Childhood Gender Diversity and Transgender Medicine in Philadelphia, PA (WGF - Dissertation Fieldwork Grant)

Summary

This resource is an application for the Dissertation Fieldwork Grant from the Wenner-Gren Foundation.

As transgender and gender-nonconforming identities become more visible in medicine, policy, and the media, gender affirming medical care is increasingly seen as acceptable and necessary. Yet while childhood gender has long been the subject of clinical research, the impact of specialized medical care on young people and their families is poorly understood. Given the racialized and class-based inequalities in access to these dedicated medical services, the medical concept of gender identity is tied to a particular social context and may exclude important dimensions of many young people's experiences. My project explores the changing landscape of childhood gender in the 21st century by conducting ethnographic research in Philadelphia, PA with transgender and gender-nonconforming young people and their families. I will follow young people who are in care at a specialized pediatric gender identity clinic at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia as well as those who are not engaged in care, combining observations in clinical, home and community settings with person-centered interviews, discourse analysis, and an analysis of young people's artistic works. In conjunction with interviews with clinicians and researchers, my project will document the ways in which young people's identities and desires become visible in these clinical spaces and the limits of that visibility. Thus, by studying children's own experiences and perspectives, my project aims to understand the complex ways in which they are transforming the cultural meaning of gender in the 21st century.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• WGF - Support for Research Projects   •
• Wenner-Gren Foundation

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Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Wenner-Gren Foundation

Notes

Rights & Attribution: This resource is an application from the Wenner-Gren Foundation and has been approved by the grantee solely for pedagogical purposes. Please do not cite, circulate, or duplicate any part of these documents without the express written consent of the author.

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