Negotiated care practices:The experiences of children who question their gender, their parents and the healthcare professionals who support them

ABSTRACT Care facilitates a nurturing that requires a disposition to act in another’s interests. Care, however, is never disinterested and dividing practices vie with transformative potential, to define what is regarded as appropriate support. Current healthcare for children who question their gender identity reflect this tension, particularly in the UK, where ideological inscriptions can subvert caring intent. In exploring this, our paper presents testimonial experiences from young people referred to the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) in England, their parents and clinicians responsible for their care. We consider how care is negotiated and (re)produced, by exploring how young people and their parents respond to gender questioning and seek resolution through their relationships with formal care providers. Using the work of Annemarie Mol, we provide an understanding of the creative calibration of elements that make up a situation, until they somehow fit and work, to define a caring environment characterised by complex, ambivalent and shifting tensions. Our conclusion assesses the possibilities for more inclusive caring practices, in which the diversity of experience is acknowledged, along with the different ways that gender identity finds expression.