Gender Minority Adolescents

Attempting suicide is an epidemic in the United States; especially when 41% of transgender individuals have attempted suicide compared 1.6% of the general population (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation). Due to this, the question of whether or not transgender youth have a harder, more straining adolescence than their cisgender counterparts rises. Although adolescence can be hard on everyone, experiences such as a school environment, puberty, laws that guarantee protection, family and social acceptance of transgender youth are harder than those of their cisgender counterparts (harder does not necessarily mean correlate with strenuous, the use of harder is aiming more towards different, costly, and possibly more confusing). The revolution for transgender lives is just beginning, change is happening. But in order for change to occur, adequate information on the material needs to be discussed and terminology must be defined and questions must be answered. Questions such as: what do the terms transgender and cisgender actually mean? Why is it important to know the difference between the two terms? What is the difference between transsexual and transgender?

Scholars have been critical of the medical establishment’s and state’s involvement in constructing and policing of transgender identity. These kinds of pressing issues have occupied the small existing literature. There is not much information and studying what is being done on transgender in traditional areas, family studies research, such as their dating behavior and formation of intimate relationships in adulthood. There is little research on the issues around being parents, their children’s experiences with having transgendered parents, as well as relationships in the family as a whole, and relationships in work and school.

The United States is a divided society. We like to categorize ourselves according to political affiliation, race, and religion. We are members of the middle, low-income, or wealthy classes. We choose what seats to sit in during a football game according to the team we are rooting for. It is oddly comforting to know that you belong. All too often, however, transgender youth are denied that sense of ubelonging because they defy society’s categories of male and female. The gender binary divides society into two separate, unequivocal categories that marginalizes transgender youth and directly impacts their emotional health and well-being. Society’s collective response of demeaning, shaming, and violence further increases the divide.

In class, we have learned and discussed how during the period of adolescence, it is known that this is the period of time where individuals are finding themselves and figuring out where they belong. It is during this time where individuals are the most sensitive and personal problems tend to arise more commonly during this stage. A major issue adolescents struggle during this stage is gender identity and sexuality. Adolescents are trying to figure out who they are attracted to and how they perceive themselves to be. While the norm is to identify oneself as their biological gender, there are those who develop gender dysphoria. Gender dysphoria is a reoccurring feeling that one’s biological gender is the opposite of one’s sexual identity (Cole,

The Bullying Policy has been introduced around the world which, according to the 2014 observations , rates of bullying vary across studies from 9% to 98%. An observation of 80 studies analyzing bullying involvement rates for both bullying others and being bullied for 12-18 year old students reported an estimate rate of 35% for traditional bullying involvement and 15% for cyberbullying involvement (Modecki, Minchin, Harbaugh, Guerra, & Runions, 2014). This means the Bullying Prevention Policy affects million of students nationwide due to the programs created. More specifically, females face a higher indication of bullying victimization than males do. To explain, high percentages of each gender are faced with the aggressive acts of violence, making it extremely hard to perform well in the school environment. Furthermore, as many as 93 percent of students hear derogatory words about sexual orientation at least once every day at school or in their community (violencepreventionworks). Negative name calling and harassment about sexual orientation can be disrespectful to all students. For an example, 3 out of 4 students who are bullied/harassed with such remarks are not identified as lesbian, gay,

In most cases 64% of students do not report being bullied and only 36 % of students report it. Moreover, having an adult intervene on behalf of the student being bullying has been effective in reducing the hostile behavior against the other student being bullied by more than half of the bullying situations by 57%. Programs against bullying have shown to decrease the percentage of children being bullied by up to 25%. Above all, students have reported to be bullied the most because of appearance by (55%), body shape by (37%), and race by (16%). Cyber bullying (online bullying) has become common among students and 19.6% of children become victims. From those children who are being cyber bullied 90% report being bullied in person as well. However, children who have a disability have a higher chance of being bullied two or three times more than children who are not disabled. Children who identify as LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer) were also bullied because of what they identified themselves with in regards of their sexual orientation. For that reason, 81.9 students from the LGBTQ community were bullied. Overweight students were victims of bullying and 64% were reported. Lastly, being a victim of bullying elevates suicidal ideation by 2.4 attempts more, and 3.3 more times likely to prepare a plan and proceed to commit suicide. In conclusion, children need interventions such as positive reinforcement and cognitive therapy to overcome the effects of bullying (Pacer,

In the United States Transgender women (individuals who are sex-assigned male at birth but identify as female) experience high rates of severe depression due to pervasive discrimination that they face in society. According to Hoffman (2014), when compared to the general population, Transgender individuals experience much higher rates of depression with estimates as high as 62% (as cited in Clements-Noel, Marx, Guzman, and Katz, 2001). Due to these high rates of depression, Transgender women are at increased risk for overall negative health outcomes, which severely limits them from living happy, healthy, and productive lives. According to studies by Nemoto, Operario, Keatley, Nguyen, and Sugano, (2005) there is a growing understanding of the

To expect greatness in any field of life, it all starts from a place of quality education and that's what America has constantly strived for. School is the place where everyone is given equal opportunity to learn and shape himself or herself into contributing members of society. At the same time each individual’s academic success defines what it means to have a good life. Unfortunately, schools face lots of problems trying to do the right thing. Among major challenges that schools face, bullying has a strong attribution to the poor academic experience among student victims. Today, students still risk being bullied everyday. This paper studies bullying in secondary school with

The population I am interested in researching is low socioeconomic status minority adolescents. With this population I want to look at their relationship with their community and factors that play into their academic achievement and how these two elements of their lives intertwine. Their relationship with their community/ neighborhood includes factors such as their participation in community activities, community violence exposure, part-time employment, youth groups, volunteering activities and their perception of neighborhood belonging. School-related aspects that play into their academic achievement includes looking into their grades, aspirations, motivation, academic mentors, and extra-curricular activities. I want to study these influences

This article details the some of the issues created by the growing population of transgendered students in the public education system, specifically the story of Aubrey a girl who transitioned in middle school. The article begins by detailing some of the problems transgendered youths face in the school system among these being bullied, in the forms of verbal and physical harassment. Then details how schools are reacting to prevent this kind of harm and build an inclusive environment. The laws vary by state, but 14 states plus D.C. Have laws that prohibit discrimination, and Title 9 bans gender discrimination nation-wide. The article also details how the Central Dauphin School District in Pennsylvania is working to protect at risk students; the district has implemented training for the staff of the 12000 student district, including training on gender

A cultural population that is possibly the most marginalized and misrepresented in health care, is the transgender and gender-nonconforming community (TGNC). Sex and gender are two different concepts. A person’s sex refers to their biological status as either male or female, or the assigned sex at birth (Bradford, 2016). Gender describes the characteristics that a society or culture claims as masculine/male or feminine/woman (Nobelius, 2004). Gender identity is the feeling a person has of being male or female or a combination of both. It is how the person see’s themself. TGNC people connect with a different gender than their birth gender (Dickey, Budge, Katz-Wise & Garza, 2016), in other words, their gender identities do not match with the sex or the gender role expected by society.

The assigned readings for this course have been extremely beneficial in helping me formed a foundation of understanding towards the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender community. Because of these readings I have increased my understanding of the many obstacles that individuals in this community must overcome; specifically the youth. LGBT individuals are often faced with a unique set of problems that clinical social workers should be aware of. Most times, this group of sexual minorities feels that they are being discriminated against by their friends, family, and the society as a whole (Bennett, 2013, p. 1). Unfortunately this feeling and thinking of alienation and discrimination subjects them to stress, anxiety and depression. All of which

Gender dysphoria is one of the characterizing aspects of being transgender, and while not all transgender people experience this, for those who do mental health often suffers; for this reason many consider medical treatment necessary to improve their well-being. Gender dysphoria, as described by the DSM-5, “manifests in a variety of ways, including strong desires to be treated as the other gender or to be rid of one’s sex characteristics” (Kupfer). It’s often accompanied with distress, which can lead to depression, anxiety, self-harm, or suicidal thoughts. In fact, suicide is all too common in transgender people. A survey of over 6,000 transgender people done in 2010 found that 41% had attempted suicide at some point in their lives (Grant 82). This high number is a trend that continues to be reflected in other surveys, such as one in

Due to young people’s inability to find support in their own communities, many attempt suicide. In a Vocativ article written in March 2015, the staff looked at the attempted suicide statistics of the United States, including sections broken down into throughout the United States, gay and lesbian people, and transgender and gender non-conforming people. Those sections, respectively, are 4.6%, 20%, and 41%. 41% of transgender people report attempting suicide at some point in their lifetimes; furthermore, that number may be even higher; either of those facts - transgender or have attempted suicide - can be difficult to admit, even in an anonymous survey. In addition, 45% of transgender people ages 18-24 reported that they had attempted suicide,

Gender Identity Disorder can make a child; adolescent or adult feel awkward and alone. Gender Identity Disorder paired with either Gender Dysphoria or Transsexualism will disrupt the development of social skills and create more problems behaviorally. Normative studies present evidence of the co-morbidity through parent report data revealing that children with Gender Identity Disorder have on