#you likely won't need a doctorate unless you specifically wanted to prescribe medication for your clients

[uncanny-tranny]

Hello! I don't know if this is a question you can answer, but do you happen to know what degrees are required to be something along the lines of gender therapist or a therapist that specializes in helping queer people?

You've hit a general interest of mine, and while I'm not going into gender or sexuality therapies, I am interested in psych. Whatever college you decide to go to will likely have a better answer for you, so please network.

It really depends on what you want to focus on as a queer-focused professional, but you will likely need a bachelor's degree at minimum, and additionally, you will likely want to take classes in gender and sexuality studies and sex in general. Think about exactly what you would want for this career. For instance, you probably don't need a doctorate if you aren't going into psychiatry or if you aren't interested in being able to actually prescribe medication, so you might not want to choose to pursue your education or career that far. A master's in counseling and even sex therapy would likely be great for you.

Again, definitely talk to whatever college or university you're interested in and see what classes they would advise you to take, if they have those classes.

I'm definitely not an expert in this area, my degree is going towards something slightly different in the medical field. These are what I've gathered from general research into counseling and queer-specific care

Just to break this down, what you might want to look into is:

Bachelor's degree (minimum) or master's in counseling/behavioural therapy

Licensure requirements for the state and/or country you live in

Gender/sexuality studies, or sex therapy courses

#ask #anon #trans #transgender #queer #lgbt #lgbtq #queer therapy #a bachelor's would be a very bare minimum degree to enter the field so i would heavily encourage you to gravitate towards your master's #you likely won't need a doctorate unless you specifically wanted to prescribe medication for your clients #i've heard the WPATH has a certificate but i don't think it's required per se (def get it if you want) #if i missed something definitely expand/correct! i'm not an expert and this isn't the niche i'm going into for studies

[colorisbyshe]

aces face medical discrimination that allos don’t.

I'm only answering this discourse ask because this is like... really... really harmful rhetoric.

If we're talking about HSDD (Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder), I have a tag to debunk any point you want to bring up. It's an older tag, so it might not be incredibly up to date but it covers a lot.

But in the broader sense... no, y'all don't. I'm sure individual doctors can be discriminatory or not understanding but... that's true of anything. There are licensed fucking doctors who think vaccines are fake and filled with trackers. Some doctors jsut fucking suck.

What you need to understand is, doctors expressing concern that your lack of sexual desire is connected to either mental health or physical health isn't discrimination but rather a legitimate medical concern.

Being gay can't be caused by cancer. Being straight can't be caused by depression. There is no state of being that can really alter which gender you prefer. There mgiht be extreme cases of trauma where maybe someone stops pursuing relationships with a specific gender or whatever but that's VERY fringe AND would STILL be something you should talk to about with a professional. Not to "fix" necessarily but to better understand and process.

But... lack of libido, which has HEAVY HEAVY HEAVY fuckign overlap with lack of sexual attraction (or even just lack of perceived sexual attraction), can absolutely be caused by cancer or trauma or depression or a hormonal disorder or internalized homophobia or internalzied fatphobia. There are conditions where some people are SOOOO shamed for sexuality that it is literally impossible to penetrate theri vagina without extreme pain. Reactions to sexual desire and attraction and behaviour can affect your perception of said things (and vise versa).

Most of the time, a doctor will not care if you tell them this has just how you felt your entire life. HSDD already has a little annotation saying "Hey! Some people just don't feel sexual desires, that's fine! No treatment needed :)"

But sometimes... they need to know if this is a symptom, especially if this a new/sudden revelation.

Framing doctors doing basic work to figure out if you are experiencing a health problem as "aphobia" is going to prevent a LOT of vulnerable people from getting the healthcare they deserve and nEED.

And I've seen some of y'all fucking weirdos saying that if you're ace/celibate you don't need pap smears, which is fucking insane.

Asexuals and people who mistakenly think they are asexuals because of health conditions--which are not the majority but certainly do exist--need full check ups just liek the rest of us.

There are bad doctors out there. There are doctors who haven't heard of asexuality before. I am not denying that. Again, there are doctors who think vaccines are fake, who won't believe you when you say you're having allergy symptoms, and who will try to diagnose your chest pain as heartburn and send you on your way.

But a doctor meeting your "I'm ace" with, "Hey, will you consent to a hormone work up?" or "Hey, are you doing alright? Do you have any history of trauma" is not an aphobic assault on your sensibilities. It is not comparable to converion therapy or a doctor telling a gay person they are lying or need to be fixed.

And I've said ti before--a doctor is MUCH MUCH MUCH more likely to prescribe you something that KILLS your sex drive, makes you wholly disinterested in sex, makes it nearly impossible to even tell if you are experiencing sexual attraction, than they are to be invested in making sure every random patient wants to fuck and is attracted to random people on the street.

Most doctors do not care if the life saving/changing shit they prescribe you alters your sex drive at all. Won't even fucking tell you if it's a side effect. It's not on their mind. Your sex life is not on their mind unless it is affecting your health.

Anyways, last ask I am touching on the matter. Buy me something, prove you bought me something, and maybe I'll consider talking more

#ace discourse