Caring for Transgender Adolescents

Abstract

This introductory article presents some subtle and, perhaps, controversial aspects of providing care to adolescents who identify as transgender. I will describe (1) how praise from careproviders can benefit parents who have difficulty accepting the gender identity of their child that was not assigned at birth; (2) how adolescents who identify as transgender may follow the internet advice of peers on how to "con" careproviders; (3) how it may be difficult for careproviders to decide whether to further patients' felt needs and to protect them, paternalistically, from making an irreversible decision they may later regret; and (4) how careproviders can benefit adolescents by taking the initiative to discuss sex and how to say "no." I emphasize how careproviders who see these patients, even when they have no special expertise in this area, may be able to enhance patients' equality in every respect, even when they otherwise might not choose to do so.