Last summer I visited the Oregon Coast with my family. It was chilly, clear and lined with endless ocean. Our morning ritual was to cram eight people into an SUV and drive to a new micro-beach town each day. We took long walks to watch tidepools and old guys digging up clams. Afterwards, we wandered to the local coffee shop to warm up and get the kids a treat.
When my wife and I are in a new place, I carry some tension around whether I “can be gay.” We are looking for a morning coffee. We are looking to live a normal life. The pride flag in the window tells me I can reach out and hold her hand.
It usually takes about 20 minutes for a pack of adults to pick out the things they want in a cozy paper cup. You can learn a lot about a business while you’re standing around waiting for them to call your name. The pride flag says something, but not everything. The workers seem grumpy. The music is commercialized. It’s basically a flag on top of a regular shop. It’s a marketing choice, not a culture. You’re comfortable enough and yet you won’t go back.
When you’re looking for a therapist, it’s nice to know that you won’t be rejected or converted. But that’s not enough to do deep relationship work. The stakes are much higher than a good place to grab a latte. In the therapy room, we need more than a pride flag in the window. We need to know we can unmask, dress down, and put our feet up on the couch.
I’ve been in therapeutic settings with families for almost 30 years; 13 of these as a therapist. In that time, I’ve watched a lot of well-meaning therapists offer relationship support that is essentially generic couples therapy plus good intentions. You’ve probably tried “affirming” relationship therapy that felt almost-but-not-quite-right. Queer relationship therapy isn’t couples therapy in rainbow. It’s a different clinical practice.
Here’s why.
The Frameworks Weren’t Built For You
Most forms of relationship therapy were developed studying cis-hetero couples. All of them are rooted in paternalistic, heteronormative concepts of family and relationships.
The idea that your issues started with your opposite sex parent does not account for any variation from the harmfully normalized “nuclear family” (of the 1950’s Leave it to Beaver variety). It’s kind of hard to work on your “daddy issues” in therapy if you were conceived by lesbian moms and a donor.
Couples’ therapists are trained to look for specific patterns of communication, conflict and connection. These patterns were defined by the dynamics of thousands of straight, monogamous, gender-conforming couples (Spengler et al, 2020). Their patterns are polarized by gender performance. LGBTQ+ relationships seek to explicitly not do this.
Queer relationships rebuild all couples therapy concepts with flexibility. Flexibility in the emotional and physical labor of running the home. We vary in who initiates conversations, what we talk about and how we fight. LGBTQ+ people view sexual health in vastly different ways – and with so many different body parts! We find ourselves differentiated in unique ways. We break rules all the time. Some of us are even in complete relationship anarchy.
We understand fluidity and intrinsically value the process. We can remember when we first saw a lesbian in a dive bar, see how we are now bisexual in a straight-presenting marriage, and sense the arc of our true selves, still in formation.
The myths of an “intact family” and a “healthy marriage” are hanging in the shadows of the relationship therapy industry. I can see it in the words, in the research, and in the live video demonstrations the expert presenters share. While many modern therapists are starting to pick this apart and rebuild better frameworks, it takes intention, deep training and technical support - specifically from queer and trans elders in the field.
Specialized queer couples’ therapists honor the significance of love as a hard-wired, logical survival system. We know that you show up in therapy because you want that feeling of belonging. We help you have the courage to tell about your workplace doxxing you, to feel on the verge of crying, and for your partner to be captivated by your tenderness. We know that the idea of ‘differentiation’ in couples therapy – the ability to hold your own self while staying connected to your partner – looks different in a couple where both partners have abandoned themselves because the culture told them to. Queer differentiation is often a hard-won skill, not a developmental milestone.
The Structure May Not Fit The Room
Queer relationships exist in structures that the field’s models don’t have vocabulary for. We don’t know how to describe ourselves within these models. This shows in our confusion about how to answer a census survey (Family Equality Fact Sheet, 2020).
Polyamory, open relationships, chosen family integration, three-parent households and close ex-partner parenting are delightful complexities in queer and trans relationships. They are also necessary elements of our joy and safety.
Chances are also high that we’ve come out after a heterosexual marriage or stumbled onto our identity while already a parent . This adds layers of divorce, relationships that originated as hidden same-sex affairs, co-parenting, step-parenting, and a missing “queer adolescence.” More queer folks are starting families earlier, thanks to improved access to assisted reproduction and claiming our identities younger. This adds important players such as birth parents and donors. This means who goes to relationship therapy may not always be a couple. Sometimes there are three of you. Sometimes the ex is in the room, or should be. Sometimes the chosen family holds equal weight to the primary relationship, and the therapy has to hold all of it.
People form connection through endless creative formats. Queer people form connections based on what feels good and right. A specialized therapist can hold complexity and celebrate it (without pathologizing it). A generic couples’ therapy approach may confuse “this couple’s structure is not what my training assumed” with “this couple is unhealthy.”
What The Culture Did Shows Up in The Room
Queer relationships are impacted by our journeys to authenticity, and how friendly or harsh the environments are to us along the way. Discrimination toward LGBTQ people reaches far. It impacts how families treat their LGBTQ+ children, how LGBTQ+ people treat themselves, and how we treat our partners and our own children. The social and political climate, subcultures and groups we are a part of can amplify this even more .
When we internalize homophobia, we are more likely to find ourselves lost in non-secure attachment strategies (Calvillo et al 2020). If you’ve ever wondered why your queer relationships feel better - but harder - than the ones where you masked your LGBTQ identity, it’s not because you are a problem. You are vulnerable and the stakes are higher.
Homo and trans negativity triggered in us can lead us to criticize or withdraw from our partner because we feel unworthy. This deep sense of ambivalence can transfer into our commitment to even having the relationship. Gaps of uncertainty are widened when your extended family is cool about your new relationship, or a stranger slurs you as they drive by.
Social support is the key. This might be your partners, your friends, your teammates. It may also be your therapist.
Taking the step to build security in yourself and your relationships is an extremely important act of protection against prejudice and discrimination (Allan and Johnson 2017). Relationship work allows you to heal generational patterns of trauma, to move along your identity journey, and to feel satisfied and settled.
Gender in The Room is Often in Motion (or Not Relevant)
For a lot of queer couples, gender isn’t a stable variable in the therapy room. It’s an ongoing act of discovery. One partner may be transitioning. Both may be non-binary. Gender identity may have shifted since the relationship started. Even when we are “cisgender,” chances are we define being a woman or a man very distinctively. “I’m a woman,” and this woman powerlifts, listens to musicals, and grows microgreens. “I’m a man,” and this man writes poetry, collects superhero figures and paints formalist art using shades of pink.
Generic couples therapy assumes scripted gender roles. Specialized queer relationship therapy knows to focus on the real meaning of people’s values, hopes and dreams. Queer couples’ therapy doesn’t equate defensive withdrawing or emotional activation to a gender. It looks for what you’re embodying, and it looks for it with heart. You’re facing forward while your hubby talks about feeling lonely because his sadness feels uncomfortable. You trace it back to being dropped off at a Catholic boarding school where your cute pants were mocked. It’s not because you’re a dude, it’s because you were hurt.
Freedom from gender roles is not a burden. It’s one of the greatest opportunities for a relationship to live at its best. And it needs a therapist who can see in color, vs. black and white.
So What Does Specialized Queer Couples Therapy Actually Look Like?
It looks like a therapist who doesn’t need you to translate everything into an irrelevant language. Who has the clinical framework, the cultural attunement and the imagination to picture your relationship as you bring it to life in the first call. At New Moon Therapy, my relationship therapy work uses LGBTQ+-Centered Emotion Focused Couple Therapy, Relational Cultural Therapy and Expressive Arts Therapy – modalities that, in specialized hands, hold the textures of queer and trans relationships in a way generic couples therapy does not. It’s why I started this practice.
If you have been looking for queer couples therapy that knows your needs, my door is open. Downtown Richmond on Wednesdays and Thursdays, and virtually across Virginia.
I wrote a free guide to finding an affirming therapist that you can use to find your best fit. And, if you think I may be the one, you can book a consult with me. I’ve shared about why I do this work so you can check me out in advance.
You are already doing the work of being in this relationship. Therapy should meet you there.
References
Allan, R., & Johnson, S. (2017). Conceptual and application issues: Emotionally focused therapy with gay male couples. Journal of Couple & Relationship Therapy, 16(4), 286-305.
Calvillo, C., Sánchez-Fuentes, M. d. M., & Sierra, J. C. (2020). An explanatory model of sexual satisfaction in adults with a same-sex partner: An analysis based on gender differences. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17(10), 1-17.
Family Equality Council. (2020, June). LGBTQ family fact sheet. https://familyequality.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/LGBTQ-Families-2020-Sheet-Final-clean-version.pdf
Miller, J. B., & Stiver, I. P. (1997). The healing connection: How women form relationships in therapy and in life. Beacon Press.
Spengler, E., DeVore, E., Spengler, P., & Lee, N. (2020). What does “couple” mean in couple therapy outcome research? A systematic review of the implicit and explicit, inclusion and exclusion of gender and sexual minority individuals and identities. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 46(2), 240-255.
