Date of Award

2024

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Psychology (PsyD)

Department

Graduate Department of Clinical Psychology

First Advisor

Amber Nelson

Second Advisor

Danielle Moyer

Third Advisor

Kathleen Gathercoal

Abstract

Compared with their cisgender peers, transgender and gender-diverse (TGD) youth face unique and significant risk factors and are at increased risk for health disparities due to intersectional psychosocial factors including high prevalence of childhood trauma, discrimination and minority stress, societal stigma, and lack of access to competent, comprehensive, gender-affirming healthcare. A total of 180 participants were included in the current study, comprised of a clinically-derived sample of TGD youth aged 8–20 years (M = 14.42, SD = 2.17), and their parents. The current study examined risk and resilience variables relevant to TGD youth, with specific focus on adverse childhood events, psychological distress, and the potential moderating impact of perceived parental support. In addition, this study did confirmatory validation of an existing measure of psychological inflexibility in parenting with this sample and assessed for potential relationship between psychological inflexibility in parenting and youth reported perceived parental acceptance and non-affirmation. The sample demonstrated high rates of psychological distress and adverse childhood events when compared to similarly aged peers and comparative samples. Our results show that adverse childhood events and perceived parental support are both important to psychological distress in transgender youth, and that parent psychological inflexibility is associated with how much support TGD youth perceive from their parents. Moderation analysis revealed complex relationships between variables of interest.

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