Asking questions and maintaining curiosity: Embracing gender exploration in youth

Asking questions and maintaining curiosity: Embracing gender exploration in youth

Author: Charts & Leisure June 30, 2025 Duration: 30:23


In the third installment of Unravelling's 2025 Pride series, Mary speaks with Dr. Marley Balasco, an inpatient psychology specialist at the Brattleboro Retreat, about how to support young people as they explore and affirm their gender identities.

Dr. Balasco breaks down the difference between gender and sexuality, and offers insight into how children and adolescents come to understand who they are. She highlights the vital role that family support plays in mental health outcomes, and explains why curiosity, validation, and open-mindedness are essential when working with gender-diverse youth.

Together, they explore how gender development is a natural and expected part of growing up, and how cultural, societal, and political forces can either uplift or deeply harm young people in the process. Whether you're a parent, provider, educator, or ally, this conversation offers clarity, compassion, and concrete ways to support the well-being of trans and gender-expansive youth.

Links -
The Trevor Project - The Trevor Project is the leading suicide prevention and crisis intervention nonprofit organization for LGBTQ+ young people, providing information and support to LGBTQ+ young people 24/7, all year round.

Gender Spectrum - Gender Spectrum's mission is to create a gender-inclusive world for all children and youth. To accomplish this, we help families, organizations, and institutions increase their understanding of gender and consider the implications that evolving views have for each of us.


There’s a thread that connects our inner lives to the culture we live in, and Unravelling pulls on it to see what emerges. This isn’t a lecture series, but a conversation guided by therapist Kurt White and journalist Mary Wilson, who bring their distinct perspectives to every discussion. They explore how mental health is woven into everything from our daily fitness routines and societal pressures to the art we consume and the relationships we keep. In each episode, you’ll hear from experts who study the mind alongside individuals sharing their personal, lived experiences, creating a dialogue that feels both intellectually rigorous and deeply human. The aim is to move beyond simple definitions, examining how anxiety, resilience, joy, and struggle shape our collective reality. Produced by Charts & Leisure, this podcast provides a space for nuance, challenging the idea that our psychological worlds exist in a vacuum. It’s for anyone who has ever felt the tension between their private thoughts and the public world, offering not easy answers but a more textured understanding. By listening, you become part of a broader exploration into how compassion, for ourselves and our society, can actually be built from a place of genuine curiosity.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 50

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