Now What?: For Families with Trans and Gender-Nonconforming Children

by Rex Butt Ph. D.

Despite growing but limited awareness of gender variance, the books available on the topic largely ignore the needs of families who struggle to understand and support their gender-nonconforming loved ones. Now What? For Families with Trans and Gender-Nonconforming Children offers a comprehensive approach to the issues and challenges that families must confront. It defines terms, explains options, provides resources, lays out the history of transgenderism, and offers guidance through the myriad issues that confront families with a gender-nonconforming child. Practical in approach and authoritative in scope, it provides information and support for families with children of all ages, offering help to families with a transgender adult as well as those with a pre-school child who is shouting, "Stop calling me a boy! I'm a girl. Tell them, Mommy!"

Finally, here is a book for the parent facing the confusion, anxiety, fear, frustration and guilt that accompany this journey. Perhaps you don't know what to say to your child. Perhaps you wish you could take back what you just said, or you wonder how to respond to the callous remarks of others, or you find yourself continuously asking, "Now What?" After reading this book, you will have a solid working knowledge of the issues you are likely to encounter and will have the tools needed to adopt clear strategies for dealing with those issues.



Rex Butt is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Arts and Sciences at Bronx Community College of the City University of New York. He has served on the Board of Directors for the Hudson Valley LGBTQ Center and is a member of the PFLAG National Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming (TGNC) Advisory Council. He and his wife Karen live in Poughkeepsie and are the Transgender Coordinators for the Kingston, NY, chapter of PFLAG (Parents Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays). They have mentored and counseled scores of families and continue to present support and information sessions for families with gender-nonconforming loved ones at conferences.

184 pages, Paperback

First published March 27, 2013

Reviews

[Trystan Cotten · Rating 5 out of 5]

As someone who works w/ parents of trans students in college, I found this book to be a helpful tool for parents who are grappling with their kids' nonnormative gender expression. The book is a guide exploring a variety of issues, unknowns and conflicts that tend to come up in families with transgender children. Numerous examples of constructive dialogue between parents and kids provide great models of effective communication and interpersonal dynamics to address thorny issues and resolve conflicts that tend to arise.

[Ela The Queer Bookish · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a well written book. I really like how inclusive it is, in more ways than one.

It doesn't matter if your child is FTM or MTF, each gets separate information. But this book doesn't concentrate on the things your child could do (hormones for example get a lot of information), it focusses on the parents. On the thoughts they may have, feelings of guilt, how to deal with coming out to your family and friends, how to talk to their (adult) child. There are a lot of little interviews done with parents of trans* children, so you know, you are not alone with your feelings and problems.

The e copy I got, wasn't finished yet (a lot of repeating sentences for example) but it seemed well researched without being too science-y.



I was provided by Transgress Press with a free ARC in exchange for a honest review. Thank you.