Unconditional: A Guide to Loving and Supporting Your LGBTQ Child (LGBT Book, Child is Transgender or LGBTQ+)

by Telaina Eriksen

Overview

Guidance on Providing Loving Support to Your LGBTQ Child

Winner of the Sixth Annual Bisexual Book Award for Non-fiction, 2017
#1 Bestseller in Lesbian Studies

Unconditional: A Guide to Loving and Supporting Your LGBTQ Child provides parents of a LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or questioning) child with a framework for helping their LGBTQ child navigate a world that isn’t always welcoming.

Tips from a mother with experience. Author Telaina Eriksen, a professor at Michigan State Universityand the mother of a gay daughter, explains what she and her husband have learned through experience, including how to deal with gay children coming out, tips on confronting bullying of gay children, guidance on becoming an advocate for gay children, and advice on building a support system in a gay family.

Gender dysphoria and other concerns. Eriksen also covers the science on gender and how to help a transgender child through the various stages of development. Throughout the book parents and kids who have been there, share their stories. She also directs gay family parents to various resources online for help.

Inside learn:

• How to help your child navigate locker rooms, sleepovers, proms, etc.
• When to involve the police or school administration when it comes to bullying
• How to advocate for local, state and national policies that protect your child
• Ways to educate well-meaning, but misguided extended family members
• How to help start a Gay-Straight Alliance at your child’s school
• Strategies for keeping your child talking after he or she comes out
• Signs of unhealthy relationships
• When to consider therapy for your child and/or your family
• How to find an LGBTQ-friendly community (including inclusive churches)

If you liked books such as the ABC’s of LGBT+, This Is a Book for Parents of Gay Kids, A Guide to Gender, or This Book Is Gay, you will want to read Unconditional: A Guide to Loving and Supporting Your LGBTQ Child.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781633535152
Publisher:	Mango Media
Publication date:	04/18/2017
Pages:	244
Sales rank:	479,471
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.10(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Telaina Morse Eriksen was born in rural Michigan, the youngest of seven children in a working class family. She received a B.A. in journalism with concentrations in history, English, and political science from Michigan State Universityin 1990. She worked for many years in the educational software industry writing technical manuals, and doing marketing and public relations. She returned to school at age 39 to study for her MFA in creative writing, concentrating in both creative nonfiction and poetry. She graduated from Antioch UniversityLos Angeles in December 2009. She has taught creative writing for the Department of English at Michigan State Universityfor the last five years. Her work has appeared (or is forthcoming) in By One’s Own Hand: Writing About Suicide Loss (an anthology) Mother is a Verb (poetry anthology), Under the Sun, The Fem, The Good Men Project, Role Reboot, The Manifest-Station, ARS Medica, Hospital Drive, Marco Polo Quarterly, The Truth About the Fact, poemmemoirstory and in many other online and print publications. Her essays have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2010 and 2011. She lives in East Lansing, Michigan with her husband of 24 years, her 16-year-old son, and her two dogs, Sprite and Clement. (Her 20-year-old daughter drops in from college for free wi-fi and laundry once or twice a month as well.)

Table of Contents

Note 9

Foreword 11

Chapter 1 Coming Out 15

Chapter 2 Understanding The History And Science Of Gender And Sexuality 41

Chapter 3 Surviving And Thriving In The Preteen And Teen Years 57

Chapter 4 Bullying 89

Chapter 5 It Takes A Queer Village - Building A Support System 120

Chapter 6 Parenting Your Non-Binary Or Transgender Child 136

Chapter 7 Being An Advocate 151

Chapter 8 Siblings And Other Family Members 165

Chapter 9 Only Part Of Who They Are 189

Chapter 10 Out On Their Own (Mostly) 203

Acknowledgments 225

Author Bio 229

Endnotes 231