A Clinician's Guide to Gender-affirming Care ― Working With Transgender and Gender-nonconforming Clients

Transgender and gender nonconforming (TNGC) clients have complex mental health concerns, and are more likely than ever to seek out treatment. This comprehensive resource outlines the latest research and recommendations to provide you with the requisite knowledge, skills, and awareness to treat TNGC clients with competent and affirming care.

As you know, TNGC clients have different needs based on who they are in relation to the world. Written by three psychologists who specialize in working with the TGNC population, this important book draws on the perspective that there is no one-size-fits-all approach for working with TNGC clients. It offers interventions tailored to developmental stages and situational factors—for example, cultural intersections such as race, class, and religion.

This book provides up-to-date information on language, etiquette, and appropriate communication and conduct in treating TGNC clients, and discusses the history, cultural context, and ethical and legal issues that can arise in working with gender diverse individuals in a clinical setting. You’ll also find information about informed consent approaches that call for a shift in the role of the mental health provider in the position of assessment and referral for the purposes of gender-affirming medical care (such as hormones, surgery, and other procedures).

As changes in recent transgender health care and insurance coverage have provided increased access for a broader range of consumers, it is essential to understand transgender and gender nonconforming clients’ different needs. This book provides practical exercises and skills you can use to help TNGC clients thrive.

Sand Chang, PhD (pronouns: they/them/theirs), is a Chinese American genderqueer-identified psychologist, educator, and trainer. They currently work for NCAL Kaiser Permanente in designing clinical and cultural competence education programs for transgender health and maintain a private practice in Oakland, CA, specializing in trauma and EMDR, addictions, relationships, and healing work with marginalized communities, particularly people affected by the intersections of racism, homophobia, and transphobia. Sand served on the task force that authored the 2015 APA Guidelines for Psychological Practice with Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Clients and is the past chair of the APA Committee on Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity (CSOGD). Outside of their professional work, Sand is a dancer, musician, avid foodie, and small dog enthusiast.

Annaliese Singh is an associate professor in the department of counseling and human development services at The University of Georgia. Singh is a cofounder of the Georgia Safe Schools Coalition to work on reducing heterosexism, transprejudice, racism, and other oppressions in Georgia schools. She is also the founder of the Trans Resilience Project, where she translated her findings from 15 years of research on trans people’s resilience to oppression into practice and advocacy efforts. She’s the author of four books and has over 100 publications in the areas of LGBTQ and social justice counseling. She’s delivered widely viewed TedX Talks and recorded a podcast for APA on her research with transgender youth and resilience.

lore m. dickey is assistant professor in the department of educational psychology at Northern Arizona University. He has a long history of LGBTQ advocacy and social justice work, and has presented throughout the world on trans-affirmative practice with gender diverse people, and recently completed serving as co-chair with Anneliese Singh of the APA task force that developed the Guidelines for Psychological Practice with Transgender and Gender Nonconforming People. His research and clinical work focuses on addressing the needs of gender diverse individuals.