Reframing Parental Identity: Transitions Toward Support for Transgender and Gender-Diverse Children in French-Speaking Belgium

Introduction: Parental support is a key determinant of transgender and gender-diverse (TGD) youths’ well-being, yet parents’ own identity transformations remain largely overlooked. Parenting a TGD child often entails rethinking self-concept, continuity, and belonging within families shaped by cisnormative expectations. This study explores how parents in French-speaking Belgium reconstruct their identities and parenting roles as they accompany their child’s transition. Drawing on Identity Process Theory (IPT) (Breakwell, 1986), it examines how parents experience identity threat, negotiate meaning, and rebuild coherence through emotional, relational, and social adaptation.Aims: The research aims to understand (1) how parents of TGD children make sense of their experiences, (2) what challenges and resources influence their ability to provide sustained support, and (3) how identity negotiation and reconstruction contribute to empowerment and resilience.Methods: Between May and December 2024, twenty-one parents (including five couples) of TGD adolescents and young adults aged 11–29 participated in semi-structured interviews. The data were analyzed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, focusing on how parents construct meaning and articulate their identity trajectories. This approach, combined with a community-based participatory framework, ensured that interpretations remained contextually grounded and resonant with lived realities.Results: Parents’ narratives reveal a dynamic identity process unfolding through three phases: (1) Navigating identity discovery, marked by grief, guilt, and confusion following disclosure; (2) Meaning-making and sense-giving, involving biographical reinterpretation and the integration of new understandings into existing identities; and (3) Role adjustment and advocacy, where parents actively support their child and engage in public advocacy. Across these stages, IPT’s core principles, continuity, belonging, and self-efficacy, are repeatedly challenged and gradually restored. Emotional ambivalence, fear coexisting with love, pride, and uncertainty, remains a transversal dimension. Encounters with supportive professionals and peer networks facilitate positive identity reconstruction, transforming distress into agency.Conclusion: Parenting a TGD child is not only an act of care but a profound identity transition. When parents receive recognition and adequate support, processes of identity threat evolve toward adaptation and empowerment, echoing IPT’s model of resilience. Strengthening family-based and community supports thus constitutes a vital axis of public health and social inclusion.