What Queer and Trans Patients Wish Their Therapists Understood

It’s Wellness Vibes Week! We’re taking some time at the start of this brand new year to explore wellness culture/wElLnEsS cUlTuRe through a queer lens, specifically the kind of queer lens that you can only find at your local Autostraddle. No celery juice or vagina steaming, just some chill tips for making your spiritual, physical and mental health a little better in 2020.

It’s 2020 and we all know that ~*wE sHouLd aLl bE in tHerApY*~, and a lot of us are! Those of us who aren’t, a lot of us are very reasonably stymied by access, by our shitty health insurance, by not having health insurance at all, by not being able to find a therapist even within those systems that can actually help us. And for those of us who do have access to therapy, we can not infrequently find we’re navigating heterosexism, cissexism, white supremacy and more there too, which kind of undercuts the point. We sometimes wish our therapists had insight from actual queer people and not just theory about how to treat us more effectively – and we’re sure they do too, they want to help! That said, here’s our real-life insight and tips about how to help us get better better.