Parent-youth relationships and communication among transgender and gender diverse youth: The impact on sexual health
2020-08
Loading...
View/Download File
Persistent link to this item
Statistics
View StatisticsJournal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Title
Parent-youth relationships and communication among transgender and gender diverse youth: The impact on sexual health
Authors
Published Date
2020-08
Publisher
Type
Thesis or Dissertation
Abstract
Adolescence marks a period of rapid development in the domain of sexual health. In general, adolescents bear a disproportionate share of the sexual health burden compared to adult age groups. Among adolescents, transgender and gender diverse (TGD) youth are particularly at risk for negative sexual health outcomes. Such health disparity is theorized to be related to chronic stress related to stigmatized minority identity and may be mitigated by factors bolstering resilience like strong parent-youth relationships. Some parent-youth relationship factors such as communication about sexuality, may be especially complex among TGD youth and their parents, which may further influence health outcomes. This multi-methods dissertation study explores these phenomena by first testing associations between parent connectedness and sexual health variables and second by investigating TGD youth perceptions of parental messages about sex and relationships. This study utilized the 2016 Minnesota Student Survey, which provided a population level sample of 2,168 9th and 11th grade students who identified as TGD. In eight of sixteen final analytic models, reports of greater parent connectedness were associated with the less risky sexual health outcome. In the qualitative portion, eight TGD youth between the ages of 16-23 were recruited from the Twin Cities Metro to participate in one-to-one semi-structured interviews about family communication about sexuality. Content analysis led to four overarching themes representing what the youth shared; the first three describing the types of messages youth received about sex and relationships from parents and the final theme relating those messages to youth personal feelings and decision-making. Survey findings suggest parent connectedness likely promotes healthy sexual behavior among TGD youth. Participants in the interviews acknowledged the influence of messages they received from their parents on feelings about sex and relationships while carefully asserting autonomous decision-making and ability to change one’s own feelings over time. Together, these analyses indicate nurses might best choose to acknowledge and promote parental guidance but emphasize youth independent choice while providing care to ensure trusting relationships.
Description
University of Minnesota Ph.D. dissertation.August 2020. Major: Nursing. Advisor: Renee Sieving. 1 computer file (PDF); xiii, 158 pages.
Related to
Replaces
License
Collections
Series/Report Number
Funding information
Isbn identifier
Doi identifier
Previously Published Citation
Suggested citation
Brown, Camille. (2020). Parent-youth relationships and communication among transgender and gender diverse youth: The impact on sexual health. Retrieved from the University Digital Conservancy, https://hdl.handle.net/11299/216793.
Content distributed via the University Digital Conservancy may be subject to additional license and use restrictions applied by the depositor. By using these files, users agree to the Terms of Use. Materials in the UDC may contain content that is disturbing and/or harmful. For more information, please see our statement on harmful content in digital repositories.