Susan's Place Transgender Resources

hello! i have something SUPER annoying to talk about.
so, when i first came out as trans at age twelve, i had a therapist. she was a rude, disrespectful woman, who would laugh when i told her things, misgender me and constantly turn conversation back to my brother (i'd mentioned ONCE that my brother was rarely in the house as he works and goes to uni. once.) so i couldn't talk about stuff that actually bothered me. after a few months, she asked me if i wanted to continue seeing her, and i told her very politely that seeing her made me feel worse and i did not. she, a therapist seeing a trans child, actually started crying, which really didn't make me feel better at all. i moved on from that and almost forgot about her.
now, a couple of years later, i need a letter from a doctor to get my passport changed. i got in contact with her as she knows i am trans and has done for years, and will be able to confirm that i will most definitely be trans for the rest of my life. she got another therapist to call me to tell me that she does not want to write this letter for me. her reasoning? she 'does not know my gender situation well enough'. this is a lie. she has pages of records regarding my gender situation. she has attended meetings to discuss my gender situation. knowing her character, i know for a fact, as do my parents, that this is out of the pettiness of her own heart regarding the truthful comments i made about her attitude when i was 12/13. she is well within her rights to refuse me, but it hurts.
what she cannot refuse me is the set of files mentioning my transness, which i will use to help get a letter from another doctor. but even still, the fact that she went out of her way to get some form of 'revenge' is awful. my parents will be complaining, but there's nothing we can really do. :(

When ever you lose trust in your therapist, it is time to find a different therapist.

Sounds like you are way beyond that point.

Quote from: virtualverny on March 14, 2018, 04:08:45 PM
hello! i have something SUPER annoying to talk about.
so, when i first came out as trans at age twelve, i had a therapist. she was a rude, disrespectful woman, who would laugh when i told her things, misgender me and constantly turn conversation back to my brother (i'd mentioned ONCE that my brother was rarely in the house as he works and goes to uni. once.) so i couldn't talk about stuff that actually bothered me. after a few months, she asked me if i wanted to continue seeing her, and i told her very politely that seeing her made me feel worse and i did not. she, a therapist seeing a trans child, actually started crying, which really didn't make me feel better at all. i moved on from that and almost forgot about her.
now, a couple of years later, i need a letter from a doctor to get my passport changed. i got in contact with her as she knows i am trans and has done for years, and will be able to confirm that i will most definitely be trans for the rest of my life. she got another therapist to call me to tell me that she does not want to write this letter for me. her reasoning? she 'does not know my gender situation well enough'. this is a lie. she has pages of records regarding my gender situation. she has attended meetings to discuss my gender situation. knowing her character, i know for a fact, as do my parents, that this is out of the pettiness of her own heart regarding the truthful comments i made about her attitude when i was 12/13. she is well within her rights to refuse me, but it hurts.
what she cannot refuse me is the set of files mentioning my transness, which i will use to help get a letter from another doctor. but even still, the fact that she went out of her way to get some form of 'revenge' is awful. my parents will be complaining, but there's nothing we can really do. :(

@ virtualverny: MY OH MY.... that is quite a situation that you described.  You need to go to another therapist and bring your parents along to verify that you are and you have been trans....  with you and your parents and any medical records you can muster I would think that you should be able to get your much needed letter fairly quickly.   I hope that all goes well for you.
Danielle

ask for your records to be transferred to a new therapist and move on.

If it's been more than a year or so since you've seen her, it's not unexpected that she would not write this letter, Professional Standards, Codes of Conduct and ethics protocols that I'm familiar with for mental health workers all cover this.. Regardless of her attitude, YOU made the choice to stop seeing her and your professional relationship ended at that point - perhaps if you had booked an appointment to see her to make this request, a different answer would have been given.

Quote from: Sonja on March 14, 2018, 04:28:41 PM
ask for your records to be transferred to a new therapist and move on.

This is about all you can do in this instance.

Having seen 4 different therapists, I got annoyed at the thought of going to therapy. I got along week with the therapist I was forced to see when I was in foster care. When it came time to discuss trans issues, I saw one that told me she had never written any surgical reference letters for anyone, and probably wouldn't, because she was not happy with her surgery. The next one ran group therapy, which I rarely got to speak in, because (as a white) I was a minority. The last one refused to see me after 3 months, because I could not afford to drive 90 miles per day, 5 days a week, to volunteer for charities. Apparently, volunteering every other week at the local food pantry was not good enough for her.
Having given the situation some thought, if I'll never be able to afford SRS, I ain't gonna waste my time nor money of some damned head shrinker. I got my first referral letter from group therapy back in 1994. Getting letter #2 should be easy enough. If letter #1 is considered invalid for any reason, too bad for me. I have no recourse.

What a horrible therapist! I completely understand your frustration.

She sounds like she's the one who needs a therapist. I'd get what you can from her but have as little contact as possible. Get a new therapist asap.