ABSTRACT
Parental support is crucial in the well-being of transgender and gender diverse (TGD) youth. Research shows that parents of TGD youth often experience stigma and negative mental health outcomes as a result of being exposed to cissexist settings as they advocate and seek services for their child. Yet, there is a lack of research on the experiences of parents of TGD youth in the United States. This study explores the reported hopes of 990 parents (Mage = 48.6 years; SD = 6.7; 88.1% White; 67.3% heterosexual; 89.4% cisgender women) of TGD youth for their children (youth ages 3-18 years) in the United States. Radical hope framework is applied to unpack narratives of hopes by parents of TGD youth as a critical component of resistance and motivation toward healing from oppression. For this study, the following open-ended question was analyzed using thematic analysis: What is your greatest hope for your child? Four main themes and 11 subthemes of parental hopes emerged: (1) living authentically (freely expressing themselves, developing self-love, living a happy and normal life), (2) interpersonal connections (finding community, building social networks and friendships, developing romantic relationships, building their own family, and loved by others), (3) meeting life milestones (career and employment, achieving goals and dreams, and becoming an advocate), and (4) acceptance by society. We provide clinical recommendations grounded on the tenets of radical hope such as collective ways in which parents of TGD youth can engage in both resisting systemic oppression and building strong loving relationships with their child. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).
ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION: Plurisexual individuals represent 50% of sexual minority adolescent communities. However, most studies of sexual minority adolescents analyze this population as a homogeneous group rather than attending to plausible differences between plurisexual and monosexual sexual minority youth. This study examined whether plurisexual Latinx youth differed from monosexual youth on three facets of sexual orientation identity (SOI) development (exploration, resolution, and affirmation). Further, we examined whether plurisexual (vs. monosexual) identity moderated the relationship between SOI development and depressive symptoms and self-esteem. METHODS: The sample included 365 Latinx sexual minority youth (14-24 years) living in the United States or US Territory. The majority of participants identified as monosexual (84.1%); 15.9% were plurisexual. The sample was 75.6% male, 19.5% female, and 2.0% transgender. Participants were asked to complete an online, cross-sectional survey that asked questions pertaining to ethnicity and sexual orientation. This data was collected in the fall of 2014. RESULTS: Latinx plurisexual youth had higher levels of SOI affirmation, exploration, and resolution than monosexual youth. SOI affirmation and exploration and were positively associated with self-esteem for all youth. SOI affirmation was significantly negatively associated with depressive symptoms for monosexual youth but not for plurisexual youth. SOI exploration and resolution were not significantly associated with depressive symptoms. CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrates that there are significant differences between plurisexual and monosexual Latinx adolescent populations in reference to identity affirmation, exploration, and resolution, and that these sexual orientations should be treated distinctly in future research. In addition, all three aspects of identity development were significantly related to higher self-esteem for all youth regardless of identity, providing evidence for the importance of developing these three factors.
