As transgender adolescents face elevated mental health risks, families emphasize stability, listening, and care to foster resilience amid ongoing uncertainties about identity and well-being.
The mother at the centre of this account describes a fragile sense of relief after her teenage son began, in her words, to accept himself and feel more at ease in his body. Yet the calm is incomplete. A recent conversation with the 13-year-old, she says, showed how quickly old fears can return, and how much uncertainty still hangs over a family trying to move beyond a period of distress. Research on transgender adolescents suggests that these anxieties are not unusual: studies have repeatedly found higher rates of depression, anxiety, self-harm and suicidal thoughts among transgender young people than among cisgender peers.
What unsettles her most is the language of identity itself. She says she has been encouraging her son to set aside the transgender label, arguing that defining himself by a single category risks trapping him in a harmful framework. Her son, however, asked a painful question: “but who would I be if I’m not a transgender”. That exchange captures a wider tension seen in families navigating gender distress, where the search for certainty can become as consuming as the distress itself. Public health experts say the pressures on LGBTQ+ young people are often intensified by stigma, discrimination, bullying and strained family relationships.
The science does not offer a simple script. A study in a community health setting found transgender adolescents faced a two- to three-fold higher risk of depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, suicide attempts and self-harm than cisgender youth. A separate review linked mental distress in transgender teenagers to bullying, violence, poor peer and family relationships and internalised transphobia, while also identifying parental support, school support and, in some cases, gender-affirming care as protective factors. In other words, the risks are real, but so too are the buffers that can help young people stay well.
That family context matters is reinforced by later research. A retrospective study found transgender youth with supportive families tended to fare better after gender identity milestones than those facing neutral or adverse home environments. Another study of socially transitioned transgender children found no higher levels of depression or anxiety than peers, and in some cases higher self-worth. For parents, the message is less about a single correct answer than about the importance of stability, listening and care. The mother’s account is ultimately one of fear, hope and unfinished recovery: a reminder that for many families, the struggle is not over when the crisis eases, but continues in how a child is helped to understand themselves.
Disclaimer: This content is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical judgment, advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
