Hello everyone,
I'm having some concerns about my therapist, and I'm wondering if anyone could offer their two cents.
About me... I'm 22 years old, male-assigned at birth, identify as genderqueer but use male pronouns and present as male. I'm only "out" with a few close friends.
I originally came to this therapist because I've been having issues with my parents—just general stuff going back to adolescence that don't necessarily have a lot to do with gender issues. The therapist hasn't been a perfect fit but she has helped me with some things...
But I'm concerned about the way she reacted when I told her I didn't think my parents would accept certain aspects of me, such as my gender identity. She seemed shocked and in a bit of disbelief when I said I didn't consider myself cis. (I present as quite masculine, have a full beard, maybe I caught her off guard.) I guess she also seemed surprised that it was like the fifth session and I hadn't mentioned anything about gender before—as if it should have been at the top of my mind and my primary reason for therapy.
She asked me about my childhood and I said I grew up as a pretty happy boy but I'd never been gender-normative like my older brother; I also mentioned that my mom really wanted a girl after my brother, and that she sometimes dressed me up in dresses or something when we were playing dressup. My therapist made a big deal of this, saying it can be very confusing for a child, especially since my mother wanted a girl so much. Which may be true... but it seemed like she was trying to make me doubt myself. I told her I don't know if my mom's interactions with me predated my natural tendencies, or if they weren't complementary to what was already there. She said something like "yes you're right, I read a study about the X and Y chromosomes being stronger or weaker in certain people. People can be born with internal and external organs of different sexes". She just didn't quite seem to be on the same page. She kind of gave a strange look when I said I consider gender (and sexuality) to be a spectrum.
To top it off, at the end of the session she said "I hope you're not making a big deal out of this". I didn't know what she meant, asked her to clarify, and she said I'm experimenting with different identities at this stage in life and I shouldn't be worried about having these types of feelings. Now I was caught off guard because not once during the session had I expressed that any of this was distressing to me at all—the only part that was distressing, the part that I brought it up for, was because I'm worried how my parents (particularly my dad) would react if they knew.
Anyway, sorry for the long post. But I'm not reading into this too much, am I? Overreacting? The whole thing just made me feel like we approach the topic from vastly different positions, and I don't know if I want to continue to take advice from someone who sees things so differently than I do. And I feel invalidated by her but I don't know if she's right to question me like that, or if I'm just being too sensitive and I wouldn't face the same problems if I looked for someone else.
Is this type of reaction or approach, or line of questioning, pretty standard within the therapist community? Have people here had similar (or different) experiences? Like I said, I didn't come to therapy for this purpose so I didn't seek out a gender-issues specialist. But maybe it would be a good idea. I didn't expect the average therapist to be super "up to date" on these things but I was surprised by how old fashioned her reaction seemed. Warm thanks to everyone.
