Abstract

Scholarly attention has recently been given to the ways in which gender and parenting identities intersect, yet little is known about how children and adolescents with a trans* parent experience family life and relationships. This article reports data from a qualitative study in the UK based on interviews with 29 children and adolescents aged 5–18, all of whom have at least one parent who is trans*. Drawing upon theories of symbolic interactionism, the study investigated children and adolescents’ meaning-making and experiences of family life and relationships in the context of their parent’s gender identity. Data were analyzed using a theoretically informed thematic approach, which resulted in the identification of four main themes. Overall, findings suggest that parental gender identity does not adversely impact upon how children and adolescents perceive their relationship with their parent, but may be otherwise relevant to their experiences both within and outside of the home. Findings are discussed in relation to theories of family display (Finch, 2007) and discourse dependence (Galvin, 2006), suggesting that combining and extending these perspectives might be useful for understanding the perspectives of children and adolescents in different contexts of family diversity.

摘要

最近，学术界对性别和父母身份的相交方式给予了关注，但对有过父母的儿童和青少年如何体验家庭生活和人际关系知之甚少。本文报道了来自英国的定性研究数据，该研究基于对29位5-18岁的儿童和青少年的访谈，他们全部都有至少一位父母是跨性别的*。该研究利用象征性互动主义的理论，研究了儿童和青少年在父母的性别认同背景下的意义产生，家庭生活和关系的经历。使用理论上合理的主题方法对数据进行分析，从而确定了四个主要主题。全面的，研究结果表明，父母的性别认同不会对儿童和青少年如何看待与父母的关系产生不利影响，但可能与他们在家庭内外的经历有关。讨论了有关家庭展示理论的发现（芬奇，2007年）和话语依赖（Galvin，2006年），表明将这些观点相结合和扩展可能有助于理解家庭多样性不同背景下的儿童和青少年的观点。