COVID-19 and Transgender and Gender Expansive Children and Youth

The coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic has put strains on transgender and gender expansive (TGE) children and youth, with increased rates of anxiety and depression, lower access to medical and mental health services, and greater exposure to unaccepting home environments. At the same time, for some of these young people, particularly those with supportive living situations, sheltering in place and on-line schooling has afforded them the opportunity to freely explore and consolidate their gender, protected from the strains of socially induced anxieties, and anticipated or experienced negative, hostile messages from their surrounding environment (ie, school or public meeting places). Culling from emerging data on the psychosocial effects of the pandemic on TGE children and youth, an argument is made for an understanding of these young people's experiences as both stress-inducing and resilience-building, each existing in dialectic tension with the other. Providers are called on to hold both in mind to fortify the biopsychosocial well-being of transgender and gender expansive children and youth.