Parenting Stress, Rather Than Gender Identity, Predicts Child Adjustment Among Children of Nonbinary and Binary Transgender Parents

Abstract

Social scientists know little about the experiences of transgender and nonbinary (TGNB) parents and their children's development. In this study of 138 transgender parents (age M = 35.28 years; 86.2% White/European American) with binary (52.9%) and nonbinary (47.1%) gender identities, we explore the links between family processes and young children's (age M = 6.30 years; 86.2% White/European American assigned female at birth = 47.8%) internalising and externalising behaviours. Bayes Factors suggested moderate to strong evidence that children's development and family processes did not differ by parent gender identity. Many parents reported clinical levels of depressive symptoms. However, their children experience typical development despite high parental depressive symptomology. Parenting stress, not parent gender identity or depressive symptoms, was the only credible predictor of children's externalising, internalising and total behavioural adjustment (M = 0.3; BF = 1.9e + 7; M = 0.3; BF = 1.1e + 7; M = 0.3; BF = 4.1e + 10, respectively). The implications of these findings are relevant to healthcare providers, legal experts and professionals who work with children and families and contradict the practice of citing unsupported and unfounded concerns that TGNB parents' marginalised gender identity could harm their children's functioning.