The Queer and Transgender Resilience Workbook: Skills for Navigating Sexual Orientation and Gender Expression (New Harbinger Self-Help Workbook)

How can you build unshakable confidence and resilience in a world still filled with ignorance, inequality, and discrimination? The Queer and Transgender Resilience Workbook will teach you how to challenge internalized negative messages, handle stress, build a community of support, and embrace your true self.

Resilience is a key ingredient for psychological health and wellness. It’s what gives people the psychological strength to cope with everyday stress, as well as major setbacks. For many people, stressful events may include job loss, financial problems, illness, natural disasters, medical emergencies, divorce, or the death of a loved one. But if you are queer or gender non-conforming, life stresses may also include discrimination in housing and health care, employment barriers, homelessness, family rejection, physical attacks or threats, and general unfair treatment and oppression—all of which lead to overwhelming feelings of hopelessness and powerlessness. So, how can you gain resilience in a society that is so often toxic and unwelcoming?

In this important workbook, you’ll discover how to cultivate the key components of resilience: holding a positive view of yourself and your abilities; knowing your worth and cultivating a strong sense of self-esteem; effectively utilizing resources; being assertive and creating a support community; fostering hope and growth within yourself, and finding the strength to help others. Once you know how to tap into your personal resilience, you’ll have an unlimited well you can draw from to navigate everyday challenges.

By learning to challenge internalized negative messages and remove obstacles from your life, you can build the resilience you need to embrace your truest self in an imperfect world.

Anneliese Singh, PhD, LPC, is associate dean of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the College of Education at the University of Georgia, and professor in the department of counseling and human development services. She is cofounder of the Georgia Safe Schools Coalition, an intersectional organization; and founder of the Trans Resilience Project. She resides in Avondale Estates, GA.

Foreword writer Diane Ehrensaft, PhD, is a developmental and clinical psychologist in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is director of mental health and founding member of the Child and Adolescent Gender Center—a partnership between the University of California, San Francisco, and community agencies to provide comprehensive interdisciplinary services and advocacy to gender non-conforming/transgender children and youth, and their families.