I recently had to fire my therapist after she made horribly transphobic statements that were not immediately relevant to what we were working on together but were completely unacceptable. Thankfully, she was not a fellow Social Worker, but the experience reminded me of the role that queer social workers must play both in the context of our employment and as we live our daily lives to ensure that we are advocating for our patients, clients, friends, family, ourselves and fellow queer citizens. I reported her actions and took the time to provide some educational resources to her, recognizing the damage she could have done.
This happened just over a week after I brought together a group of incredible queer social workers to discuss the joys and challenges of being queer while being a social worker. I was joined on the call by four fabulous queer social workers:
Gina (she/her), a medical social worker in Ohio working in the gender clinic at a children’s hospital. She is bisexual with a trans male partner.
Kat (she/her or they/them), a queer non-binary social worker in Virginia serving as a therapist to children, teens, and young adults who are living with cancer or have cancer in the family. She also does a lot of Diversity, Equity, Accessibility and Inclusion consulting focused on transgender education. Her husband is a disabled trans man.
Lance (he/him), a medical social worker in Pennsylvania who also does a lot of training around working with “the rainbow acronym” as a Black, queer social worker.
Chris (he/him), a gay social worker who is finishing up his PhD in Social Work in Florida. He also works in private practice seeing about 25 clients per week with a history of work in child welfare and residential treatment.
I started by sharing with the group that my queerness has largely flown under the radar in my own work experiences, that I’ve typically passed as straight since I was married to a male-presenting person (at the time). I asked them all how their queerness intersects with their work and got some very different answers.
Some felt they were most comfortable in places where they could be out and have their queerness as part of their professional identity, reflecting on the weight of those positions they held in environments where they felt the need to be closeted. Gina reflected on how different her current gender focused role is from previous roles when her identity still felt quite new and wasn’t part of her work identity. She shared how meaningful it has been to be able to share her personal experience as she advocates for non-binary and trans kids in the hospital.
Others felt it didn’t really intersect all that much with their work, making a decision to keep it fairly separate from their work unless if comes up naturally. Chris said “my queerness intersects to the degree that I choose to have it intersect,” with its most prominent aspect being the queer focused research he is doing.
Lance shared that in previous hospital jobs he has had to serve as “a human shield for people who are being misgendered,” explaining to new and not so new doctors that the name and gender on someone’s insurance won’t match how they prefer (and expect) to be referred to. He felt that when there are work environments that are clearly more progressive, for example a hospital that includes gender identity in their chart, it feels more natural to be more out.
We talked about the uncomfortable feeling of needing to tone down our queerness for job security and safety, but also for the sake of privacy and respect. Several folks shared that safety was much more of a concern in jobs where the power dynamic felt uneven, especially when the client base is primarily older and whiter and straighter and more male. Many had also faced challenges with coworkers sharing problematic and discriminatory views.
Lance spoke powerfully of his reality, saying “we know that at an abnormal rate that people of color who are queer will have more violence acted towards them. I have my own personal traumas with that, which adds to the challenge of navigating white corporate America. As much as I would like to tap dance and make jokes that I’m an HR nightmare… I find I’m toning myself down in meetings when something I feel strongly about comes up but I fear that if I say something I’ll be seen as being too emotional and that it’ll be blamed on my queerness.”
Conversely, Chris didn’t feel he had to do much toning down. He shared “I’m sort of unapologetically myself. I recognize my privilege in being able to do that… I’ve been very fortunate and blessed that I’m at a point in my career where I don’t have to hide that aspect of myself.” Gina also spoke about her privilege, “I can pass as straight when I need to. I interchange ‘my partner’’ and ‘my husband’ and can stay in the closet when I talk about ‘my husband’ if I need to.”
We spoke about the challenging moments when a client or co-worker says something homophobic or transphobic, even when not targeted at you, but feeling unsure of how to approach that within the therapeutic relationship. It may not make you feel life-threateningly unsafe in the moment, but it does have a domino effect, making a lack of safety in the environment and making it harder to go to work in the morning. It can still be very emotional and hurtful.
I asked the group what they’d say to queer social workers entering the field, or what message they’d like to send back to themselves when they were first starting out as a queer social worker. We got some really lovely advice:
If you interview for a job and don’t feel like you can be fully yourself every single day, it is not the job for you. Don’t sacrifice your authenticity - not for the money, not for the title, not for anything.
You don’t know all the answers and that’s okay. Ask for the help you need, don’t sacrifice your authenticity in that way either.
Find your community. Seek out other queer social workers. Make those connections. The greatest friends in the world are social workers. Make sure you have sounding boards who can help you process things personally and systemically at work and in your personal life.
Your queerness is only an aspect of you. It does not take away from anything else that you are. You are strong, competent, and deserve the best there is to offer.
Spend some time figuring out that being a queer social worker means to you. You don’t have to work directly with the LGBTQ+ community to be a queer social worker. Of course, we need that, do it if you feel drawn to it. But don’t let jobs put extra advocacy work on your plate as “the queer employee” because you haven’t defined what you are comfortable with.
Don’t ever apologize for being yourself and don’t settle. Don’t let anyone take advantage of your niceness. Don’t accept less than you are worth.
We closed speaking about the power we feel as queer social workers. It has given us all the ability to empathize in ways many are not able to. It is powerful knowing that our presence in any room where we shine in our truth gives others permission to do the same. Kat shared the power in taking a macro look at how we can impact the world around us. She said, “my experiences, my spouse’s experiences, and the lens from which my Social Work brain works – the person in environment, existing within layers and layers of environments and systems – allows me to bring so much to the table as a social worker and as a queer person. I feel like I can really shift spaces and views, taking something that has been hard for me and something that has made my journey not as joyful and finding a way to change it and see how it can trickle down.” We all spoke of the instant connection felt between groups of queer social workers, as if we are a family. Connection is such a powerful force, especially within the LGBTQ+ community.
Lance shared, “Social work has become my protective bubble, where even if I have an emotional reaction off of something that might be racially charged, transphobic or homophobic or any of the ‘phobics,’ then I can lean on my social work side. If I wasn’t in Social Work I don’t know how I would have handled some of these dangerous situations.”
I’m so grateful for the strength I feel when I put on my social work hat, whether I’m advocating for myself or for others around me. I love our profession, and I love the queer social workers in my life so much. Thank you to Gina, Kat, Lance, and Chris for sharing so much. I hope I’ll find an excuse to bring us together again soon.
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