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- 5 - accessHealthNews.net September 2023 Volume 9 | Issue No. 74 READ MORE I n the climate of hate, violence, and rampant misinformation surrounding queer and trans people and rights, it is now more important to hear the experiences behind the statistics and the stories behind the research directly from queer and trans people than ever before. The people facing the brunt of this harm are speaking out about their experiences, and as with every group facing hate and persecution, their voices, their accounts of their day-to-day reality, must take priority. Over the course of two seminars, Mental Health America (MHA) hosted lectures featuring LGBTQ+ voices speaking about their journeys in finding healing, recovery, and self-love in spite of this social climate—and the role of the health care system in facilitating these positive outcomes. Speakers Ren Fernández-Kim (she/they), Casey Tanner (they/ them), Patrick Custer (he/him) and Dr. LaNail R. Plummer (she/her) spoke on their experiences in a session titled "Pride in Myself," and speaker Steven Haden presented in a session titled "The Importance of Providing Culturally Relevant and Affirming Care to Members of the LGBTQ+ Community." Together, these seminars pair the voices and personal testimonies of the queer and trans people living the stories told by research, statistics, and modern best practices with that information. Trauma for people in the LGBTQ+ community can take many forms. This may include, for example, acute trauma, chronic trauma, complex trauma, historical trauma, racial/oppressive trauma, and religious trauma. While all health professionals have a duty to provide the best care possible to their clients, which requires providing culturally-sensitive and trauma-informed care, for mental health professionals, understanding the trauma queer and trans people face is especially important. "In therapeutic contexts, the failure to adequately grasp the nature of trauma and its manifestations can lead to misdiagnosis, improper treatment, and unfavorable outcomes. Unrealistic objectives and interventions may be implemented as a result. Without a comprehensive understanding of trauma, clients may be pathologized, contributing to stigmatization," Haden explained. As with any health-related profession, accurate information is necessary in order to avoid causing additional harm to the patient and to provide quality care. Devoid of the context of personal testimony, the idea that something as abstract as an incomplete understanding of complex traumas and nuanced social conditions could lead to something as tangible as misdiagnosis can be hard to grasp. Tanner's story offers a clear example of how a failure to understand trauma led directly to misdiagnosis, improper treatment, and unfavorable outcomes. "I think about the first time I ever went to therapy," Tanner said. "I was 15. I was incredibly depressed because I was hopelessly in love with my best friend and had no idea what those feelings were. I went to therapy, and my therapist, within one single session of sitting with me, said, 'This is a mother issue.'" Due to a combination of the lack of information and representation available to Tanner for them to recognize their own identity and the social stigmas discouraging them and their therapist from taking the existence of queer identities into consideration, the real source of Tanner's feelings went completely unacknowledged. With no other clear options, Tanner and their team of care providers tried to solve a problem that didn't exist and ignored the problem that did. "She was so off the mark about what was happening for me in regards to my friend, and so for another seven years, I didn't talk about this again. I went through a severe eating disorder, my own suicidal ideation, suicide attempts, hospitalizations. I had at a certain point seven or eight different diagnoses, and nobody in any of these facilities was asking me questions about my sexual orientation. It just was not coming up," Tanner said. Their experience is just one of many where a lack of queer trauma-informed care led to years of unresolved health conditions that worsened over time. "In therapeutic contexts, the failure to adequately grasp the nature of trauma and its manifestations can lead to misdiagnosis, improper treatment, and unfavorable outcomes. Unrealistic objectives and interventions may be implemented as a result. Without a comprehensive understanding of trauma, clients may be pathologized, contributing to stigmatization." - Steven Haden

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