When Your Young Child Questions Their Gender

Where to start

• Listen, and let them play and dress up as they like.
• Get clinical advice early, starting with your GP, if you are thinking about a new name or pronouns.
• If they seem distressed, anxious or low for weeks, talk to your GP.
• If you are thinking about changes that go further, such as a new name or pronouns at home or at school, the review recommends that families of young children see an experienced clinician early, and your GP is the place to start.
• In England the NHS gender service for children takes referrals from a paediatrician or a children’s mental health service, not directly from GPs.
• If they hurt themselves, or talk about hurting themselves or not wanting to be alive, act that day: ask the surgery for an urgent appointment, and if it is closed, use the crisis line. England, Scotland and Wales: call 111 and choose the mental-health option. Northern Ireland: call Lifeline on 0808 808 8000. Help is free, confidential and available at any hour. Whoever answers may share information to arrange care or keep someone safe.
• If they are badly hurt, or may have taken too much of a medicine, get medical help straight away, even if they seem well. Call 999. Or go to your nearest A&E. Help is free and available at any hour.

It goes with

• When Your Child Is Working Out Who They Are. For parents whose child has raised a question about who they are, and who weren’t prepared for it.

The first chapter you open here is free to read in full.

Free on this subject

• Gender identity. What to do first, what helps, and who else can help. Free to read and to print.
• Identity. What to do first, what helps, and who else can help. Free to read and to print.