Feminist Therapy with Gender Questioning Adolescents: Clinical Case Example

Abstract

This clinical case example illustrates the benefits of a feminist approach to therapy in addressing the unique experiences of gender questioning adolescents. We will illustrate the successful use of feminist therapy in our work with a biracial, bisexual, adolescent client who reported questioning his gender expression and gender identity. The client used he/him/his pronouns at the time of our work together; we also regularly checked in with our client about pronouns throughout our sessions. The authors conducted co-therapy with this client, working as a treatment team. Feminist therapy offers an affirmative, intersectional, and strengths-based approach to work with gender diverse clients. Feminist therapy is particularly well-suited to this work because it explicitly connects the personal with the socio-political.

Keywords:

• Affirmative therapy
• cultural humility
• feminist therapy
• gender diverse
• gender nonconforming
• multicultural therapy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).