Families of Origin and Chosen Kinship in the Lives of Transgender Women: A Critical Narrative Review

Introduction Families of origin and chosen kin occupy a central yet under-theorized place in the lives of transgender women. This critical narrative review examines how transgender women’s family relationships are organized across contexts and develops a conceptual synthesis from that evidence, and asks what that evidence implies for policy. Methods Twenty-four empirical studies from 15 countries, published between 2019 and 2026 and identified through August 2026 searches of PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science, complemented by studies known from prior work, were read alongside ethnographic scholarship on trans kinship formations. Results Four patterns recur. Family rejection operates as a relational and material process rather than a single event. Recognition is granted partially and function by function: relatives may offer money while refusing a name, or warmth in private while denying the relationship in public. Gender transition reorganizes kinship terms, roles, and public belonging over extended time. Chosen kin formations, including trans houses, mama figures, and sisterhood networks, operate concurrently with families of origin rather than as substitutes for them. Conclusions Four propositions organize the synthesis: family recognition is multidimensional and negotiated; families transmit structural stigma through cisnormative investment; gender transition operates as a family boundary process without normative closure; and chosen kinship constitutes parallel institutional kinship, all under the scope condition that legal, religious, and economic regimes constitute these processes. Policy Implications Institutional recognition of chosen kin in caregiving, visitation, and emergency decisions, and policies that buffer the material costs of family rejection, follow from the evidence reviewed.