Sharing Medical Knowledge on Digital Platforms: A Corpus-Based Investigation of Online Medical Communications Supporting Families of Gender-diverse Youth

Specialised medical communication concerning gender-diverse youth is increasingly shared and popularised in digital contexts where non-expert laypeople, namely families of gender-diverse children and adolescents, seek to acquire knowledge and become promoters of well-being practices. This study, by focusing on a corpus of online texts from organisations supporting families of transgender youth, paediatric and psychological associations, investigates how the language of medical research is translated and enhanced in this specific context. Data analysis and discussion will also highlight the supportive function of these texts and the specialised terminology adopted to describe gender-diverse youth with an inclusive, affirming and less medicalised perspective.