Although Child and Youth Care research and pedagogy is committed to diversity, as yet this field has produced very little research that specifically focuses on supporting children and youth who do not identify with cis/heteronormative standards of gender. Further, despite that recent media attention to trans issues and gender diversity has sparked questions concerning how issues of gender are approached in practice, there continues to be a distinct lack of consensus on how best to talk about these issues, how to define gender, and how to approach these issues in practice. Through combining Situational Analysis (Clarke, 2005) with aspects of Relativity Theory this thesis makes a contribution towards filling the existing gap in the research. This study provides a descriptive exploration into the many ways language is being utilized by young people to shape, evoke, and construct the diverse understandings of what gender means in their lives by analyzing data gathered through the social media platform, Tumblr. This inquiry shows that these young people create unique terminology to describe, discuss, define and share their engagement with gender categories and identities. The findings of this study suggest that a creative, nuanced, and flexible understanding of the ways in which the language and terminology shape and influences how gender is lived and then discussed within specific contexts both on- and offline, will greatly assist practitioners to support youth with this highly complex topic. / Graduate

Counselors are legally and ethically called to provide affirmative services to trans and gender-expansive youth. Counselors, whether working in schools, agencies or private practices, must affirm all clients. This presentation will provide counselors with legal and ethical information and resources for honing skills for supporting gender-expansive youth.

As representations of queer and trans* youth become increasingly numerous and diverse in mainstream teen television, this thesis explores the social processes of normalization present in the elaboration of queer and trans* youth characters in the 2010-2011 seasons of Pretty Little Liars and Degrassi. The methodology involves a critical discourse analysis of racialized queer youth identities on Pretty Little Liars and white trans* youth identities on Degrassi, complemented by an analysis of their political economy of production and their circulation of discourse surrounding sexuality and gender identity in online youth communities. Drawing upon literature on homonormativity and emerging literature on transnormativity in mainstream media texts, this thesis illustrates that despite their amenability to dominant social power structures, contemporary televisual representations of queer and trans* youth identities achieve meaningful cultural work through the creation of new societal frameworks for youth to engage with non-normative sexualities and gender identities.

As representations of queer and trans* youth become increasingly numerous and diverse in mainstream teen television, this thesis explores the social processes of normalization present in the elaboration of queer and trans* youth characters in the 2010-2011 seasons of Pretty Little Liars and Degrassi. The methodology involves a critical discourse analysis of racialized queer youth identities on Pretty Little Liars and white trans* youth identities on Degrassi, complemented by an analysis of their political economy of production and their circulation of discourse surrounding sexuality and gender identity in online youth communities. Drawing upon literature on homonormativity and emerging literature on transnormativity in mainstream media texts, this thesis illustrates that despite their amenability to dominant social power structures, contemporary televisual representations of queer and trans* youth identities achieve meaningful cultural work through the creation of new societal frameworks for youth to engage with non-normative sexualities and gender identities.

Researchers agree that young transgender individuals are at higher risk of mental illness and suicide problems compared to the general population. Through a literature review, the purpose of this study has been to investigate how young transgender people's mental illness can be affected by the National Board of Health and Welfare's new recommendations to limit hormone treatments for transgender people under the age of eighteen.  Since the National Board of Health and Welfare first started to recommend hormone treatment the access to the medication has now been severely limited. The literature review has been conducted through an analysis of 26 scientific articles and the results has been analyzed on the basis of Goffman's theory of stigma and Meyer, minority stress model. The results of this analysis shows that young transgender people pay a high price of stigma and mental illness for living outside of societal norms. As a transgender person, it is important to be seen for who you are and to be able to freely express your gender identity. Being addressed with the right name and pronoun is part of this. The possibility to undergo hormone treatment is thus of great importance for many individuals. At the same time there are risks linked to this treatment. Good relations with and access to health care is therefore crucial. Nevertheless, according to the results in this study young transgender people’s relationship to health care is in fact both complicated and limited.  Based on the identified themes, the conclusion of this study is that the National Board of Health and Welfare's new recommendations increase the risk mental illness for young transgender people, which consequently also may risk costing the lives of these young people.