442 The Professional Counselor | Volume 11, Issue 4 United States, she underwent vaginoplasty and became a preeminent advocate for LGBTQ+ rights (Drescher, 2010; Jorgensen, 1967; Stryker, 2008). About a decade later, physician Harry Benjamin pioneered gender-confirming endocrinological interventions (GCEI) aimed at medically supporting TGD patients who wished to feminize or masculinize their bodies to be more congruent with their gender identity without surgery (Drescher, 2010; Stryker, 2008). The most popular forms of GCEI— cross-sex hormone replacement therapy and gonadotropin-releasing hormone analogues or “puberty blockers”—have been associated with positive physical and mental health outcomes (Bränström & Pachankis, 2020; Couric, 2017; Drescher, 2010; Murad et al., 2010) and have been made available to people from pre-puberty through late adulthood (E. Coleman et al., 2012; Hembree et al., 2017). Nearly all the research regarding GCEI has been conducted on adults (Couric, 2017), and the experiences of parents of TGD youth are not well represented in the literature (Hill & Menvielle, 2009), despite the growing popularity of GCEI among TGD minors (Couric, 2017; Drescher, 2010; Pew Research Center, 2013; Rosin, 2008). In the United States, minors are almost always dependent on their parents or legal guardians to provide informed consent for GCEI (Burt, 2016; D. L. Coleman, 2019; D. L. Coleman & Rosoff, 2013) even though they are likely to be considered by the medical profession to be cognitively capable of making an informed choice to undergo hormone-related treatments (E. Coleman et al., 2012; Hembree et al., 2017). At least one study that intends to contribute to the literature on the long-term risks and benefits of GCEI on minors is ongoing but not complete as of this publication (Bunim, 2015; S. Rosenthal, personal communication, November 7, 2019). This leaves both TGD youth and their parents—who are unlikely to share their child’s gender identity—in the precarious position of making meaningful decisions about the youth’s mental and physical health in a climate dominated by legal, political, religious, and social trends and without a body of rigorous research to instill confidence in giving or denying consent for GCEI. Role of Professional Counselors Partially for the reasons stated above, professional counselors who work with TGD youth and their families have unique opportunities to serve their clients at the micro-, meso-, and macrolevels. With professional emphases on human development, the helping relationship, and social justice (Lawson, 2016), counselors have an ethical obligation to develop competencies related to addressing issues concerned with gender identity, spirituality, and social systems to enable the empowerment of clients through individual, group, and family counseling in addition to interprofessional consultation and advocacy (American Counseling Association [ACA], 2014; Burnes et al., 2010; Cashwell & Watts, 2010; Ratts et al., 2015; Toporek & Daniels, 2018). ACA’s stance that TGD identity is a normal part of human development and should be affirmed (Burnes et al., 2010) aligns with the positions of every major health care professional organization globally (Drescher, 2010). Professional counselors are likely to be presented with opportunities to provide psychoeducation about gender identity development and best practices regarding the affirmative care of TGD clients as well as opportunities to advocate for their clients through the writing of referral letters for GCEI (E. Coleman et al., 2012). It is not uncommon, however, for professional counselors to challenge this obligation, especially when they feel compelled to prioritize religious teachings that pathologize LGBTQ+ identity (Kaplan, 2018; Rose et al., 2019). The Purpose of the Present Study The purpose of this research was to explore the process by which parents or legal guardians of TGD youth develop affirmative understandings and approaches to their children’s gender identity, affirm their related transition needs, and grant informed consent for the TGD youth in their care to undergo GCEI. With that in mind, the primary research question of this grounded theory study was,
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