Children and Gender: Ethical Issues in Clinical Management of Transgender and Gender Diverse Youth, from Early Years to Late Adolescence

Simona Giordano investigates the moral concerns raised by current clinical options available for transgender and gender diverse children and adolescents. From the time young children express gender incongruent preferences and attitudes, up to the time in which older adolescents might apply for medical or surgical treatment, moral questions are likely to be asked: should children be enabled to express themselves freely inside and outside the domestic environment? What are the implications of the choices that parents might make early on? How should clinicians respond to distress around sexual anatomy? Is it ethical to suspend pubertal development? What level of evidence should we seek for medications to be used in paediatric care? What are the risks and benefits of various forms of hormonal treatment? Is it ethical to defer surgical interventions till adulthood? Giordano provides a detailed ethical analysis of these and many other questions that are likely to arise at various stages of a person's life and proposes a moral formula to answer these questions, as well as others, that are likely to arise in a fast-changing landscape. Children and Gender combines a detailed ethical analysis with an accurate clinical description of gender development and available clinical pathways.

Author: Simona Giordano
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 09/22/2023
Pages: 320
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.39lbs
Size: 9.47h x 6.44w x 0.95d
ISBN: 9780192895400


Review Citation(s):
Choice 07/01/2024

About the Author
Simona Giordano, Professor of Bioethics, University of Manchester

Simona Giordano is Professor of Bioethics at the University of Manchester. Giordano graduated cum laude in Philosophy at the University La Sapienza in Rome (1995) and moved to England in 1997, to begin a PhD under the supervision of Prof. John Harris, on the ethics of treatment of people with mental illness, with a special focus on eating disorders. Giordano has lived in Manchester and worked at the Centre for Social Ethics and Policy ever since. Giordano began working on gender diversity in children in 2005 and has published widely on the topic. Giordano is currently serving on the Ethics Committee of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health.