Counseling Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Youth

When counseling youth who identify as transgender, trans, or gender nonconforming (TGNC), counselors must first understand the diverse ways in which clients might experience their gender identity and expression. Trans identities are characterized by the experience of one’s gender identity (i.e., internal sense of gender) and/or gender expression (i.e., self-presentation) differing from norms associated with their assigned sex at birth (ASAB; Bolger & Killerman, 2018). TGNC youth might identify within the gender binary (e.g., woman, transgender woman, trans woman, trans feminine person, man, transgender man, trans man, trans masculine person) while others might identify outside of binary notions of masculinity and femininity (e.g., GNC, nonbinary, genderqueer, agender, bigender, gender neutral). Additionally, some TGNC youth might or might not elect to transition in a variety of ways including social, legal, and physical/medical (Brammer & Ginicola, 2017; Chang, Singh, & dickey, 2018).