Published Articles

The Gender Affirmative Model: A New Approach to Supporting Gender Non-Conforming and Transgender Children, Colt Meier, Ph.D. & Diane Ehrensaft, Ph.D.(eds.), American Psychological Association Publications, in process.

Ehrensaft, D.  “It Takes a Gender Creative Parent” in A. Lev & A. Gottlieb (eds.),  Families in Transiton:  Parent Perspective in Raising the Gender Nonconforming or Trans Child (in press).

Ehrensaft, D. “Baby Making:  It Takes an Egg and Sperm and a Rainbow of Genders” in Katie Gentile (ed.), The Business of Being Made:  Producing Liminal Temporalities through ARTS, New York:  Routledge, 2016.

Ehrensaft, D.  http://www.wired.com/2015/07/must-put-end-gender-conversion-therapy-kids (07/06/2015 Wired)

Ehrensaft, D. Found in transition:  Our Littlest transgender people.  Contemporary Psychoanalysis, 50:4:  571-592, 2014.

Psychological and medical care of gender nonconforming youth.  Vance S, Ehrensaft D, Rosenthal S. M.  Pediatrics, 2014.

Gender Nonconforming/Gender Expansive and Transgender Children and Teens. Sherer I., Baum J., Ehrensaft D., Rosenthal S.M., Contemp Pediatrics, 2014.

Child and Adolescent Gender Center:  A multidisciplinary collaboration to improve the lives of gender nonconforming children and teens. Sherer I, Rosenthal SM, Ehrensaft D., Baum J., Pediatr Rev 33:273-275, 2012.

Ehrensaft, D.  “Listening and Learning from gender-nonconforming children.  The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, Vol. 68,  28-56, 2014 .

Ehrensaft, D.  “Family complexes and Oedipal circles: mothers, fathers, babies, donors, and surrogates. In M. Mann (ed.) Psychoanalytic Aspects of Assisted Reproductive Technology.  London:  Karnac, 2014.

Ehrensaft, D. “From gender identity disorder to gender identity creativity:  The liberation of gender-nonconforming children and youth.”  In E.J. Meyer and A.P. Sansfacon (eds.), Supporting Transgender and Gender Creative Youth New York:  Peter Lang, 2014.

Ehrensaft, D.“A terrible Thing happened on the way to becoming a girl:  transgender trauma, parental loss, and recovery.” In P. Cohen, M. Sossin, & R. Ruth (eds.), Healing after Parent Loss in Childhood and Adolescence.  Lanham:  Rowman & Littlefield, 2014.

Ehrensaft, D.“The Gender affirmative model: what we know and what we aim to learn.” Hidalgo, M.A.,  Ehrensaft, D. Tishelman, A.C., Clark, L.F., Garofalo, R., Rosenthal, S.M., Spack, N.P., &  Olson, J.,  Human Development, 56: 285-290, 2013.

“Look, Mom, I’m a boy—don’t tell anyone I was a girl.” Journal of LGBT Youth, 10:928, 2013.

Ehrensaft, D.  “The ‘Birth Other’ in Assisted Reproductive Technology” In M. O’Reilly-Landry (ed.), A Psychodynamic Understanding of Modern Medicine. London:  Radcliffe, 2012.

Ehrensaft, D.  “From gender Identity disorder to gender identity creativity:  True gender self child therapy.  Journal of Homosexuality, 59:3, 337-356, 2012.

Ehrensaft, D. (2011). Boys will be girls, girls will be Boys: Children Affect Parents as Parents Affect Children in Gender Nonconformity.Psychoanalytic Psychology.

Ehrensaft, D. (2011). Gametes for Sale, Wombs for Rent, Babies to Raise. In M. O’Reilly-Landry (ed.), Relational and Psychodynamic Aspects of Medical Care. New York: Routledge
Publications .

Ehrensaft, D. (2010). I’m a Prius: A Child Case of a Gender/Ethnic Hybrid. Journal of Gay and Lesbian Mental Health, 15(1): 46-57.

Ehrensaft, D. (2009). One pill makes you boy, one pill makes you girl. International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies,6(1): 12–24.

Ehrensaft, D. (2008). A Child is Being Eaten: Failure, Fear, Fantasy, and Repair in the Lives of Foster Children.” Journal of Infant, Child, and Adolescent Psychotherapy, 7:2, 100-108.

Ehrensaft, D. (2008). When Baby Makes Three or Four or More. In The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, Vol. 63, New Haven: Yale University Press.

Ehrensaft, D. (2008). Just Molly and Me, and “Donor Makes Three.   Journal of Lesbian Studies, 12: 2-3, 161-178, 2008.

Ehrensaft, D. (2007).  Raising Girlyboys: A Parent’s Perspective.” Studies in Gender and Sexuality, 8(3), 269-302, 2007.

Ehrensaft, D. (2007).  The Stork Didn’t Bring Me, I Came From a Dish: Psychological Experiences of Children Conceived through Assisted Reproductive Technology. Journal of Infant, Child, and Adolescent Psychotherapy, 6(2): 124-140.

Ehrensaft, D. (2007).  Raising Girlyboys: A Parent’s Perspective.” Studies in Gender and Sexuality, 8(3), 269-302, 2007.

Ehrensaft, D. (2007).  The Stork Didn’t Bring Me, I Came From a Dish: Psychological Experiences of Children Conceived through Assisted Reproductive Technology. Journal of Infant, Child, and Adolescent Psychotherapy, 6(2): 124-140.

  • Gender Explained

    2024 Publication  Diane Ehrensaft and Michelle Jurkiewicz:  Gender Explained: A New Understanding of Identity in a Gender Creative World, New York:  The Experiment, with forward by Dr. Stephen Rosenthal.

    Book Cover for Gender Explained

    Purchase your copy

    This is the book I wish I’d had when my own child told me, at age three, that she wasn’t the gender I believed her to be.  If you’re scared and confused because your child is saying things about gender that you never expected to hear, this is the book for you.”

    — Marlo Mack, author of
    How to Be a Girl

    A thorough, evenhanded illumination of a contentious topic imbued with compassion and cleareyed data.”

    — Kirkus Reviews

    Gender Explained” is the perfect antidote to the current state of widespread confusion about gender.  Ehrensaft and Jurkiewicz’s careful, thoughtful, and well-researched approach to the topic of gender cuts through a sea of misinformation.”

    — Sabra L. Katz-Wise, Ph.D., Associate professor at Boston Children’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School

    In Gender Explained, Ehrensaft and Jurkiewicz have taken a hot button issue and eloquently turned down the heat.”

    —Joel Baum, Director of Education at the Child and Adolescent Gender Center, UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital

    Empathic and accessible, Gender Explained helped me see ‘the other side’ of the gender debate. It acknowledges fear and concern that many people face and helps us expand our view of gender.”

    —Ximena Lopez, MD, pediatric endocrinologist

    Gender Explained reveals how our thinking about gender has changed through the lens and voices of patients, parents, and those who care for gender creative children.”

    —Norman Spack, MD endocrinologist at Boston Children’s Hospital

  • The Gender Creative Child

    Gender Creative Child_cover_FIN

    Purchase your copy

    Diane Ehrensaft’s publication of The Gender Creative Child: Pathways for Nurturing and Supporting Children who Live outside Gender Boxes, New York: The Experiment, 2016, with a foreword by Dr. Norman Spack.

    “The Gender Creative Child is an invaluable resource for families and practitioners wanting to understand the complexity and beauty of gender development and the value of affirmative care. I’m struck that Dr. Ehrensaft’s most revolutionary idea is also her most straightforward—if we really learn how to listen to our children, they will tell us what they need.”

    —Aron Janssen, MD, director and founder NYU Gender and Sexuality Service

    “The Gender Creative Child should be required reading for all therapists, pediatricians, and K-12 educators and for parents whose children express their gender differently from societal expectations. Diane Ehrensaft deftly shows that many trans and gender-nonconforming children can be identified from a young age and how critical it is to provide support to them.”

    —Genny Beemyn, PhD, trans educator and coauthor of The Lives of Transgender People

    “Dr. Ehrensaft explains gender and children like no one can. She equips adults to understand and support gender-expansive children the way they deserve to be. This book is the newest must-have for every LGBTQ library and a must-read for every adult with a child in their life.”

    —Lori Duron, author of Raising My Rainbow

    Go to “Books” tab to find out more information about The Gender Creative Child.