USHERS: Understanding the Role of the Therapist in Transition-Related Care for Transgender and Nonbinary Populations

Mental health professionals are often taught a wide variety of clinical skills while in training and experience an array of situations in which they are able to apply and adapt their skillsets depending on what is needed for their clients. One area that has a profound need for these clinical skills are transgender & nonbinary individuals who are seeking medical interventions to alleviate gender-related distress. These clients in particular may come to therapy for short-term or long-term services, and face significant barriers to accessing hormonal or surgical interventions due to outdated beliefs, biases, and misinformation about what is necessary to approve them for care. Furthermore, therapists have historically not been provided necessary information to tailor their assessment skills to advocate for clients to access transition-related medical care, or face their own outdated beliefs & biases about providing support to these clients.

This training workshop is designed to educate mental health professionals about the history and present-day applications of gender-affirming healthcare in the United States, as well as empower professionals to apply existing assessment and report-writing skills to contexts with gender-diverse populations (namely, transgender & nonbinary populations). Participants will be come familiar with clinical considerations when writing letters of support for clients accessing gender-affirming hormones or surgery, applying the diagnosis of Gender Dysphoria to a client, and recognizing the overlapping symptom manifestation of Gender Dysphoria with other mental health diagnoses. Participants will participate in a workshop and engage with the provided material to become familiar with their role as mental health professionals to support gender-diverse populations by following and applying up-to-date standards for letters of support, based on the most updated version of the WPATH Standards of Care. This workshop is intended for practitioners who have a foundational and functional understanding of common experiences & identities within the LGBTQIA2S+ community, particularly those of transgender, nonbinary, and other gender-expansive individuals.