ABSTRACT
Mental health professionals who work with transgender clients often report feeling unsupported by colleagues and/or the institutions that employ them. Moreover, family members of transgendered clients may aggress against the therapist, whom they see as assisting their family member in this shame-producing gender transition. To test the prevalence of direct and indirect acts of aggression against therapists who work with transgendered clients, a questionnaire was sent to members who work with this population. Results show that while threats and/or assaults from families of transgendered patients do occur, they are no more frequent than assaults perpetuated by relatives of non-transgendered clients. However, health care providers who work with this population are more likely to experience prejudice or administrative aggression from within mental health systems.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work was supported by the New Health Foundation. The authors would like to thank Cindy Wagner for her assistance with data entry.