Date of Award

Winter 12-16-2023

Document Type

Master's Project

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Humanities

Committee Director

Amy Milligan

Abstract

Parents of transgender and non-binary children often want to support their children, but are not sure how. Giving these parents the support and resources they need will increase their ability to support their children, further increasing the chance that their children will live a long, healthy, authentic life.

I built a website, and organized a workshop that parents can attend in order to access information and resources about the transgender community. These parents will receive the support they need to be better equipped to support their gender-diverse children. I will be collecting information about the parents' feelings and experience towards their participation in the workshop and accessing the website. This information will be qualitative data that can be used to make the workshop and website better for future use.

Data shows that suicidal ideation and attempts in Transgender children is higher than their cisgender peers and the only way to decrease these numbers is to support and uplift these youth and this community. The best way to do that is to educate. The first line of defense for any child are their parents. Support needs to start in the home. However, with so many different views of gender it is hard for parents to know the best way to support their child. There are several websites parents can access when googling “transgender,” “transgender youth,” or “transgender families. These sites are great for basic terminology, links to other websites and sometimes even support groups. Groups that support and connect families with transgender family members are PFLAG, Transfamilies.org, Trevor Project and several more. There are also numerous social media pages that support transgender youth. So, why then do we need another website? Because we want our children to live. When there are still people dying, there is more to be done. One of the biggest differences in the website and workshops I am creating is the connection between parents. By giving the parents an opportunity to talk to another parent who has been through the same thing they are going through, I aim to give these parents hope that even though they don’t fully understand what their child is going through, they are still the same amazing child they have always loved.

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