LIVE: Introduction to Conducting Forensic Psychological Evaluations of Transgender and Gender-Diverse Individuals
August 22, 2025
9:00 AM - 1:00 PM Pacific
4 Hours | 4 CEs
Live Program via Zoom
Sara Boyd, PhD and Dee Farmer present a live virtual professional training program on Introduction to Conducting Forensic Psychological Evaluations of Transgender and Gender-Diverse Individuals in partnership with the American Academy of Forensic Psychology (AAFP).
This training covers considerations related to language and evaluator behavior regarding interviewing and writing reports about transgender and/or gender diverse individuals in the context of forensic mental health evaluations. The program provides practical recommendations and basic scripts for evaluators to speak accurately and appropriately to and about transgender and/or gender diverse evaluees during interviews and testimony.
The presenters will discuss commonly used tests in forensic settings, including personality/psychopathology-focused self-report measures, risk assessments, and trauma-related assessments, focusing on acknowledging the limitations of existing measures that use gendered norms, did not include or account for transgender people in test development samples, and/or may not provide adequate coverage of relevant psychological phenomena. There will be practical suggestions for how to choose, use, and describe formal psychological testing in reports.
Training Outline:
- Introductions and brief backgrounds of presenters
- Etiquette and terminology guidance
- Names & Deadnames
- Pronouns
- Inclusion of gender-related information in reports or external communications
- Example language for introductory sections of reports
- Common but inaccurate assumptions
- Everyone who is transgender and/or gender diverse wants medical interventions (and that cisgender people do not seek gender-affirming interventions)
- All transgender people fit into a gender binary, and we all have a binary “biological sex”
- Being transgender is a mental illness
- A person’s gender is relevant to the forensic referral question
- Being transgender is the result of psychological trauma
- The evaluator must know about the person’s genitals
- Issues in interviewing about sensitive issues
- How to utilize testing, and avoid misuse of testing
- Discussion of professional ethics codes related to testing and minority populations, research samples
- Discussion of MMPI-3, PAI, Static-99R, TSI-2, and considerations for use with transgender and/or gender diverse people
- Potential qualitative or hybrid qualitative/quantitative approaches to testing
- Informed consent for testing
- Suggested language for describing the use of formal testing in reports
- Ethical issues
- Relevance/scope of evaluation
- Harm of outing individuals to collateral sources, third parties, institutions, the public, etc.
- Allowing personal biases to influence opinions and practices
- Transphobia
- Becoming an advocate rather than offering a neutral and objective opinion
- Failure to appreciate structural, historical, and institutional factors when developing a conceptualization and opinion regarding a transgender and/or gender-diverse individual
- Transgender people are documented across cultures and time. Not a new phenomenon
- Oppression of transgender people is related to misogyny, homophobia, racism, colonialism, and struggles for bodily autonomy
- Psychologists and medical providers have played a role in pathologizing transgender and/or gender diverse people, and exerting social control via medicalization
- Survival crimes and over-policing
- Prisons, jails, and forensic hospital settings/PRTFs are nearly always hostile to and dangerous for transgender and/or gender diverse people
- Increased fear and anxiety about the treatment of transgender and/or gender diverse people in the U.S. and internationally, how this affects individual people and their decisions
- Incomplete informed consent procedures
- What to do when you discover that a facility or retaining attorney is violating a transgender and/or gender diverse individual’s rights.
- Evaluators practicing outside the scope of their competence.
- Additional learning and networking options
- Other training opportunities
- Professional associations that focus on relevant issues affecting transgender and/or gender diverse people
- Joining local organizations to learn about policy and legislative advocacy
This training is intended for master's or graduate-level psychologists who conduct forensic psychological evaluations and/or work in correctional settings, from prison to probation, and community psychologists. This is an introductory training, but attendees will be asked to complete preliminary reading related to very basic etiquette (e.g., not deadnaming, using correct pronouns, not asking about genitals, referring to transgender and gender-diverse people as a group) to facilitate constructive participation.