How can therapists and other healthcare practitioners best support and validate their queer menopausal clients?

Abstract

How do queer people experience menopause? And what is the queer menopausal experience of therapy and the wider healthcare system? The existing literature examines lesbian lives, but there are no studies of the wider LGBTQ + population, particularly as clients in therapy. For this study, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 LGBTQ + identified participants. While some participants had positive experiences, practitioners overall were frequently unable to meet their needs, both in terms of menopause knowledge and understanding queer identities. In summary, participants felt that therapists should: listen to queer menopausal clients and not make assumptions; understand that this client group is likely to have had previous negative experiences with healthcare practitioners; realise that both they and their clients are likely holding inadequate information about menopause; understand that menopause can also be a positive experience; and undertake further training around GSRD (Gender, Sex and Relationship Diverse) identities, menopause and hormones. Queer menopausal clients frequently face multiple discrimination when accessing therapy and healthcare services: acephobia (prejudice against asexuals), ageism, biphobia, homophobia, misogyny (where applicable), and transphobia. Practitioners of all kinds, and by extension training organisations, have a long way to go in creating sufficiently safe and appropriate services for this client group.

Keywords:

• menopause
• queer
• LGBTQ+
• GSRD
• therapy
• healthcare

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my dissertation supervisor, Elizabeth Wilson, for her support throughout this process. Also Gordon Jinks, Banjo Aromolaran and Patrizia Collard from UEL, and everyone in the seminar group, for our lively sessions. Thank you to UEL for awarding me a scholarship.

Thanks to Sophia Prevezanou, my private practice supervisor, for suggesting I apply to UEL and for encouraging me throughout.

Thanks to Dominic Davies and Petra Boynton for their very helpful input.

I am very grateful to Meg-John Barker for taking the time to read my work and comment on it. Also to John Galvin, occupational therapist and my study mentor, for our inspiring discussions over the year.

And thank you to my participants for bringing so much of yourselves, and to my friends and colleagues whose input and shared experiences inspired me to do this project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest reported by the author.

Table 1. Interview questions (three pages).

Table 2. Table of participants (referred to on page 17).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tania Glyde

Tania Glyde (they/she) is a psychotherapist and counsellor in private practice in central London (https://londoncentralcounselling.com/). Qualifying in 2013, they specialise in working with clients who are GSRD (Gender, Sexual and Relationship Diversity) identified, which includes people who are LGBTQ+, kinky, non-monogamous, and sex workers. They founded the London Gender, Sexual and Relationship Diversity Practice (https://www.londonsexrelationshiptherapy.com/), a group of seven practitioners, in 2014. They are a member of the National Counselling Society, and a Pink Therapy Advanced Accredited GSRD Therapist.

To continue their work on LGBTQ + experiences of menopause, they have created the website https://queermenopause.com.

In their previous career they were an author and broadcaster. More recently they have written for the Lancet and Lancet Psychiatry, including ‘BDSM – Psychotherapy’s Grey Area’ (https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0366%2815%2900058-9/fulltext)