The genders we live: Transgender youth and young adults in an era of expanding gender paradigms

In this chapter, we explore how the tenor of cultural changes-those in which transgender persons are understood, treated, and summarily protected by emerging discourses-influence the lives of transgender youth and young adults. Transgender-identifying and gender nonconforming persons are situated in multiple cultural spheres simultaneously, cultural forces that-not infrequently-are actively oppositional to one another. We review how transgender as a concept is understood at a point of late capitalism. In some social, medical, and cultural domains, there is an emerging and sanctioned expansion to live outside a gender binary. This experience can be freeing, terrifying, validating and empowering not only for transgender-identifying persons, but also for transgender advocates (e.g., physicians who work with families to block puberty onset) and for persons included in and important to transgender youth and young adults, such as their families, friends, and romantic partners. Progressive conceptualizations of the gender concept-including, critically, social movements that demand trans persons be treated with inclusion, respect, and dignity, as well as changes in medical and mental health professionals' approaches toward transgender persons-provide an optimistic view of an expanding gender paradigm. Finally, we append a list of resources for readers to access; these include areas of medical, legal/political, and family/personal support.