Dimensions of Discomfort: Examining Child Welfare Professionals’ Approach Toward Gender Diverse Foster Youth

Abstract

There is an increasing amount of sociological scholarship regarding gender diverse people’s interaction with institutions. An understudied institution is the foster care system. This paper seeks to understand affective components of how child welfare professionals working in foster care approach serving gender diverse youth. Based on 31 interviews and one field service training, child welfare professionals report general discomfort in the field about working with or issues around gender diverse youth in care. Child welfare professionals discursively identified discomfort around lack of knowledge, structural barriers to residential placements, liability, and bias. I argue the feeling of discomfort is multidimensional and encompasses organizational, professional, and cultural features. Further, I articulate emotional discomfort is gendered and reifies normative gender ideologies. These findings illuminate how emotions factor into practice and underscores the inefficiencies and harms that arise for gender diverse individuals navigating institutions using the logic of the gender binary.