Gender & Family Project

The Gender & Family Project (GFP) empowers youth, families and communities by providing gender affirmative services, training and research. GFP promotes gender inclusivity as a form of social justice in all the systems involved in the life of the family. GFP was founded in 2010 and is directed by Jean Malpas, LMHC, LMFT, who has trained and published nationally and internationally on issues of gender and sexuality.

• What We Do
• Get Involved
• Get Started
• Support Groups
• Mental Health Services
• Gender Inclusivity Training
• Staff
• GFP in the Press
• Night of 1000 Genders

What We Do

GFP provides comprehensive multidisciplinary services for gender expansive children, transgender adolescents, their families and communities. Please find below a list of our services:

– Support groups for caregivers, grandparents, siblings and family members
– Play group for children and tweens 5 to 14 years old
– Support group for adolescents 14 to 18 years old
– Spanish-speaking caregiver support group
– Family therapy and parental coaching
– Affirmative psychological and gender evaluation
– Training and education for educators, mental health and health providers
– Corporate training and gender literacy education for groups and organizations

For more information about scheduling an intake or any of our services, contact us.

Get Involved

Please join the movement for Gender Justice. While we have limited volunteer opportunities for individuals to work with our events and community trainings, we are delighted to speak with you about the ways you can make a difference in your community and participate to the GFP community. If you are interested in volunteering or organizing an event to support GFP, or if you would like to make a donation, please contact Jane Rennert at jrennert@ackerman.org.

Publications & Resources

Families and Gender:

• Malpas, J. (2011). Between Pink and Blue: A Multi-Dimensional Family Approach to Gender Nonconforming Children and their Families, Family Process, 50, 4, pp. 453-470.
• Listen to Jean Malpas’ Psychotherapy Networker workshop on Gender Fluidity:
  Between Pink and Blue: Exploring Gender Fluidity
• Listen to Jean Malpas’ Ackerman Podcast on gender non-conforming youths:
  The Ackerman Podcast #5 / Between Pink & Blue with Jean Malpas LMHC LMFT

Couples and Gender:

• Malpas, J. (in press, 2012). Can Couples Change Gender: Couple Therapy with Transgender People and their Partners. In Bigner, J. & Wechtler, J. (Eds) Handbook of Couple and Family Therapy with LGBT People. New York: Routledge.
• Malpas, J. (2006). From ‘Otherness’ to Alliance: Transgender Couples in Therapy. In Journal of GLBT Family Studies, Volume 2, Numbers ¾, pp. 183-206.

Watch Jean Malpas discuss Gender in our Short Conversations series:

Get Started

To get started with services at GFP, all families must first complete our screening and intake process.

The first step is to schedule a 30 minute phone screening so that our team can answer any questions you might have about our services. We will also ask you for some preliminary information about your family so that we can determine how we can best support you.

During the initial phone screening, we can schedule you for an in-person intake, where you will have the opportunity to have a more comprehensive conversation with a member of our clinical staff. By the end of this intake session, our intake clinician and your family will come to a mutual decision about appropriate next steps.

To request an initial phone screening, please call (212) 879-4900 x 370 or email Marcelo Dedini, mdedini@ackerman.org.