Free to Be: Understanding Kids & Gender Identity

This authoritative guide to understanding and navigating gender identity from an acclaimed expert on the mental health of transgender and gender diverse youth is "a must-read for anyone seeking to better understand how we can truly help all our children thrive" (Chelsea Clinton, #1 New York Times bestselling author).

Kids today are more gender-fluid and expansive than ever before. In America, around two percent of teenagers (over 700,000) openly identify as transgender. As it becomes increasingly common for us to encounter and know transgender kids, as well as kids with expansive notions of gender, it is vital that we have the tools to truly see and support them.

Free to Be is a comprehensive deep dive by internationally renowned child and adolescent psychiatrist Dr. Jack Turban into the science, medicine, and politics of gender identity. You will be immersed in the lives of three trans and gender diverse youth--Meredith, Kyle, and Sam--as they navigate their gender identities, make decisions around gender-affirming medical and psychological care, and confront an overwhelming political and social terrain.

By combining the latest scientific research, stories of transgender children, and the intricacies of today's political gender wars, Free to Be is an essential "resource that will empower trans and non-binary people everywhere, as well as those who love and want to support them" (Jazz Jennings, author of Being Jazz and star of I Am Jazz).

Author: Jack Turban
Publisher: Atria Books
Published: 06/03/2025
Pages: 304
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.55lbs
Size: 8.60h x 5.60w x 0.90d
ISBN: 9781668017050

About the Author
Jack Turban, MD, MHS, is a Harvard, Yale, and Stanford-trained child and adolescent psychiatrist and founding director of the Gender Psychiatry Program at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). He is an internationally recognized researcher and clinician whose expertise and research on the mental health of transgender youth have been cited in legislative debates and major federal court cases regarding the civil rights of transgender people in the United States. He is also a frequent contributor to The New York Times, CNN, The Washington Post, Scientific American, and more. He has appeared on numerous programs, including The Daily Show with Trevor Noah and PBS NewsHour.