Transitions and support. The family and the community in the biographical trajectories of transgender adolescents

Abstract

This article is part of an ongoing investigation into the biographical experience of transgender adolescence. It explores the role of the family and the community as support in the transition trajectories. I understand transgender adolescence as a socio-cultural phenomenon that regulates the concepts of age and gender. Hence, the subject’s transition experience occurs in the sociohistorical context in which they decide and act. The Interpretive Biographical Narrative Method used demonstrates the role of the family and the community as support systems in the transitional biographical trajectory of transgender adolescents. In particular, it focuses on the following themes: telling it to the family, the family acceptance/rejection, and when the family rejects the community sustains. The exploratory conclusions trace how the support systems act in the sense of self and self-care of transgender adolescents.