The Gender Affirmative Model: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Supporting Transgender and Gender Expansive Children

This warm and timely book provides mental health professionals with a guide to the Gender Affirmative Model, the leading approach for working with transgender and gender expansive children and their families. Using an easy-to-follow framework, readers will learn how to facilitate and enable children to live in their authentic gender with necessary social supports. The authors describe how to address distress and build resilience within children and families, while also strengthening awareness of the complex interplay of cultural factors with gender. They also address the complex psychological, social and community challenges faced by transgender and gender expansive children, as well as the potential mental health struggles that can arise as a result of bullying and more subtle forms of societal discrimination.