1. Shannan Wilber Youth Policy Director
Transgender and Gender nonconforming youth in the California foster care system
Shannan Wilber
Youth Policy Director

2. Agenda
Concepts and terminology
Research and data
Professional standards
CA Laws
Recommended practice

3. Dimensions of Identity
All vocabulary slides start with just the terms. As you click through the definitions will fly onto the screen one at a time.
Source: Allegheny County
Department of Human Services
(2015)

4. SOGIE Sexual Orientation Gender Identity Gender Expression
A person’s romantic, physical and/or sexual attraction to other people that ranges from attraction to only men/boys or women/girls, to varying degrees of attraction to both, to attraction to neither.
Gender Identity
A person’s core and hard-wired sense of their own identity as a man/boy, woman/girl, something in between, or something outside the gender binary.
All vocabulary slides start with just the terms. As you click through the definitions will fly onto the screen one at a time.
Gender Expression
A person’s presentation or communication of their gender to others through hairstyles, clothing, physical mannerisms, alterations of their body, or name and pronoun.

5. Gender Identity: Everybody Has One
Think beyond the binary!
This slide has animation. It starts with just the image of the binary and then as you click through it will change to a spectrum.
GENDER IS A SPECTRUM

6. Concepts and Terminology
Sex Assigned at Birth
A designation usually made by a medical professional and generally based on appearance of external genitalia.
Cisgender
Describes people whose gender identity is the same as their sex assigned at birth.
Transgender
An umbrella term that refers to people whose gender identity is different from their sex assigned at birth.
Nonbinary
Describes a person whose gender identity is neither exclusively male nor female.

7. 1. Allow the young person to self-identify (when ready).
language
Learning about terms youth use to identify themselves (and terms that are offensive to some) is helpful and important, but it can be hard to keep up.
A few guidelines:
1. Allow the young person to self-identify (when ready).
2. Mirror their language.
3. Ask questions in a respectful way that helps you understand what the terminology or language they use means to them.
4. Adjust your language if and when a youth’s identity or expression shifts. Language, identity, and expression are fluid, especially for adolescents.

8. Gender Expansive
A broad term referring to aspects of gender expression, identity, and interests that go beyond cultural binary prescriptions of behaviors and interests associated primarily with boys or girls. Gender-expansive includes young people who do not identify with the sex they were assigned at birth as well as those who do, but may nonetheless find themselves barraged with questions based on their dress, appearance, or interests, such as, “Are you a boy or a girl?” or “Why do you play with that? It’s a boy/girl toy!” Other words with similar meetings include gender diverse and gender creative.
Nat’l Ass’n of School Psychologists & Gender Spectrum, Gender Inclusive Schools: Overview, Gender Basics, and Terminology (2016),
This slide starts with the NASW definition of gender expansive (with the spectrum beneath it to reinforce that concept) and then when you click through the slide will wipe clean and be replaced with the HRC poster of the ways youth describe their own gender.

9. Overrepresentation of LGBTQ Youth in Out-of-Home Care
Rejection and
Neglect at Home
Unsafe Schools
Social Isolation
As you click through this slide will start with the factors that lead to LGBTQ youth being overrepresented in care, then the three types of care systems we discuss, and then the arrows will appear to display the results of these factors and the ways that they cycle through systems.
Homelessness
Juvenile Justice
System
Child Welfare
System

10. LGBTQ Youth in the Child Welfare System
5.6%
13.4%
19.1%
TRANSGENDER
LGBTQ
LGBQ
The Williams Institute
Sexual & Gender Minority Youth in
Foster Care: Assessing Disproportionality and Disparities in Los Angeles (2014)

11. Medical and Behavioral Science
A clinical psychiatric diagnosis characterized by intense, continuous distress caused by the discrepancy between an individual’s gender identity and their assigned sex at birth. In previous versions of the DSM, gender dysphoria was known as gender identity disorder (GID).
Gender Dysphoria
Another definition slide

12. GLMA: Health Professionals Advancing LGBT Equality
Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine
Society for Physician Assistants in Pediatrics
American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
American Nurses Association
American Academy of Pediatrics
American Public Health Association
American Medical Women’s Association
Association of Medical School Pediatric Department Chairs
American Psychoanalytic Association
American Academy of Family Physicians
American Psychiatric Association
Endocrine Society
American Academy of Physician Assistants
American College of Physicians
American Medical Student Association
American Academy of Nursing
Pediatric Endocrine Society
Mental Health America
National Association of Social Workers
“Exclusionary policies perpetuate such stigma and discrimination, not only by forcing transgender individuals to disclose their status, but by marking transgender individuals as “others” who are unfit to use the restrooms used by everyone else. Indeed, the very existence of exclusionary policies targeting transgender individuals fosters stigma and discrimination.”
“For over 30 years, the generally-accepted treatment protocols for gender dysphoria have been aimed at alleviating the distress associated with the incongruence between gender identity and birth-assigned sex, rather than attempting to force individuals to live in conformance with their natal sex.”
This slide has a lot of animation, but it’s intended for effect (and to bridge the gap between medical and legal info). It starts with a photo of Gavin Grimm and then has two pull quotes from the SCOTUS amicus brief by medical experts in his case. The first quote is about medical treatment and the second is about policy. (The second covers up the first one.) Then you have to click many more times and each author of the brief will pop up one by one, until eventually there are so many orgs supporting Gavin that we can’t even see him.

13. Dr. Johanna Olson

14. The Importance of Pronouns

15. The Importance of Names
A 2018 study studied the use of chosen names by transgender youth in four contexts (at home, at school, at work, and with friends).
Researchers found youth who were able to use their chosen names in all four contexts had the lowest levels of depressive symptoms, suicidal ideation, and suicidal behavior.
An increase by one context in which a preferred name could be used predicted a 29% decrease in suicidal ideation and a 56% decrease in suicidal behavior.

16. California laws Foster Care Nondiscrimination Act Gives foster youth:
The right to fair and equal access to services, placement, care, treatment and benefits
The right NOT to be subjected to discrimination or harassment on the basis of actual or perceived SO/GI

17. California laws California Student Safety & Violence Prevention Act
Protects students in California public schools against discrimination or harassment based on
Sexual orientation
Gender identity
Gender nonconforming appearance or behavior

18. California laws School Success and Opportunity Act
Requires public schools to permit students to participate in sex-segregated programs, activities and facilities consistent with their gender identity regardless of the gender listed in their school records

19. California laws Conversion Therapy Ban
Prohibits licensed therapists from administering conversion therapy to any person under the age of 18

20. California laws Placement According to Gender Identity
Children and nonminor dependents in out-of-home care shall be placed according to their gender identity, regardless of the gender or sex listed in their court or child welfare records.

21. California laws Gender Affirming Health and Behavioral Health Care
The right of minors and nonminors in foster care to health care and mental health care includes covered gender affirming health care and gender affirming mental health care

22. HOW can YOU HELP tgnc YOUTH?

23. TALK TO YOUTH ABOUT SOGIE
Familiarize yourself with SOGIE terms and concepts
Appreciate and affirm youth when they disclose TGNC status
Use the language they use to describe their identities
Use the name and pronouns they currently use
Ask about any concerns or needs
Consult with youth about placement, roommates, privacy

24. Advocate for TGNC youth
Families
Social worker
Placement
Schools
Health care
Court

25. Thank you for your attention!
Shannan Wilber
Youth Policy Director
National Center for Lesbian Rights