7: Jack Turban, MD, on new book Free to Be and how we can better support trans and gender diverse kids

On June 4, Free To Be (from Atria Books, a division of Simon & Schuster) hits the shelves of your nearest bookstore. Written by Jack Turban, MD, MHS, an adolescent psychiatrist and the founding director of the Gender Psychiatry Program at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), the book is an authoritative guide to understanding and navigating gender identity.

The book comes at an important time. Kids today are more knowledgeable about issues around gender than ever before — for a point of reference around two percent of today’s teens openly identify as transgender — while anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ rhetoric in general seems to be hitting a fever pitch among politicians and media figures who have gone to great lengths to politicize the identities of these young people.

Free To Be follows the stories of three trans and gender diverse young people — Meredith, Kyle, and Sam — who are navigating adolescence and their burgeoning understandings of their own gender identities. Underscoring all of this, the book features interviews with researchers and academics and advocates trans and nonbinary advocates who help unpack the complexities and nuances of gender identity and what they mean for young people today.

Jack and I go way back - I had the pleasure of interviewing him many times for articles in the past. He’s here to share more about what it was like to write the book and how, by getting a better understanding of gender, we can all help build a safer and more supportive world not just for young people, but for all of us.