Found family: connection and community as transgender practitioners and researchers

Introduction

Current political and societal climates for transgender and gender diverse people are mixed at best, and actively hostile at worst. The case for practitioners and researchers who identify as transgender and gender diverse prove to be no exception as issues like minority stress, inconsistent or absent representation, and discrimination rear their ugly heads (Chen, 2023). But as a beautifully serendipitous encounter highlights, community for transgender and gender diverse practitioners and researchers is as important as ever.

Our story

The story begins as I (CJS, first author) find myself working on a final paper for one of my courses in my doctoral (PhD) program and come across a specific article while exploring resources to cite (Budge et al., 2023). Having what felt like a relatively uncommon surname, I was quite taken aback when I noticed that one of the authors shared my last name. Furthermore, they were from an institution in the same state of the United States (US) where I also reside. I continued to look deeper and found that, not only was there someone else with my last name, who was also a doctoral student and writing and conducting research in the realm of transgender healthcare, they too were also a person of lived transgender experience doing this work. Whereas I was in the therapy realm, he was currently a medical student.

As I (CJS, first author) took all of this in, I decided to find him and reach out on social media. Upon receiving my request, he sent a direct message expressing shock and amazement similar to my own. Dots were connecting faster than we could count, with our fathers and paternal sides growing up within a 30-minute drive of each other. We each began interrogating our fathers and hunting down all of the grandparent and great-grandparent names we could, assuming this to be more than mere coincidence and desperately seeking a connection point in our respective family trees. Eventually, I dusted off a genealogy program I had gotten for an assignment in my master’s program and, lo and behold, we are distant cousins. By mere happenstance in coming across one specific article for an assignment, I came out of this paper with a new cousin who, like me, is also in this line of work as a transgender person with lived experience.

For myself (DS, second author), the whole experience was very similar. I had always been told that our family name was one of a kind, given that it was changed to the current spelling when our ancestors immigrated to the US. So, when I received a friend request from someone with the same last name and who was also openly queer on their social media, it seemed too good to be true. I got to go from, “I am the one and only gay cousin” to “I have an incredible queer cousin!” in a matter of hours! Even the odds of us finding one another felt like nothing short of a small miracle, yet here we are. Living in a world that can be so determined to silence us, we were able to not only be loud, but loud enough to find each other.

This newfound cousin relationship could not have felt more exciting. A few weeks after this discovery, we were able to coordinate the chance to meet in person over the holidays while on our respective breaks and geographically closer than during the rest of the year. As we have reflected on our newfound connection, the contrast has also reminded us how lonely it can be as transgender practitioners and researchers.

The reality for trans clinicians and researchers

Being part of a marginalized group, the experiences of transgender and gender diverse individuals across countless fields can become saturated with discrimination, isolation, erasure, and other forms of systemic oppression. The clinical and research fields are no exception to this observation. As there becomes more representation of transgender and gender diverse therapists and researchers - or at least more being “out” and explicit about their gender identity - it is important that the experiences of these individuals are explored (Shipman & Martin, 2017).

Transgender and gender diverse clinicians and researchers experience a variety of specific barriers and obstacles within their work. Under the general umbrella of discrimination that transgender and gender diverse people face across contexts, transgender and gender diverse clinicians and researchers can experience harassment and misgendering from both colleagues and clients/patients, as well as fear professional repercussions such as losing their job or license because of their transgender identity. Because of all of this and more, transgender and gender diverse clinicians and researchers are but another example of a group who experience the “minority tax,” where they are often subjected to disproportionate and excessive expectations of additional emotional labour in their positions because of the various additional stressors stemming from anti-transgender discrimination (Westafer et al., 2022). Even in workplaces that are trying more intentionally to be affirming, transgender and gender diverse clinicians and researchers may experience well-intended but nonetheless stressful experiences of overcompensation and even tokenization by their workplaces, leading them to still feel as though they are ultimately under an oppressive microscope (Chen, 2023).

Another common experience of transgender and gender diverse clinicians is that of isolation and subsequent dilemmas of visibility management. Westafer et al. (2022) found this to be a consistent theme, and one that can be detrimental to clinicians. For many, this lack of visible representation even led to questioning themselves on whether they actually should be open and visible about their gender identity, or if doing so would be inappropriate or unethical even. In what little literature there is that currently acknowledges the reality of transgender clinicians’ very existence, a consistent point of discussion is that of whether therapists should disclose transgender or gender diverse identity to clients (Blumer & Barbachano, 2008; Shipman & Martin, 2017). While self-disclosure of any kind is always something to be mindful of when it comes to ethical practice, this particular discussion raises its own questions.

I (CJS) vividly recall my first time seeing these discussions while in my master’s degree program. Thinking about my own expression being incredibly nonconforming, I would ask myself, “What choice do I have?” Can one even deliberate self-disclosure when their gender diverse appearance is plain as day? Even when one’s transgender or gender diverse identity is not outwardly visible and there is more room to decide, there are still some burning questions. What about the conversation of therapists disclosing a cisgender identity to clients? It is no stretch of the imagination to assume that the predominant suggestion would be that a cisgender therapist need not do so, as it is already likely to be a given. If this is the case, one could argue that the conversation of whether transgender and gender diverse therapists should or should not disclose their gender identity creates an expectation of “cisgender until proven otherwise.” And to treat cisgender identity as somehow inherently neutral and a naturally-assumed default compared to transgender and gender diverse identity is one of the most foundational exercises of cisgenderism (Blumer et al., 2013) and anti-transness of which our fields could be guilty.

My (DS) own experiences as a trans man in any kind of space have been very different because I present as a very stereotypical gender conforming man. The privilege of safety is one that I will never not be grateful for, especially since moving to the Southern US for my medical education. The assumption that I am cisgender has saved me a lot of confrontations and undeniably opened doors for me. On the other hand, I am well aware that I will seem like a great target for tokenization wherever I go because I look like what some may consider a “safe” version of queer; the kind that keeps their mouth shut and will not cause heads to turn. Whether it is work or school, power dynamics continue to exist. Unless I want to risk retaliation, I feel I often have to hold my tongue whenever someone who holds power over me desires to impart their felt sense of wisdom onto me about trans health. Disclosing my own lived trans experience and the copious amount of research and education I have done on the topic probably would not work in my favor. I am usually either the only, or if I am lucky, one of two trans people at a given job or program. If I choose to speak up and advocate for our community, it either means fighting the push back on my own, or educating on my own. It is lonely. It is tiring. And it is frustrating to know that in many of the spaces I am in, it simply will not get done if I am not the one to specifically do it.

You are not alone

While things are still undeniably stressful and even frightening for transgender and gender diverse clinicians and researchers, our (the authors) experience of finding each other has been the reminder that we are not the only ones out there. In many queer and trans communities, there is the concept of “found family,” also sometimes referred to as “chosen family” or “family of choice,” where kinship is formed through intentional bonds beyond blood and lineage. Because of possible rejection upon coming out, found family often serves as an alternative source of support for queer and transgender people when family-of-origin relationships can be less secure (Gutierrez, 2020). The need for support and community in a professional context is just as important as it is within a personal one.

To the transgender and gender diverse clinicians and researchers, you are not alone. There are others out there who work alongside you in your efforts, and you do not have to take on the burden of this work by yourself. If you have not encountered it already, your found family of fellow trans practitioners and researchers are out there. You may even be so lucky, such as in our (the authors) case, that they could even be a literal cousin, taking the experience of found family to an entirely different level. And if your found family of fellow trans researchers and practitioners has yet to be discovered, you can certainly start with adding us to your list.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).