Black Queer Therapists in New Jersey

Therapy for Black Queer People

It takes a therapist with patience to help a client dealing with internalized homophobia that comes out of the regular expectation for black men to be hypermasculine in order to be seen as valid. It takes a therapist with a profound sense of history and empathy to see how a queer client may feel empathy and a desire to help change the black community that seems desperate to reject them or attack them.

It’s also important to remember that the black queer community has always clashed with the rest of the community in how they’ve operated. Black trans women have to deal with standards of beauty that skew white in American culture.

Ballroom, started by black and brown queer folks as a place of community and support has had their slang, dances, and culture co-opted with very little recognition. Silvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson, who are usually viewed as heroes today due to the passage of time, were regularly in battle with white queer activists who wished to forward social assimilation over recognition and freedom.

Therapists Must Have An Intersectional Understanding of History

A baseline understanding of this history and complicated dynamics is needed for a therapist to be able to relate to the clients full self. These experiences are not just embedded in the history books, they play out in the client’s lives.

Let’s say one of my black trans clients is transitioning and struggling to “pass”. I know to ask about the role models they may be taking inspiration from, the beauty standards that they grew up with, and the way they are talking to themselves in order to help them clarify how much of this is internalized transphobia and racism and how much is the normal experience of witnessing change that needs some self-acceptance. These require starkly different interventions.

Forward Motion focuses on an interpersonal approach to therapy. The focus is on recognizing how our interpersonal interactions made us who we are, allowing the space to decide what you want to keep and let go of, and find actions and new ways of thinking that help you move in this direction. It also means that community is a major aspect of change and self-affirmation. Without a therapist who can affirm and understand with you the intersections of these identities and the history behind them, there is less of a chance that they will be able to teach you how you can affirm and understand yourself.

The difficulty finding a black queer therapist in New Jersey

The most popular way to look for a therapist is going onto psychology today. As of this writing there are over 7,000 therapists on psychology today in NJ. If you shorten that list to only black therapists you get over 500 therapists. Add the non-binary gender identity and you’ll get 11 therapists listed. That’s right! ELEVEN! Unfortunately Psychology today doesn’t give us an ability to use sexual orientation as an identity marker to weed out therapists but it’s likely a similar situation. Black queer therapists likely amount to  1-2% of available therapists in NJ.

That is why forward motion counseling actively seeks out clinicians who are living this experience or can relate to it so QTBIPOC people can know for certain that they have a home here.