I'm Coming Out

In honor of National Coming Out Day, I thought I would reflect on a personal, professional, and ongoing struggle I have as a clinician, a sex educator, and a queer-identified person.  How to be out in a therapeutic room as a therapist is one of the biggest questions and internal debates I've had with myself throughout my short-lived career as an intern and grown-up therapist.  Some clinicians live by the mantra to be out and proud, both in and out of the clinical setting.  Some clinicians work hard to be a "blank slate" in the therapeutic space, allowing clients to "make" the clinician whomever they (the client) needs them (the therapist) to be. *I tend to fall to this side of the argument*

Whatever the idea, reason, and purpose behind being out or not as a clinician is certainly valid and purposeful for the clinician, I would hope, just as having family pictures up in your office or not is something *little* clinicians must be thoughtful of when creating the therapeutic space.  It must thoughtful and should not take away from the client and your effort to help them.  However, I have seen the shift in the therapeutic alliance that happens when a client who viewed you as a straight woman, begins to see you as a queer woman.  To see the client change their view of you as their therapist ever so slightly to become more aligned with your personal truth and self-concept can be an amazing and scary process.  For one, it allows the client to become more connected to you and see you for who you truly are (this is true of any and all identifying information a client may learn about you).  For another, it can connect the client to the clinician as another queer person, and this can be huge!  To know that another suffers like you, lives like you, is oppressed like you can be a therapeutic text book all on its own as far as therapeutic interventions.  This is why there is such a large push in the queer community for queer celebs to come out and show others how "being out" can empower and unite an oppressed group.

So, do I use myself in the room to be a "role model" or a "success story" for being out?  I don't tend to think so.  My queerness is different from yours and yours and yours.  Because I'm currently in a heterosexual, monogamous relationship with a cisgendered person, I tend to appear a lot less queer than I do when I date a lady or someone who is trans or am a part of an open relationship.  Am I queer enough to be an inspiring role model?  Or, is the real question still just am I queer enough (the personal struggle of many queer people)?

I know that as a queer woman who dates mostly men, I get overlooked and minimized often in my queer identity among peers.  Would this hold up with clients?  Would I not be "enough?"  Or, another fear, that clients begin to believe I am in a lesbian relationship, but then see me in "real-life" with my male partner.  Could this undo a whole relationship built around my queer identity?  And, what happens when you are out and open and proud in a clinical relationship; does this open a Pandora's Box of personal questions and boundary crossing?

When is being queer helpful, when is it a violation to my personal life?  When does it matter for clients to know my sexual orientation? When doesn't it?  I think the "right answer" is, as always, it depends on the client.  But, how do you know?  How can you know?

I guess today is more questions than answers.  Sorry about that, but as I said, this is one of the biggest struggles I've faced as a clinician and who I choose to be with my clients.

In a lighter note, let us not forget on today (ok, yesterday technically) of all days, to dance our pretty little queer asses right out of the closet.