Refl exions Kris Black
“Say not, ‘I have found the truth,’ but rather, ‘I have found a truth’.” – Kahlil Gibran
I am sitting in a library somewhere in Hackney having committed to
writing a 1000-word piece on trans issues and working with black and minority ethnic youth. Even contemplating writing about these issues within 1000 words feels like trying to fi t a rather large tiger into a very small matchbox.
My initial thought was, “Why ask me?” I am not a family therapist,
although in my working life of the past 35+ years, I have worked with a wide range of families and young people. I identify as being on the trans spectrum as a non-binary person. My birth family and I were brought up within a racialised and working-class context in London. Whichever lens I choose to write through, I want to be of service to my colleagues in the fi eld of family work and trans youth from racialised communities. The intersectional lens of self as a mixed racial heritage, working
class, genderqueer-identifi ed, born and bred in the UK human being means I have an awareness of having encountered various forms and permutations of prejudice most of my life and in various ways throughout my ‘working life’. If you want to learn more about intersectionality, please read anything by Kimberlé Crenshaw or hear her talks on YouTube (
https://youtu.be/akOe5-UsQ2o). Back to a personal level, I divorced my birth family a long time ago, and have sometimes sought out assistance with integrating new insights using family therapy constructs to help me process how this has aff ected me throughout my lifespan and journey as a human being. My work as a psychotherapist, supervisor, trainer and group worker
in the charity, education and private sector is another useful lens that informs the background of what I want to write about. My life story, the focus of my activism, as well as my therapeutic journey – both as a client as well as a professional – has led me to a profound understanding that any power I have in the world aff ords me an opportunity to be able to speak up for the vulnerable and less powerful in society, and this piece is a small opportunity to do so. I write this against the backdrop of two things falling into my inbox
this week: the fi rst being an article about a 17-year-old black American trans woman in the States being reported as the 14th trans person of colour to be murdered this year. At 17, she is also the youngest. I can’t help feeling gutted reading about such a violent end to a life that has barely begun due to transphobia. Secondly, The Stonewall School Report (
http://www.stonewall.org.
uk/school-report-2017), publishing responses from over 3,700 lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer (LGBTQ+) youths – the report estimates 4 out of 5 trans youth have self-harmed, with 45% having attempted to take their own lives. Further, 44% of trans pupils say staff at school is not familiar with the term ‘trans’ or what it means. I wonder what the statistic might be for therapeutic professionals? Training courses I’ve run as a Pink Therapy clinical associate on
working with lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer, intersex, asexual (LGBTQIA+) youth suggest there is a consensus from counsellors and therapists from all modalities about unfamiliarity with terminology, as well as issues aff ecting trans youth per se. Whilst I have also
Context 155, February 2018
encountered a general will to try and understand, a frustration overcomes me as to why these issues are not already integrated and included in training for professionals per se. Every study I have read of these youths informs us that young lives are at risk – that should be enough to motivate us after all, shouldn’t it? Some of us working within these communities with vulnerable
young people often fi nd they describe themselves as being shot at by both sides – encountering levels of confusion, ignorance and prejudice within their families and then encountering a diff erent kind of confusion, ignorance and prejudice when they seek help from services populated by professionals. A general pedagogy or attitude I have encountered from the less
well informed is that somehow the internet or autism is responsible for trans youth presenting in larger numbers for treatment. I am often left gobsmacked by the need to seek answers as to why our adolescents are identifying as trans and non binary, rather than accepting that they know who they are. Shouldn’t we be off ering them the support they need not to simply become another statistic? At least 28% of trans youth have not told anyone they are trans at all
– statistic from Metro’s Youth Chances Report (Source:
https://uktrans.info/attachments/article/320/ YouthChancesSurvey-16-25yearOlds_FirstReferenceReport.pdf) A backlash against trans youth in the form of psychological
professionals speaking out against the so-called transgender trend has been ameliorated by the offi cially published, 2017 version of the Memorandum of Understanding on Conversion Therapy in the UK that now includes trans people as being vulnerable to reparative therapy, and therefore sheltered alongside lesbian, gay, bisexual and asexual people under the umbrella of unethical practice that practitioners across the psy-professions should seek to avoid. At last – converting or trying to derail someone from a trans identity by using reparative or conversion therapy is as unacceptable as trying to convert lesbians, gays, and bisexuals from their sexuality. Please check the websites of UKCP, BACP, BABCP, PinkTherapy, ACC, BPC, BPS, COSRT, GLADD, NCS, NHS England and other signatory websites for the 2017 version of this document, launched in October 2017. Against this backdrop, when I listen to the most common narratives
of black and minority ethnic (BME) trans youth including non-binary and other folk from the LGBTQIA+ communities, what I often fi nd miss- ing in their encounters with systems and services is a common sense per- spective. Simply put, it irks me to encounter a professional attitude that trans people and oft times young people, are treated like something in a petri dish, observed and categorised for the purposes of theory, whilst services off ered by ill-informed practitioners are sometimes provided by generalising from the specifi c cases they have encountered, rather than from a training-informed perspective Perhaps what irks me the most is realising that many professionals
appear not to have even been trained to think about working eff ectively with marginalised communities and individuals as an integrated aspect of their training as therapists. I am informed by
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