses the importance of societal acceptance in mitigating distress among trans youth, emphasizing empathy, inclusivity, and education. This session serves as a crucial educational resource for social workers keen to foster supportive environments for trans children.

Highlights

• Emphasis on the difference between sex, gender identity, and sexual orientation 📚.
• The concept of gender identity is not binary; it can be fluid 🌊.
• Families play a vital role in supporting trans youth 🏠.
• Legal, social, and medical transitions can help alleviate gender dysphoria 👩‍⚕️.
• The importance of addressing transphobia and creating an inclusive society is paramount 🌎.

Key Takeaways

• Understanding basic concepts about gender identity is crucial in supporting trans youth 🌈.
• Trans youth have unique but often misunderstood needs 👨‍👩‍👦.
• Societal acceptance can significantly reduce psychological distress in trans youth 💛.
• The gender affirmation model helps validate and support trans youths' identities 🏳️‍⚧️.
• Inclusivity and anti-oppressive practices are vital in social work with trans families 💪.

Overview

Dr. Annie Poland from the Canadian Association of Social Workers kickstarted a webinar exploring foundational concepts crucial for working with trans youth and their families. She emphasized the significant differences between sex, gender identity, and sexual orientation while encouraging social workers to employ anti-oppressive approaches in their practice.

Throughout the webinar, Dr. Poland highlighted societal influences on trans youth, advocating for educational efforts to combat transphobia and promote inclusivity. She insisted on the importance of the gender affirmation model, which fosters a supportive environment by honoring each young person's authentic gender identity.

This informative session provided valuable insights, suggesting practical steps that social workers can take to support trans individuals and their families better. By emphasizing empathy, inclusivity, and comprehensive understanding, the webinar aimed to equip social workers with the knowledge necessary to assist in the healthy development and well-being of trans youth.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction and Overview of the Webinar Series This chapter serves as an introduction to a series of webinars dedicated to working with transgender youth and their families. Sally Guy, the director of policy at the Canadian Association of Social Workers, opens the session by acknowledging the expertise of Dr. Annie Poland-Saufesso, who will be leading the series aimed at social workers across Canada. The introduction also notes the significance of the previous day, which marked the national day of the child and the transgender day of remembrance, a moment to honor those lost within the transgender community.
• 00:30 - 01:00: Reflection on Significant Days and the Aim of the Webinar The chapter reflects on the importance of addressing transphobia, violence, and prejudice, emphasizing a commitment to improvement. It highlights the role of education and understanding as essential components in combatting prejudice. The webinar aims to expand knowledge on trans youth and their futures, drawing significant interest with around 500 participants registered for the live event. The initial session is set to provide a broad overview on the subject.
• 01:00 - 01:30: Housekeeping and Introduction of Dr. Annie Poland Saufesso The chapter begins with a reminder about the session format, indicating that there will be time for audience questions at the end, and encourages participation by affirming that every question is a good one. Before introducing Dr. Annie Poland Saufesso formally, the speaker covers essential housekeeping details such as downloading the slide deck and obtaining the certificate of attendance. This information is accessible via the 'welcome' widget, which can be opened by clicking the loudspeaker icon on the screen. The speaker further encourages the audience to explore various icons at the bottom of the screen to discover additional tools and functionalities available during the session.
• 01:30 - 02:00: Annie’s Background and Overview of Anti-Oppressive Theories The chapter introduces Annie Pollinson, who holds a PhD in ethics and social work from Denver Fall University. This section focuses on Annie’s background and provides an overview of anti-oppressive theories. There is a brief mention of additional resources linked for further exploration of the topic and sign-up information for subsequent parts of the series.
• 02:00 - 02:30: Media and Scholarly Attention on Trans Youth The chapter discusses the media and scholarly attention on transgender youth, with a focus on anti-oppressive theories and ethical practice in social work. A professor from the University of Montreal who specializes in these areas is highlighted. She applies her methodologies to better understand the oppression and resistance experiences of trans youth and their families. Additionally, she is a co-founder of Gender Creative Kids Canada and co-editor of a book on supporting trans youth.
• 02:30 - 04:00: Understanding Basic Concepts: Sex, Gender Identity, Sexual Orientation, and Gender Expression The chapter introduces the essential concepts of sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, and gender expression, setting the stage for understanding gender diversity. It emphasizes the importance of addressing these topics in the context of transgender and gender creative youth, highlighting the role of schools, families, and communities in providing support and taking action. The section aims to create a dynamic learning experience, acknowledging the differences in presenting to a group compared to traditional methods. The speaker expresses eagerness to convey these foundational ideas effectively in this setting.
• 04:00 - 04:30: Gender Identity and Trans Youth The chapter explores the concept of gender identity focusing on trans youth. It aims to establish a common understanding of the lives of young trans individuals. This chapter serves as a precursor to a more in-depth exploration scheduled for the next meeting, where various current researches on trans youth, both in Montreal and globally, will be discussed.
• 04:30 - 05:30: Understanding Child Development in Trans Youth The chapter delves into the theme of exploring how family dynamics and broader community issues play a crucial role in the development and well-being of trans youth. It highlights the importance of social work in enhancing both individual and collective well-being by addressing these foundational aspects. The chapter sets the stage for a deeper exploration of the interconnectedness between individual challenges and wider social concerns.
• 05:30 - 07:00: Prevalence of Trans Youth and Diverse Experiences The chapter delves into the growing visibility and discussions surrounding transgender youth in Canada, notably from 2012 and 2013 onwards. It highlights the increased media coverage, policy documentation, and academic scrutiny regarding gender diversity among young individuals. The document aims to enhance understanding and improve interventions for trans youth experiences.
• 07:00 - 09:30: Discussion on Gender Transition and Dysphoria The chapter centers around the complexities and sensitivities associated with gender transition and dysphoria. It highlights the consensus acknowledgement of the transgender community as a vulnerable population with unique needs that are often poorly understood by not just social workers, but also by numerous professional groups. There's an emphasis on recognizing that the needs of transgender individuals can vary widely based on several factors, including their age and geographical or social context. The chapter calls for a nuanced understanding and approach when discussing or addressing transgender experiences.
• 09:30 - 10:00: The Problem of Non-Acceptance and Transphobia The chapter discusses the diverse experiences of individuals from different classes and cultural backgrounds, emphasizing that these should not be viewed as uniform or monolithic. It highlights the lack of services available to young people facing these issues and the barriers they encounter in accessing necessary support. The chapter also references a webinar series that addresses these concepts in more detail.
• 10:00 - 11:00: Intervention Models and Gender Affirming Model The chapter discusses the importance of understanding different concepts related to trans youth: sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, and gender expression. It emphasizes the need to distinguish between these terms as they have distinct meanings and implications in both medical and legal contexts. The discussion begins with the concept of sex, explaining it as a medical legal category commonly assigned at birth. The chapter likely continues to explore how these concepts interact and influence the experiences of transgender youth.
• 11:00 - 12:00: Principles and Goals of the Gender Affirming Model The chapter titled 'Principles and Goals of the Gender Affirming Model' explores how the assignment of sex at birth, often based on external sexual organs, significantly affects an individual's legal identity. This assignment impacts various pieces of identification, including birth certificates, highlighting that sex is not only a medical but also a legal category.
• 12:00 - 13:00: Outcomes of Affirmation and Transition Paths This chapter discusses the complexities of gender identification and expression across different provinces, particularly focusing on how gender affects civil life and identification. It highlights that gender is not just determined by physical attributes like genitals but also by how individuals express and communicate their gender identity within their culture.
• 13:00 - 14:30: Impact of Social Acceptance and Parental Support The chapter discusses the concept of gender expression, highlighting that individuals may choose to express their gender in feminine, masculine, or diverse ways. It emphasizes that gender expression varies among individuals and may not always align with society's prescribed gender roles. Additionally, an individual's gender expression might not necessarily reflect their personal gender identity. The chapter underscores the flexibility and variability in the way people express their gender.
• 14:30 - 15:30: Facilitating Gender Affirmative Practice in Social Work In this chapter, the concept of gender identity and its distinction from sexual orientation is discussed. It is emphasized that gender identity and sexual orientation are different aspects of a person's identity. Gender identity refers to how individuals perceive and express their gender, while sexual orientation pertains to the physical and emotional attraction towards others. The chapter highlights that these identities can vary widely among individuals, and understanding this diversity is crucial for facilitating gender affirmative practices in social work.
• 15:30 - 18:00: Presentation Conclusion and Audience Q&A This chapter explores the concept of gender identity, explaining it as a deeply personal experience that may or may not align with the sex assigned at birth. The speaker emphasizes that only individuals can define their own gender identity, using an example where a person assigned male at birth feels like a female internally. The chapter stresses the notion of a personal relationship with oneself in determining gender identity, also including a citation from Erenza on "core gender."

Working with trans youth and their families - Part 1: Basic Concepts Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 foreign hi everyone and welcome to the first webinar in this series on working with trans Youth and their families so I'm Sally guy I'm the director of policy here at the Canadian Association of Social Workers and we're really thankful that uh Dr Annie Poland saufesso is offering the series for social workers across Canada So Yesterday of course was both the national day of the child and also the transgender day of remembrance uh which is a time to remember all those lost to
• 00:30 - 01:00 transphobia violence and Prejudice and the time to commit to doing better in the future um so it does feel fitting that today that knowing that education and understanding is a small piece of the puzzle in fighting Prejudice that we're offering this webinar to help folks learn a bit more about trans youth their Futures better clearly this is a topic of Interest we've got just about 500 folks signed up today for the live event and this first session is going to be very broad
• 01:00 - 01:30 um it's going to have time for audience questions at the end and every question is a good question before I introduce Annie properly there are some housekeeping details to go over so the information you need how to download slide deck how to get your certificate of attendance all that information is written down in the welcome widget you can access that by clicking on the loudspeaker icon at the bottom of your screen I also encourage you to take a second just click on the different icons at the bottom and different tools are going to pop up you can see that you can drag or
• 01:30 - 02:00 resize all the boxes on your screen now so you could for instance minimize me and make the slide deck bigger um also take a look at the resources in the widget I've linked some of the stuff that Annie is going to be talking about I've also linked the sign up Pages for part two and three of the series in case you hadn't signed up yet so with that it's time to introduce Annie properly Annie polinson Festival holds a PhD in ethics and social work from Denver fall University in the UK and she is a full
• 02:00 - 02:30 professor of social work at the University of Montreal and her work focuses on the development of anti-oppressive theories and approaches that promote ethical and emancipatory practice and social work and then applying those methodologies towards better understanding the experiences of Oppression and resistance of trans Youth and their families she is one of the co-founders of gender Creative Kids Canada which I link to in the resources widget so you can find their website and she's also the co-editor of the book supporting
• 02:30 - 03:00 transgender and gender creative youth schools families and community in action so with that we are really excited to have you here Annie and I will pass it over to you thank you hello everyone um so I will not repeat the introduction I'm really pleased to be here today I'm going to try to make it uh Dynamic although it's a little bit different than having an old days in front but today it's really about looking at basic
• 03:00 - 03:30 concept so we can all get to a general and common understanding trans youth life of a young person and this is going to take us at the next meeting to understanding more in depth the different experiences of trans youth we're going to go through different research that are currently being undertaken in Montreal but also across
• 03:30 - 04:00 Canada and we are going to finish uh this web series by looking at families and why we decided to organize that this way is that in social work we're really about trying to enhance individual and Collective well-being and it is you know we all know that often individual difficulties are rooted in you know broader issues such as family and community so we felt that it was really important to really explore the
• 04:00 - 04:30 experience over and Beyond transcript to be able to make sense and intervene more efficiently so I am sure everyone has noticed that over the past few years probably 2012 13 in Canada we've started to see a lot of media talking about trans youth a lot of policy documents we are seeing more and more scholarly Journal about gender diverse and trans children and young people I think from this document we can we can
• 04:30 - 05:00 understand there's a consensus about the fact that this can be a very vulnerable population and that they've got needs that are often poorly understood uh not only by social worker by by but by broader kind of professional uh groups we also need to make sure we understand that their need vary greatly so often we're going to refer to transitive experience but we need to take into consideration that depending whether youth is situated uh whether their age
• 05:00 - 05:30 or whether their class or whether you know their cultural background their experience will really vary so we don't want to see it as a monolithical experience so I'm going to try to bring the emphasis on that as we move and there is um you know a real lack of services for those young people and they continue to face many barriers in accessing them so I've spoke about the webinar Series so in three part basic concept today
• 05:30 - 06:00 so if you want to understand um you know the experience of trans youth we need to start understanding that sex is not the same then gender identity and it's not the same in sexual orientation and it's not the same than gender expression so the first thing is really to understand what those concepts are and how they interact with one another so when we talk about sex normally we're going to talk about a medical legal category that is when we have a child at
• 06:00 - 06:30 Birth we're going to examine the child and often assign a sex based on um you know external sexual organ but what's important to know is that this assign adverse sex is going to have a really big impact on a legal category that people will carry through different piece of ID through their birth certificate so that's why the sex is a medical and legal category and currently
• 06:30 - 07:00 in most promises we've got an m and an F but we're going to also have like the act in some provinces so the sex is really basically made of almonds grenades genitals but also I've got a link with the way we're going to live our civil life through ID when we talk about gender expression we talk about the way that a person is going to act and communicate gender within a given culture so everyone here
• 07:00 - 07:30 has got a gender expression some people might decide to express it more in a feminine way some people might decide to express it in a more masculine way but everyone will have different gender expression and they are usually they might be or may not be consistent with socially prescribed gender roles in society and they might or might not reflect our own gender identity I.E I could feel I identify as a women but I
• 07:30 - 08:00 could express my gender identity differently my gender expression differently sorry then we've got the sexual orientation which is the physical and emotional attraction we might have towards some other people and then it's something that is totally different from gender identity and I'm not going to get into the detail but we've got different sexual orientation different people with different gender identity may have different sexual orientation and it's not at all the same so when we talk about gender identity
• 08:00 - 08:30 what it is it is a profound personal experience that person experience it can correspond or not to the sex assigned at Birth for example a person can have a m a sign at Birth but deep inside their cell feel like a women feel like a female so basically the gender identity is our own personal relationship to oneself it's only ourselves we can Define who we identify and I've put a citation here from erenza who say that our core gender
• 08:30 - 09:00 identity lies between our doesn't lie not between our legs but between our ears so it's the messages from our brain okay and the gender identity so it's really the way that we see each other we see ourselves it's our own identity and we could talk about different type of identity and I'm sure you will all agree that one's identity can only be defined by the person themselves I cannot Define someone else's identity only the person can Define how they feel about themselves
• 09:00 - 09:30 and when we talk about gender identity we should be careful to understand that basically gender identity is not necessarily something that is binary so we often talk about being feeling female or male but there's a right range of of gender identity that can be non-binary so that's mean that you could feel both neither or you could feel somewhere in between when we talk about someone who is a trans youth well it's a young person
• 09:30 - 10:00 that's a that has a gender identity that is different from their sex assign adverb so it's not always someone who will feel completely the opposite it's just someone who will feel that their gender identity is different from what we assign them at Birth so it could be someone who's been assigned male at Birth but feel like a female or vice versa or all sort of different gender identity and as I said only a person can assert their gender identity uh we will see it a bit later but when
• 10:00 - 10:30 we talk about a child we're going to also often see uh persistence insistence and consistence in that in in their expression of identity so they will often come back to that but we'll talk about it a bit later so here you've got a little gender unicorn that explains a little bit better how gender identity gender expression sex of fun at Birth attraction and emotion can play in you know in everyone so everyone could be
• 10:30 - 11:00 that little gender unicorn so everyone will have some sort of like physical attraction which is represented by the little heart the little um rainbow represent the way you feel within yourself then you've got like the little sex chromosome at the bottom and then you've got like a little Green Dot that represents the expression and so everyone can find themselves on those little dots and so everyone can find themselves on the on on the web of the gender unicorn so basically everyone is
• 11:00 - 11:30 different so when we look at the experience of trans children we need to look at the Child Development I am sure some of you have done a little bit of child development theory at University during the training we often have the classic views of Piaget and Goldberg's theory that will focus on stage of development of the child when we work with trans Youth and I think generally speaking we
• 11:30 - 12:00 started to criticize more and more of those Theory I'm not going to get into the detail but for example we know that Goldsboro theory has been developed just with a sample of mail so it is not applicable worldwide and it's not applicable to everyone so basically today we do not believe that there's a fixed stage of universal path and we need to understand children a little bit differently what we know though in terms of like transgender children is that most of
• 12:00 - 12:30 them will identify the agenda by the age of three and the same will happen for children while socially transition when we talk about a child who is socially transition we are referring to a child who have expressed their gender identity and who have been allowed by the family to live their authentic gender identity so that is a child that perhaps could be assigned female at Birth but is allowed to express live their identity as a male
• 12:30 - 13:00 for example which is a very binary example but just to give you an example so you can see here that the gender identity can be affirmed very early I mean Diana runs off even talking about the age of two what we know also is that nearly 30 percent of trans youth knew about their gender identity before the age of eight so often people are asking is it too young to know the answer is no because people know about their genderity and
• 13:00 - 13:30 gender identity very young when is question of a child that is not trans so we will talk about the child that is cisgender those children affirm their identity from the age of two I'm sure if yourself think about when did you know you were who you are you will be able to say that it was very early on so when we look at the experience of trans youth we know that most of them knew from very early on some of them will know between the age
• 13:30 - 14:00 of 8 and 11 and some other a little bit later it's not because the child realized that they are trans or that they identify otherwise from their gender assigned at Birth that they are not trained as I said the gender identity it's only the person can Define it themselves you need to understand also that not everyone will be able to express their gender identity to others so we often see that children I I still do work with with children in in Montreal with a family of children in Montreal and
• 14:00 - 14:30 there's some children or from their gender identity really young some other not why is that that often we have like barrier to expressing the gender identity we know for example that from preschool age pressure of gender stereotype and to comply is very important for example 65.2 percent of transgender and gender questioning youth in a study did not tell anyone before they answer a question a survey at around 15 and 16
• 14:30 - 15:00 years old so basically a lot of young people may feel that they identify otherwise than their sex assigned at Birth but they will not tell people there's also a very important fear of rejection or threat of violence there's some young people who are very very worried about coming out to their parents for example this is something we're going to discuss more in detail next week during the other webinar but there's some young people who have waited and waited to do a coming out to their parents because they were very
• 15:00 - 15:30 worried about the reaction they would have so it's not because a young person expressed their gender identity later on so I think that's something that they always right prevalence I I've put a little um citation from from a research with parents here let's say that transient and the children are like baby pigeons they exist but nobody seems to notice them I don't know if you have ever noticed
• 15:30 - 16:00 baby pigeon someone on the street but they're very rare but it's not because we don't see them that they're not there so basically there's a lot of transgender children but we don't just see them so I think we've got to to realize that that it's a population that is often invisible um to know how many trans you for Trans children like this we need to first of all Define what it is to be trans and as I said it's only the person who can Define you know who they are so
• 16:00 - 16:30 it's very difficult to have like a statistic I mean the statistic could be much higher there's people who would not want to say it in a survey so we've got to take those numbers with very much care but according to um some some new surveys we're talking that about 0.7 and 1.3 percent of children would be trans so it is quite a lot of young people when we look at like the population in general and over that
• 16:30 - 17:00 we need to add about two percent to 2.5 percent of young people who would be questioning their gender or being gender non-conforming so all in all it is like just under five percent it is a very diverse population I've mentioned it earlier in terms of age in terms of culture in terms of gender gender identity social economic make income parental support so not every young people experience the same thing but there is quite a lot of young people but sometimes we don't see them because they
• 17:00 - 17:30 might not come out to us by by fear of not being supported or maybe they will decide that they live stealth so sometimes it's not because we don't see you know a population that they don't take this is it a phase or stable identity there's been a lot of questions about that and for a long time we have the study have told us that basically a
• 17:30 - 18:00 large percentage of children who identified as trans were going to not pursue as trans when they grow up so this is studies that were built like early 90s here you've got like a citation of soccer um was talking about a large percentage of these children would basically desist however more and more we know that what we would call a detransition rate are very very very small
• 18:00 - 18:30 there's been um lots of critique of those earlier studies in terms of methodological interpretative theoretical and ethical flaws we can give you some some reference to read yourself if you want about that I'm not going to go too much into detail but um some of the critique was for example that not every children that were enrolled on those study those study were really actually trans there's been like some children who are not
• 18:30 - 19:00 aware of the participation of the study and there's other ethical flaws that could be raised so you can go to read the studies about that I think what is important to know is that the um the rate is actually quite low if we look at the a new study a study from 2014 from the rise out of 70 young people who started a omen treatment have continued where their transition into adulthood there's none of the participant who
• 19:00 - 19:30 reported regret during puberty suppression or treatment or after gender affirming surgery so there's basically very little children young people decided not to carry in with the transition and I was actually in Argentina um a couple of weeks ago and there were new study actually from from the UK we look at a number of patients 303 patient adult photos but basically the
• 19:30 - 20:00 transition rate is very very little so we need to be very careful with that and again it's not about thinking that um there might be some detransition rate but more about taking the person where they are but I just wanted to kind of name those things because sometimes it's a question what about if the child changed am I why why should we support them not knowing what the outcome would be well it's not about the outcome it's more about how the child feel at the moment that they express and gender identity we'll talk about it a little
• 20:00 - 20:30 bit later what we know is that transgender children are supported by their family and socially they have a strong consistent and embedded identity as young gender children are cisgender children as I said they are children who are basically identifying um the same within their sex assigned at Birth so basically when we support a child when there's a child who
• 20:30 - 21:00 transition who decide that we account I need to to live according to their own authentic gender identity basically that child will have like a really strong identity and so debate persist but policy document and research they will more and more support the affirmation of the child's identity so basically what does that mean is that the more and more the policy document and the research evolve
• 21:00 - 21:30 we know that the best way to intervene with those children is really to go with their Rhythm and affirm them in their true identity you will probably hear about terms called gender dysphoria gender dysphoria is a diagnosis that we are from the DSM-5 so in social work we might not use that diagnosis because we don't diagnose people but it's still important to know
• 21:30 - 22:00 and it can describe the distress that some people experience because of an incongruence between their sex and their gender identity so you might experience dysphoria because you feel distressed because the way you feel does not fit with the way that you look so that would be gender dysphoria and it's often an experience that will be created um by by this feeling of incongruence but I think it's important to also more and more to talk about social dysphoria which is a distress caused by people or
• 22:00 - 22:30 institution not recognizing us as a person or not recognizing our gender identity so I'll give you an example you know if you go to uh social services or a Health Service place and you you say hi if I'm presenting myself as you know I am this is the data and someone say no you missed her that would create social dysphoria so basically she'll shove this for you as this is the distress caused
• 22:30 - 23:00 by people not recognizing who you are and it can it's very very violent it has an experience and it's very alienating as experience in kids we'll often notice the persistence the insistence and the consistence in the articulation of their gender identity so and and basically not all children will experience the agent the gender dysphoria so there's children who will be you know supported and who they are and they will grow up and they will feel totally comfortable with their body so it's important to understand
• 23:00 - 23:30 that not all trans children and young people will say I feel really uncomfortable with my body so it's really an interaction between the trans person and what's going on around them and often to alleviate dysphoria some people might have access to different forms of transition so these different form of transition they are to help the person to align better their authentic gender self to uh the way they feel so there's different type of gender transition so we can talk about first of
• 23:30 - 24:00 all uh while start by the social transition because the younger children often will go through that first and social transition is about just starting to live as their true gender self so often the the person the child might start changing the way they look they might dress in the com in the clothes that's the most comfortable for them they might change their hair if they are a bit younger they might use makeup or decide to kind of you know present themselves otherwise and they might also
• 24:00 - 24:30 change their pronoun and they might change their name as well in every sphere of their life so basically that's a social transition some people will Define Pluto or is a legal transition so that means that they will ask um the um the office for civil civil status here in Quebec it's the uh yes this place where you get you keep the birth certificate basically to have a gender change on the birth certificate and that would have like an impact a really important
• 24:30 - 25:00 impact on all the other piece of ID so basically basically a legal change would be to change your sex marker from M to f f to M unfortunately we count there's no there's no place for non-binary identities at the moment except if I'm not mistaken in British Columbia where we can have X but most places still it's going to be just like the change between M and F or F and M so that would be the legal transition and then some people
• 25:00 - 25:30 will go through medical transition and we need to remember that not all those type of transition are uh you know you don't need to do any of these medical or social or legal transition to be trans again as I said it's only the person who can decide how they feel and what's the best for them but some people will decide to have access to Medical transition and that would involve in adolescence perhaps um you know delaying puberty
• 25:30 - 26:00 um with blockers for example or using almonds to to get more feminine or masculine characteristic and it could go up to surgery but again it is not necessarily to have a surgery to transition so these are the different type of transition that a person could have and they are very important because the can improve the gender or the social dysphoria so being trans is not at all a problem
• 26:00 - 26:30 the expression of gender characteristic including identities are not stereotypically associated with one ethics sign at verb as is it's common and it's culturally diverse human phenomenon that should not be judged as inherently pathological or negative so this is from the world Professional Association of transgender Health that is made of the membership of this Association it's made of trans people but also researcher and clinician who
• 26:30 - 27:00 are specializing the field of trans trans health and basically you know they State basically that it's really not a problem but it's really what's happening around the person that's going to cause all that distress so trans and gender variant identities are not a medical or psychological diversity of gender is not the result of a disease nor of a parent in style so this is from the Canadian pedicures Pediatric Society 2018 so basically you know since the beginning since very long since a long
• 27:00 - 27:30 long way you know there's always been uh children and young people who are of diverse gender and I think what caused the problem is really the way we see gender in our society and you know we force people to adopt like a very binary way of experiencing their gender and living it but in many culture uh for example in in many indigenous culture uh the um you know be spiritual people where not only existing but also
• 27:30 - 28:00 celebrated and put in different roles that were really important in society so I think you know in in contemporary Western Society we tend to maybe talk less about trans people but it's always being people trying people always being there so beyond social dysphoria we can find a non-acceptance and transphobia in society is generally what cause a lot of problems to trans people and so we know
• 28:00 - 28:30 that generalized absence of social acceptability of trans Youth and transgender identity more generally cause the problem it's the experience of stigma and transphobia that will cause a psychological distress and low self-esteem um we could refer also to the minority stress Theory which will explain the health disparity in sexual minority including trans people because of the stress that is caused by transphobic and nostal environment which in turn will
• 28:30 - 29:00 affect physical and mental health outcome you know if you live in a place where you're not accepted obviously it's going to have an impact on your well-being and your on your level of stress so there's a real real strong impact of the social on the individual and we'll see next week when we talk about Trends you've experienced it's very easy to try some of the different social environments how they can impact on The Young Person's well-being we'll talk for example of of the young people
• 29:00 - 29:30 when they're not supported by their families how it has a negative impact on their health so if we look at the intervention model to work with children and family there's three approaches to working with them that can be found in the literature there's a model of the living your own skin this is a watchful waiting model and the gender affirmative affirmative model the living your own skin I think is more and more criticized in the literature
• 29:30 - 30:00 um you see here this is that a citation from the blood Professional Association of transgender Health that say that treatment aim at trying to change a person's gender identity and expression to become more congruent with the sex assigned at Birth as being adapted in the past without success particularly in the long term social treatment is no longer considered ethical so here the W path refer to the models live in your own skin model which basically would uh
• 30:00 - 30:30 you know try to work with a child and make them accept the fact that they've got like a sex assigned at Birth and that gender identity should fit within that so this model is now considered very unethical but I wanted to mention that it has been around and you know there might be some professional who still try to apply it but it is unethical and it's an abuse of power actually Canadian Association of Social Work has made a very strong statement on that there's also
• 30:30 - 31:00 um the watchful waiting model which basically was thinking okay we might not want to support the child to transition I would just wait and see what's happening so it does not serve the channel because critical support is withheld so if you say you know yes you might be trans you might not be transful just wait you're not giving the support that the child need at the moment as they're growing up so watchful waiting is based on a binary notion of gender in which gender diversity and Trinity is
• 31:00 - 31:30 pathologized in watchful waiting it is also assumed that notion of gender identity become fixed at a certain age so most robots research and current research suggests that rather than focusing on who the child will become valuing them for who they are even at a young age Foster secure attachment and resilience not only for the child but also for the whole family so basically the gender affirming model is the model that is uh the model that we social
• 31:30 - 32:00 privilege is the model that basically will follow the chance lead and will follow what the child will follow the child's expression of their gender identity and will just be around to support that gender identity whatever it is knowing that it might change and it might evolve with time but not focusing on the outcome but just on the moment that the child is experiencing so the basic principle and goals of the
• 32:00 - 32:30 gender affirming model first of all we need to understand that gender variations are not Disorder so we know that gender is not something that is binary yes there might be some people who feel very female some other may feel very male but there's a wide range of ways of expressing gender and feeling gender so there's people who are gender non-binary and it's not a disorder to feel different
• 32:30 - 33:00 gender presentation are diverse and varied across culture requiring cultural sensitivity so basically we understand that even in the western model there's multi-gender fix as male and female this is not across all culture and we need to respect that people might Express their gender identity differently even within one culture gender involved interweaving over time of biology development and socialization
• 33:00 - 33:30 and culture in context so basically we know that gender is not the same as gender identity is not the same as sex so we need to be careful about that and that it might develop differently from one person to another we also know that gender may be fluid and it's not always binary it can be fluid across like a lifespan as well it's not because at eight years old the child affirm a certain gender that that person will affirm the same gender later
• 33:30 - 34:00 on so it might be fluid it might evolve if present individual psychological and psychiatric problem are more often than not secondary to negative interpersonal and cultural reaction to a child so as we said often when a child is um you know um is experiencing some difficulty it's not because of their trans identity but because of the way that people interact around that child and because that identity might be pathologized and
• 34:00 - 34:30 because the child might experience stigma discrimination and violence for P for being who they are and gender pathology lies more in culture than in the child you know what makes um a child not being accepted for who they are when they start expressing their gender differently from their sex assigned at Birth it's because societies say that there's just two gender so basically it is real it's really the cultural pressure that will affect and
• 34:30 - 35:00 make people think that it's a pathology more than the the child itself so it is not a pathology it's really something that is built culturally so the goal of the affirming model is to facilitate an authentic gender self so it's really to follow the child's lead and accept and celebrate children for who they are whatever the gender they express or they identify with it's to also alleviate gender stress and
• 35:00 - 35:30 distress this can go through very different ways and we're going to talk about it in the different uh in the other webinar but yet alleviating stress or distress might mean uh having to work really closely with the school to make sure that the child can express their gender identity as they please in the school it might mean also having to change a structure in different environment um it might need and this is where
• 35:30 - 36:00 social work can be very helpful because we don't work with just people we work also with environment but one of the goal of the affirming model will be to really try to alleviate that gender stress and distress by changing the structure that are stigmatizing and transphobic and not supportive into something that is more adapted to every single child whatever their gender it's also going to be to build gender resilience this is going to happen a lot
• 36:00 - 36:30 by affirming the gender identity and so that the person the child can feel that you know they are they can build a good self-esteem they can feel good about themselves and they can feel that they're respected for their own gender and it's also about securing social support to make sure that the child has got the support they need to be able to experience their own gender affirming gender identity so more robust and current research
• 36:30 - 37:00 suggest that rather than focusing on who a child will become valuing them for who they are even at a young age Foster secure attachment and resilience not only for the child but also for the whole family so we'll see it's very very important that we work with both especially when they're little there's not much to do with the child apart from celebrating for who they are we need to work with the whole family so that family become accepting and also that the family can be resilient to social
• 37:00 - 37:30 pressure that might you know make barrier for for the child's well-being we can facilitate the the gender affirming model by a different type of transition as I said by legal in changing the gender marker on birth certificate civil document social by adopting gender expression coherent to authentic gender identity user pronoun named reflect this or by medical use of privacy blocker almonds or the surgery and it's important as I said to know
• 37:30 - 38:00 that not everyone will decide to go through any type of transition and we just need to follow what the person wants to do so basically the concept of informed consent the concept of self-determination are very important to working with trans Youth and their families sorry about the dog um that's very disturbing okay Social Work intervention and gender affirming practice oh gosh sorry
• 38:00 - 38:30 I'm very sorry about that so Social Work intervention and gender affirming practice so we will try to work towards getting intervention among young person among family and also will
• 38:30 - 39:00 try to develop social and structural level intervention and all of that will be in the aim of facilitating long-term change so here you can see some resources to the Joint statement for social work practice with trans youth that was adopted both by the Canadian Association of Social Work educator and the Canadian Association of Social Work and also I invite you to visit the web Repertory of
• 39:00 - 39:30 the Quebec Association of social worker but it's only in French so I think we're going to take some question now we said we're going to teach about 40 minutes I'm sorry there's a postman Sally
• 39:30 - 40:00 tell you I can't hear you all right um thank you Annie for the presentation and uh I've already got questions coming in and but there's still time to type them in so if you
• 40:00 - 40:30 haven't yet you still can and I can add them to the list so um I want to go back to the beginning presentation because I've gotten a number of questions about the the Unicorn graphic that you feel best um yeah people are asking if you could explain a little bit more about what a non-binary gender Luxor and specifically the question that has come up a lot is could you explain a bit more about what a private gender is yes so I like that little gender unicorn
• 40:30 - 41:00 because if you look at gender identity the first uh the first the first category at the top you see you can have towards more female women and girls towards more male men and boys and towards other if you want to have good reading about a different gender identity there's the book of um from Diane evenzer who explained different ways of explaining expressing gender but you talk about some people who might feel both male and female or they might
• 41:00 - 41:30 feel neither and I know that it might be a little bit different different difficult to grasp uh when you are a binary person because you have no reference in your own person to understand that but we need to understand that gender is very constructed in a my in a binary way in in our in our society so for many people there's just two options either we mail or with female but when we think about that there's really many different ways
• 41:30 - 42:00 of expressing that gender identity if you are really listening to who you are maybe someday you're feeling more men sometimes maybe you feel more women maybe that doesn't happen to you but it's not because it doesn't happen to one person that it can't happen to other persons so basically we need to understand that that concept of like being just female or male is very westernized as concept and that gender identity because it's different from the
• 42:00 - 42:30 uh the sex assigned at Birth basically there's many other ways of of of of living it she talks about for example uh gender priors gender gender smoothie only the person can really Define how they feel in terms of their gender identity I don't know if that answer the question a little bit um
• 42:30 - 43:00 so mate from Ontario is asking a question um I've heard parents use the information that gender can protected throughout life it's important the idea that or surgery shouldn't be supported so what's a good response to that well I would say that only the person can Define what they need for themselves it's sure that you know there's the question of consent you know first of all surgery I'll not accept they're not accessible
• 43:00 - 43:30 um you know before the age of majority sometimes what some type of surgery it might be like late teenager you know like 17 16 like Top surgery things like that but you know surgeries you're not good the person is not going to have access to that before they are really able to make their own decisions so I think we just need to follow again the person's lead you know only the person can decide what's best for them and maybe what they need it's not what we see as person as something you know
• 43:30 - 44:00 you you could you could um you could feel like a women and you just need to feel you just need to follow the person's lead that's the that's the only principle we need to to go when they are younger person even if gender is fluid well because gender risks do it we should we should even more follow them and and try not to kind of place them into a gender binary so you know because you need to remember that you know when
• 44:00 - 44:30 they are young the children they often um will Express their gender through you know clothing through through through uh through toys through things through through play and so basically you know just to follow that it's it's just going to help the child understand themselves better and and feel that they can be really themselves so you know if we look at clothes you know if a child was assigned a female at Birth and really like male masculine clothing even the
• 44:30 - 45:00 child is fluid and carry on to Define their gender identity through time there's nothing wrong with offering them the type of gender clothing that they they feel the most comfortable I I like to tell people try to imagine yourself if you were forced to go to work every every day with you know aperol with like clothing that don't fit who you are really and day after day we force you to wear some clothes that don't fit with who you are inside I mean you can see
• 45:00 - 45:30 very rapidly how you would feel bad and you wouldn't be able to focus on the important stuff for example what you need to learn at school so even if you've got like a child that is very gender fluid I think the message is the same and it's about following the child's lead and making sure that they've got access to what they need to be able to flourish and express themselves
• 45:30 - 46:00 and not just the way of being yeah I mean gender dysphoria it's not being trans gender dysphoria is a distress that come
• 46:00 - 46:30 when you feel that maybe some characteristic don't fit with your gender identity so some people experiencing gender dysphoria may need to have access to Medical medical transition because this is the way that they will feel better so you know it's uh again it's about it's it's not just about social dysphoria it's not about just gender dysphoria I think it's about it's about both and really make sure that the person with us
• 46:30 - 47:00 has got all the different access to services that they need to be able to themselves they find what is the main concern here is the main concern because you know is is the main concern of a trans youth here um the stress caused by the fact that they realize their voice is getting deeper and because they're starting to notice you know hair in their face and or because they developing breasts or
• 47:00 - 47:30 because they got Menses is that the main you know cause for distress because they feel that there's an incongruence between who they feel really and what their body is telling them or is it because the child the the person the young person is confronted every day to people not wanting to use the right pronoun or not you know um really um you know respecting
• 47:30 - 48:00 the name I mean you know we should be respecting I mean one of them one important cause for the stress of young people we're going to talk about it more next week but um it's it's about not having their name or pronoun um you know recognize so it's been misgendered and you know I think the wrong name and the wrong pronoun used over and over so this is like what we see in terms of like social dysphoria people refusing to honor people's
• 48:00 - 48:30 identity so I think it's really kind of a mix of both although as I said gender dysphoria is really a diagnostic kind of term from the DSM it doesn't take away the experience that some people have um this is a bit more practical the few people asking if you could explain a bit more those three terms we use persistence insistence and consistency yeah okay again we don't want to use
• 48:30 - 49:00 that as a diagnostic tool yeah so it's not a way to diagnose people because basically if you say whatever the child becomes it will become they will become you don't even have to worry about that but often you will see that some children you know people say oh is that a phase you know is my chance of going through a phase often what you will see that some kids will will be very persistent in expressing a certain
• 49:00 - 49:30 gender very insistent in the Woody expressing it and very consistent as well through the time in expressing it so that's what we say but it's not you know even if you've got a child that is just experiencing with different like genders gendered toys or you know gendered clouds it doesn't mean that you should not follow them so what I'm saying is that we need I think to stop focusing on the outcome
• 49:30 - 50:00 you know there's no one can predict 100 of what the person will become so it's not that I'm focusing on the outcome but more focusing on what the child need at the moment what the child needs at the time we are working with them um my next one is more practice oriented um she says I'm working with a friend Hughes who's living in a group home everyone's
• 50:00 - 50:30 calling me pronouns and the mom is trying very hard to come to terms with this that's having difficulty due to grieving her child and Mom is therapy yes um well I mean we we have a current study um actually on on the experience of parents and so this is something that we see in about we saw that in about a
• 50:30 - 51:00 third of the sample uh parents experiencing a lot of grief reading process through their Channel and I think what seems to help is you know I mean it's always a balance between honoring the identity of the kids and taking the space to you know to grieve and to do to go through your process I would say that you know you can go through your process but you should still even if it's difficult with the mom you should try to put the best of interest of the child and still honor
• 51:00 - 51:30 the gender identity of that child okay because in the end we know that kids were supported by their parents and that they've got like they are they are respected in their gender identity um I'll go back to the health outcome yeah so so we'll talk about it next week but this is like something we know at the same time we know that some parents are struggling and to have them showing sometimes we need time to do that but we also need a lot of Education we need to to be able to give parents a lot of
• 51:30 - 52:00 accurate information and that often will help them to come to term uh with with the idea that their child is trans and also give them access to different support either peer support there's fantastic group across Canada there's a Facebook group that is mainly in English speaking but it's called a Canadian parents of gender diverse and trans children this is a if you look on Facebook it's a massive group of parents
• 52:00 - 52:30 so peer support might help the person be able to kind of go to normalize the experience that they've got and also sometimes it's to seek professional help so to have access to you know a psychologist or a therapist to to out through that reading process but I would say you know I think it's about educating the parents and say yes it's difficult yes we know some parents I've got issues accepting it but think about the importance of affirming your kids identity because there's such an
• 52:30 - 53:00 improvement in mental health when this is done right um another kind of a practice oriented question um Janae from Albertson do you have suggestions for sponsoring Acceptance in the classroom of young trans children and you're thinking like ages four to nine that's a good question I think it's a creating space
• 53:00 - 53:30 for every children to exist you know it's it's about it's about creating its amount trying to um develop activities where things are not necessarily gender all the time I know in class we we often kind of I mean I don't know if it's like that across Canada but I know that we often here in my part of the country separate group Vine okay guys on one side girls on the other side and you know with two lines uh you know girls doing that activity so
• 53:30 - 54:00 try to kind of think about activities that are more gender neutral and try to also to find books and literature that is uh you know that present different model of gender uh this again perhaps at the end of that webinar put some resources in some of books for children that present different genders um there's there's um BD with like um a fantastic kind of
• 54:00 - 54:30 resources you can use for children there's also a tool that's been developed by a gender Creative Kids Canada which is called Sam it's a it's a and this thing though that talk about the child transitioning but not transitioning but not expressing their gender and the different stages of emotional development so if you go to gendercreativekids.ca you can have a look at some there's certainly a film a little short animation that is really really nice that you can present to the
• 54:30 - 55:00 kids and you know open discussion about it and say what did you see in that film you know why is Sam like dressing pink to start with and then Express like your boy later is that okay can everyone feels like that is there anybody who feels differently and you can express I think it's about building empathy in the classroom and making sure that children know that everyone is allowed to feel their own gender and feel you know differently um could you just the name of the group
• 55:00 - 55:30 the Facebook group book the Facebook group is called I think Canadian parents of trans and gender diverse children but I will check and I will give you the exact name page and it's a um it is a um a private secret group so you will find people who want to find it it's for parents right
• 55:30 - 56:00 so it's not for professional but that could be a good result and there's like a front page that can kind of screen people and then you've got like a private page for for parents support okay yeah um this one is about yeah
• 56:00 - 56:30 that it's different in two young kids sorry can you repeat the question it was not really clear to me yeah so this person is saying that they have I'm combining a few questions here but many many things what their preferred pronouns are um is there a Best practice practice
• 56:30 - 57:00 okay so I find someone because it's kind of interference there but if I understand well is like how do we how do we make sure we ask the person's pronoun yeah yeah well this is something I think you should all get into using that because we always assume and and we shouldn't assume you know I mean you can just you know start the conversation saying hi I'm Annie I you
• 57:00 - 57:30 know I I like to use female gender pronoun what about you and you know it's just to get used to that because it's not something we do one of them sometimes it might be like oh is that all right but I think you know you better to ask than assume this is based on on the conception that everyone assists gender yeah but not everyone is gender there's a lot of people who are trans and so I think it's very respectful to ask what what pronoun
• 57:30 - 58:00 people wants to use so I think when you take the initiative to present yourself saying you know I am any I like to use female pronoun or if you've got my name badge to leave a place for putting the pronoun you know that's a really inclusive uh practice and you know most people don't understand why you do that you can just explain I did that because I understand that there's a lot of trans folks around and I want to make sure I'm inclusive it's um it's such a simple answer like
• 58:00 - 58:30 it's uh so good to think about it in that way um we only have two minutes left and this isn't I thought it was like an interesting question to end on Sarah um for Manitoba is asking do you would you like to see the world move towards gender neutral names for kids do you think that matters um is it fine for kids just to choose a different name if they'll end up feeling different uh we're just interested in your perspective
• 58:30 - 59:00 hmm that's a good question I you know I I believe in choices yeah I believe in in in in in diversities and in choices you know I I don't I don't think well there's so many answers to that I personally don't think that I need to have a sex marker on my IDs to be able to express myself as a female yeah so whether on my driving license online you
• 59:00 - 59:30 know Medicare card I have no f i I would I I think you know understanding the experience of Transit that would make it so much easier for everyone if we didn't have a a a legal gender marker on every single you know because in in the end what does it represent is just like genitals you know what's on your ID is basically a representation of your genitals so for me I mean personally I don't I don't need that to affirm myself as a woman
• 59:30 - 60:00 I'm not saying that we don't need any you know I think it's about people to have the space to exist whatever that place is and I think it's about facilitating uh putting into place system where everyone can exist not just people who are cisgender and identify as female and male I don't know if it answer your question but you know for me it's it's not about having everything gender neutral it's about letting the people existing outside of those things and
• 60:00 - 60:30 changing the system so those people can exist and stop being erased because currently you know a lot of peoples are being erased in the system because it's still very binary so it's not about crashing you know everything and that does nothing existing but it's about leaving the space for everyone to be able to find it thank you I am I think that's an awesome answer um and I'm aware that we're already over
• 60:30 - 61:00 the hour also I just wanted to acknowledge the audience I've been getting all of your messages I'm so sorry I know that there was feedback uh when I was speaking to Annie um asking the questions we're really sorry about that sometimes technology friend and foe um and we'll try to get it fixed for next time uh so just so you know we are aware that we are working on it just it's hard to fix things on the fly during a live event sometimes so thank you for bearing with us and we hope that you still enjoyed it um with that I have to say a huge
• 61:00 - 61:30 another thank you to you Annie um we got so many questions today people were super engaged I think you taught us a lot and I hope everyone's looking forward to part two and part three which you can still sign up for and uh with that have a great afternoon or morning or evening depending on where you are and we'll see you next time thank you