‘You Cry and then You Just Carry on and Protect Your Children from it’: Unpacking the Impacts of Law on the Well-being of Gender-Diverse Young People and Their Families

In the United Kingdom, legal cases focused on gender care for young people have been widely publicised in both traditional and social media. As part of the Longitudinal Outcomes of Gender Identity in Children – Qualitative (LOGIC-Q) study, thirty-nine families were interviewed over five interview waves. Transcripts were analysed using a longitudinal thematic approach to understand what sense families made of various legal processes and how they experienced the practical consequences. Thirty-four families had narratives around these perceptions and experiences over the four different time-points. Three broad themes were generated: (1) Whose voice was included? (2) layers of distress and (3) families’ perceptions of legal judgements in the media. Both parents and young people spoke about experiences of anxiety and uncertainty where the consequences of judicial decisions around health care reverberated beyond the legal system itself. In this regard, the profound impact of such legal cases on the well-being of young people and their families should not be underestimated.