Overview
Child protective services, (CPS) including child advocacy centers, play a unique role in the lives of families affected by crime, violence, and child safety concerns. Although their work focuses on children’s wellbeing, staff may be engaging with parents who are causing harm, parents who are protecting their children, or families where both dynamics are present. In any of these situations, one or more adults or children in the family may be transgender or nonbinary.
This resource is designed to help child protective services and child advocacy center staff recognize how anti-trans bias, family violence, legal barriers, and service access gaps can affect transgender parents and transgender children during child welfare involvement. It offers practical guidance for engaging families respectfully, distinguishing affirming parenting from abuse, and connecting families with safer, appropriate supports.
Many people fear child welfare investigations, and children may find them overwhelming or terrifying. Investigators, case managers, and other child welfare staff can reduce harm by approaching families with transparency, respect, and attention to safety, including by explaining their role, asking what names and pronouns to use, and avoiding assumptions about family structure or parenting capacity.
Trans Specific Dynamics
Common barriers transgender survivors and families face in child welfare systems
Complex legal rights as parents.
Parents who are trans or nonbinary may or may not be the biological parents of their children. Depending on state laws and their unique family structure, a parent may not be listed on the child’s birth certificate or may not have legal guardianship. This can be the case even when parents are married at the time of birth.
The lack of legal protections can make transgender parents fearful of interactions with Child Protective Services. It may also make CPS involvement more complicated when staff need to determine who has legal rights, decision-making authority, or caregiving responsibilities for the child. Parents who are safe and supportive may still hesitate to engage with CPS because they fear losing custody, contact, or legal recognition as parents.
Anti-trans messaging that devalues trans parents
Few public discussions of transgender people’s lives recognize their roles as parents, and many readers may not realize how many transgender people are raising children.
Sadly, much of the anti-trans messaging that exists promotes the false idea that transgender people’s existence is harmful to children. This myth causes harm to families with transgender adults. Those families may be afraid of what will happen if other people find out that one or more of the parents are transgender. They may face discrimination, harassment, or threats from others, including threats to take away their children.
These negative messages can also be internalized by CPS workers, teachers, neighbors, and others who interact with the family. Some transgender parents report being investigated by CPS sometimes solely because one or more parents are transgender, rather than because there is evidence of child abuse or neglect.
Messages that trans kids are being abused
Another harmful form of misinformation is the claim that trans-affirming care for minors is abusive to the child. This claim is absolutely false. Affirming a child’s gender identity improves their mental health, strengthens supportive relationships with adults, and helps the child experience greater safety and wellbeing. Gender affirmation can include social support, family support, and, when appropriate, medical care. This care is considered best practice by most national medical associations and individual healthcare professionals.
Anti-trans attacks, at the individual and state level, have targeted the parents of transgender children, alleging that these children are being abused. In at least one state, the state child welfare agency was tasked with investigating the homes of transgender children. In other states, there is extensive fear within trans communities that CPS will be used against the nurturing families of transgender children.
Some people may file reports with CPS alleging abuse when the actual concern is that a child’s gender identity is being affirmed by a loving family.
Lack of knowledge from CPS
Few service providers get adequate training on the lives of transgender people and the issues facing their families. CPS workers are no different. Without sufficient training, CPS may not understand the unique dynamics or barriers facing families with transgender parents or children or how best to support those families.
Unclear rights within CPS
Few families understand their legal rights during interactions with the child welfare system. Even when general “know your rights” information is available, families with transgender members may face additional legal questions related to parental recognition, custody, healthcare decision-making, school records, privacy, or identity documents that make understanding their rights more complicated.
Because legal rights often must be enforced through courts or agencies, families may still face bias even when protections exist on paper. Many transgender people report discrimination within legal systems, which can make it harder to access the same protections, remedies, and procedural fairness available to others.
Unique Experiences of trans/nonbinary families
Where there is abuse in the home, CPS staff may see some of the following unique dynamics:
Child abuse that targets kids’ transness.
This may include forcing children into conversion therapy or related practices; telling children that they are bad, sinful, or wrong for being transgender; and denying children support as they explore or assert their gender identity. Transgender children may also experience physical or emotional abuse related to their gender identity or presentation, such as being belittled or physically hurt for wearing makeup, nail polish, or clothing associated with their gender.
Nurturing parenting of transgender children includes: supporting children as they explore and express their gender; using the affirming name and pronouns of the child; helping the child navigate social situations such as coming out to friends/family, changing their name at school, obtaining affirming clothing, and more.
Abusive partners targeting trans identity of co-parent.
Transgender victims and survivors of intimate partner violence often report that abuse targets their gender identity or expression. This can include denying access to medication or gender-affirming grooming supplies; using gender-based insults, humiliation, or emotional abuse; or targeting gendered areas of the body, such as the chest, face, or genitals, during physical assaults. Abusers may use language like “You aren’t a real man.” Or “No one will love you because you’re trans.”
Abusive partners often threaten that no one will believe the survivor and will say it is because the survivor is trans. Abusers may also threaten to keep custody of the kids by outing the survivor as trans.
In some situations, the abusive partner may be transgender. When working with any transgender person, whether they are the survivor or the person causing harm, staff should use that person’s affirming name and pronouns. Being transgender does not cause someone to be violent or controlling, and trauma someone has experienced is not an excuse for abusive or controlling behavior.
Limited access to support services and economic resources
Many CPS investigations are connected to a lack of resources in the family and/or substance use by a family member. Trans adults face high rates of discrimination in employment, housing, and healthcare – all of which are connected to increased rates of poverty. This may result in a family having less stable housing, trouble paying monthly bills, or other insecurities caused by lack of financial resources.
Trans adults also have, on average, experienced more traumatic events than cisgender adults in their lifetime. Some people cope with the impacts of trauma through drug or alcohol use, especially when traditional healing methods are not available to them.
In these situations, CPS workers can help by increasing access to supportive services, including affirming mental health care, substance use treatment, housing assistance, transportation support, legal advocacy, and financial stabilization resources. When making referrals, staff should assess whether the service is actually safe and accessible for transgender parents and children rather than assuming a general referral will meet the family’s needs.
As noted elsewhere in this section, discrimination against transgender people can increase the likelihood that reports are filed against transgender parents or families with transgender children. CPS staff know that not every report leads to findings, and most households with transgender family members are loving, supportive environments.
Key Tips for Service Providers
Use affirming names and pronouns.
Check for privacy first. Transgender people are not always out to everyone in their lives. They may be out to their partner and children, but not to extended family members or neighbors. In these situations, CPS staff can ask what names to use in what situations. It is critical to not accidentally out someone.
In other situations, staff will work with transgender people who have been living with their affirming gender for a long time. The fact that they are trans may not even come up or may only come up related to their legal identification or as part of describing the challenges the family faces such as housing discrimination.
Know relevant laws.
Many laws affect the rights of transgender families, including laws related to parentage, custody, healthcare access, school records, identification documents, privacy, and nondiscrimination protections. Staff should use current legal resources, such as the Movement Advancement Project equality maps, and consult local legal or advocacy partners when case decisions may be affected by state law.
In states with barriers to trans-affirming education and healthcare, many organizations are working to help families navigate access to support. Review this toolkit’s resource section and consult state or regional advocacy organizations, such as Equality Federation, for current information about available supports.
Whatever the state laws are, it is important to remember that trans affirming care is helpful. Conversion therapy is harmful.
Know your referrals.
Identify which referrals and resources in your community are accessible, respectful, and safe for transgender parents and children. Ask providers directly about their experience serving transgender people, their confidentiality practices, whether they use affirming names and pronouns with their clients and staff, and whether families have reported barriers to care. Use that information to reduce barriers before families are in crisis or already involved with the child welfare system.
When parents are transgender or nonbinary
Safety plan.
Many child welfare workers develop safety plans with families, and those plans are most effective when created collaboratively around the family’s needs and circumstances. For transgender adults, safety planning may need to address discrimination, harassment, outing, access to medication, identification documents, safe housing, and affirming support people. For transgender children, safety planning may include school communication, privacy, affirming clothing, names and pronouns, continued access to supportive care, and safety during social or family transitions.
Staff who work with families can benefit from understanding the specific harms transgender people may experience, including discrimination, outing, family rejection, denial of gender-affirming items or care, and threats involving custody or legal status. This knowledge helps staff build safety plans that reflect the family’s actual risks rather than relying on generic safety planning assumptions.
Affirm parenting skills.
A strengths-based approach can help support families and counteract stigma against transgender parents. Case workers can identify and affirm concrete parenting strengths, such as protecting a child from harm, maintaining routines, seeking supportive services, respecting a child’s identity, communicating with schools or providers, and creating safer home environments. Transgender parents often face stigma. By affirming their skills, case workers can help to challenge that stigma and bias.
When children in the family are transgender or nonbinary
Understand trans-affirming parenting and care.
Transgender children deserve to be listened to and treated with respect. Trans affirming parenting includes believing young people about their gender, working with them to make decisions about transition, learning about gender identities, and helping create safer spaces for the child to be themselves.
Practices that deny a child’s gender identity, including conversion therapy and related practices, have been deemed harmful by most major medical associations.
Help parents be trans-affirming if they are not already.
Parents may want to support their transgender children but may not yet have the information, support, or resources they need. Case workers can help by connecting parents with accurate information, affirming peer or caregiver support, knowledgeable medical and behavioral health providers, school advocacy resources, clothing or grooming supplies, and practical tools for talking with extended family members or other systems involved in the child’s life.
Resources
Center to Advance Peace. https://centertoadvancepeace.org/ This organization’s main site can serve as a broader entry point for resources related to violence prevention, survivor support, and community-centered safety work.
Impacts of gender-affirming care bans and related anti-transgender legislation. https://centertoadvancepeace.org/resources/impacts-of-gender-affirming-care-bans-and-related-anti-transgender-legislation This resource appears directly relevant for readers who need concise background on how anti-transgender laws and gender-affirming care restrictions affect children, families, and service access.
NCAP PDF on gender-affirming care bans. https://centertoadvancepeace.org/media/com_resources/files/7-impacts-of-gender-affirming-care-bans-ncap.pdf This PDF may be useful as a downloadable or printable reference for staff training, discussion, or citation when explaining the effects of gender-affirming care bans.
LGBTQ2S+ resources from the Center to Advance Peace. https://www.centertoadvancepeace.org/resources-lgbtq2s This resource page can help readers locate additional LGBTQ2S+ materials that may support staff education, referrals, and affirming practice with families.