Gender Creative Child: Pathways for Nurturing and Supporting Children Who Live Outside Gender Boxes - Paperback

by Diane Ehrensaft (Author), Norman Spack (Foreword by)

From a leading US authority on a subject more timely than ever--an up-to-date, all-in-one resource on gender-nonconforming children and adolescents

Developmental and clinical psychologist Diane Ehrensaft, PhD, has devoted her career to the care of children and teens who do not abide by the gender binary, either in their gender identities or expressions. In her first book, Gender Born, Gender Made, she coined the phrase "gender creative" to replace what the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, at the time, still officially termed a "disorder."

Now, in The Gender Creative Child, Dr. Ehrensaft gives families, teachers, and therapists a totally up-to-date, comprehensive resource to caring for children whose gender expression is fluid or who question the gender they were assigned at birth. In nine easily digestible chapters, she encourages both parents and professionals to listen to the children, support their quest for their authentic gender selves, undertake a highly nuanced assessment of their particular needs, and advocate for a gender-expansive world.

A thought leader and champion of gender-creative identity, Dr. Ehrensaft illuminates the many routes that children may take and answers the many questions that parents and others will have.

Author Biography

Diane Ehrensaft, PhD, is a developmental and clinical psychologist. At the University of California-San Francisco, she is the cofounder and director of mental health at the Child and Adolescent Gender Center, an associate professor of pediatrics, and an attending psychologist at the Benioff Children's Hospital Child and Adolescent Gender Clinic. Her work with--and advocacy for--gender creative children has been widely covered, including by The New York Times, the Huffington Post, and NPR. She has been featured on the Los Angeles Times online, Wired online, and has appeared on Anderson, The Oprah Winfrey Show, and The Today Show.
Norman Spack, MD, is the director and cofounder of the Gender Management Service clinic at Boston Children's Hospital, the first US clinic to medically treat transgender children. Dr. Spack has helped pioneer the use of hormone blockers to delay puberty and of hormone replacement therapy in teens. He has received national attention for his 2014 TEDx Talk "How I Help Transgender Teens Become Who They Want to Be" (over one million views) and was featured in Diane Sawyer's landmark interview with Bruce (now Caitlyn) Jenner. Dr. Spack is associate professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School.