A Clinician's Guide to Gender-Affirming Care: Working with Transgender and Gender-Nonconforming Clients

(Paperback)

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his comprehensive resource outlines the latest research and recommendations to provide you with the requisite knowledge, skills, and awareness to treat TNGC clients with competent and affirming care. As you know, TNGC clients have different needs based on who they are in relation to the world. Written by three psychologists who specialize in working with the TGNC population, this important book draws on the perspective that there is no one-size-fits-all approach for working with TNGC clients. It offers interventions tailored to developmental stages and situational factors-for example, cultural intersections such as race, class, and religion. This book provides up-to-date information on language, etiquette, and appropriate communication and conduct in treating TGNC clients, and discusses the history, cultural context, and ethical and legal issues that can arise in working with gender diverse individuals in a clinical setting. You'll also find information about informed consent approaches that call for a shift in the role of the mental health provider in the position of assessment and referral for the purposes of gender-affirming medical care (such as hormones, surgery, and other procedures). As changes in recent transgender health care and insurance coverage have provided increased access for a broader range of consumers, it is essential to understand transgender and gender nonconforming clients' different needs. This book provides practical exercises and skills you can use to help TNGC clients thrive.

Reviews

"As healers, we are taking on a major responsibility when we devote ourselves to helping others. It can be such an enormous gift, but it's profoundly important that we fill our souls with the best tools to meet our clients' needs. It's time for a paradigm shift, and this book provides a path to freedom from the shackles of transphobia that will revolutionize your healing practice."
--Danielle Castro, MA, MFT, research director at the Center of Excellence for Transgender Health, and the Division of Prevention Science at University of California, San Francisco--Danielle Castro, MA, MFT
"Chang, Singh, and dickey have created the essential guide for clinicians who want to dive deeper into developing and expanding their skills for affirmative gender-related care. It is practical, comprehensive, and reminds providers that competent gender-related work begins with the clinician's personal examination of their gender socialization. Experiential activities guide clinicians to dive deeper into their own socialization as they develop their clinical knowledge of gender-related and transition care. A Clinician's Guide to Gender-Affirming Care is a necessary reference for all mental health providers."
--julie graham, MFT, nationally recognized specialist in gender health care; consultant on gender-related healthcare and trauma issues for gender and sexual minorities; director of Gender Health SF--julie graham, MFT
"One of the biggest challenges to offering competent care and support to trans and other gender-diverse people is society's tendency to assume that a singular gender narrative exists. Academic research, professional association guidelines, media stories, and standards of care have too often been crafted from the individual experiences of too few. How deeply refreshing it is to find a resource that gently, persistently encourages the clinician to consider an individual's gender pathway within an ever-widening context of individuality, family, culture, and systems. A Clinician's Guide to Gender-Affirming Care supports the clinician in considering not only the intersecting identities of their patient--their age, sexuality, race, faith, and more--but for the clinician to factor themselves into the equation. This guide provides many illustrative examples of complex people in an easy-to-read format that will surely make this text a dog-eared, must-have in any clinician's practice."
--Aidan Key, K-12 gender education specialist, author, national speaker, and director of the parent support organization Gender Diversity--Aidan Key
"Packed with a wealth of case studies, historical facts, and actionable recommendations, A Clinician's Guide to Gender-Affirming Care is a powerful actualization of the authors' commitments to creating trans justice. Chang, Singh, and dickey go beyond simply compiling information to create a compelling, deeply empathetic, and effective resource that bridges the gap between helping professionals and the trans communities they serve. A must-read for all aspiring trans allies and coconspirators!"
--Lily Zheng, diversity consultant, and coauthor of Gender Ambiguity in the Workplace--Lily Zheng
"This unprecedented resource for clinicians and service providers seeking to deepen their analysis of gender and capacity to provide care to trans people is accessible, reflective, complex, thorough, and practical. A Clinician's Guide to Gender-Affirming Care situates trans mental health care in a sociopolitical context requiring practitioners to contend with the medical and mental health systems' ability to perniciously perpetuate structural violence. Finally, a comprehensive resource that gives clinicians a road map to be in deep solidarity with trans, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming people who deserve access to care rooted in dignity and justice."
--Erica Woodland, MSW, LCSW, healing justice practitioner, psychotherapist, consultant, and founding director of the National Queer and Trans Therapists of Color Network--Erica Woodland, MSW, LCSW

Author Bio

Anneliese Singh (Author)
Anneliese A. Singh, PhD, LPC, is associate dean of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the College of Education at the University of Georgia, and associate professor in the department of counseling and human development services. She received her doctorate in counseling psychology from Georgia State University in 2007. Her clinical, research, and advocacy interests include: LGBTQQ counseling, resilience of historically marginalized groups (e.g., LGBTQ, people of color, immigrants), social justice and multicultural counseling and training, feminist theory and practice, and empowerment interventions with survivors of trauma. Singh is a cofounder of the Georgia Safe Schools Coalition, an organization that works at the intersection of heterosexism, racism, sexism, and other oppressions to create safe school environments in Georgia, and she founded the Trans Resilience Project to translate findings from her 15 years of research on the resilience that transgender people develop to navigate societal oppression.

Lore Dickey (Author)
lore m. dickey is assistant professor in the department of educational psychology at Northern Arizona University. He has a long history of LGBTQ advocacy and social justice work, and has presented throughout the world on trans-affirmative practice with gender diverse people, and recently completed serving as co-chair with Anneliese Singh of the APA task force that developed the Guidelines for Psychological Practice with Transgender and Gender Nonconforming People. His research and clinical work focuses on addressing the needs of gender diverse individuals.