Current Challenges for Transgender Parents in an Increasingly Anti-Transgender Sociopolitical Climate
Year: 2026
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: Through a survey of 108 transgender and nonbinary parents with at least one minor child conducted in 2025, this study explores their parenting experiences, with a focus on understanding their routes and barriers to becoming parents and the impact of an increasingly anti-transgender legal, policy, and social climate on their families and their plans to parent children in the future.Most of the 108 respondents identified as nonbinary (37%), transgender women (32%), or transgender men (22%), and one-third (33%) were people of color.Almost two-thirds of these parents (65%) were younger parents, aged 18-35.Most of these parents (86%) had one or two children, and half (50%) had at least one child aged five years or younger.Many of these parents faced significant financial and health challenges.For example, over the past year, more than one-third of respondents struggled to pay rent (34%), and over two-thirds reported depression (67%). Key FindingsSome core aspects of becoming and being a transgender parent involve not only having children, but also navigating one's transgender identity with one's children and others; having one's parenting status a) legally recognized and b) socially supported; and feeling safe as a family.Transgender parents communicated that they face considerable barriers and challenges in each of these areas-difficulties that they strive to overcome for their children and themselves amid a challenging sociopolitical climate.
Authors: Goldberg, Abbie E., Sears, Brad
Language: English
Subfield: Social Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7213484985