I’m scheduled to start with a social worker who “has more experience” with trans clients. That’s how my current therapist described her. I’m kinda worried about opening up to someone without the lived experience to really understand where I’m coming from. And in the past, I’ve had therapists that ask stuff like, “Is that okay to say? Do people still say that?” about random queer-adjacent phrases or concepts. They always say, “I’m still learning.” I’m sympathetic, but it’s still distracting and kind of annoying to be doing that in the 1 hour a month that’s supposed to be explicitly for me.
I’m going to address all of this with her, of course. I just wanted some anecdotal experiences.
Talking therapy-wise with a social worker seems… odd but that may be regional differences. Lived experience trans social workers would likely be a step up, however worked with a cis social worker in contact with a trans man doctor and they were decent. Posted signs about being trans-supportive. Really depends because the trans stuff they were ok about but the capitalism alienation and things were more of a problems. Leftist trans-understanding social workers are closer to unicorns.
Sympathy here, if encountered someone saying “still kearning” of “ok to say blah blah” would be off-putting. Comes down to luck and less than a coin flip, but there are certainly decent cis social workers/therapists out there and hopefully you got an appointment with one.
Also odd to only be one hour a month, is every other week of every week to start not a thing? Especially with someone you click with depending on circumstances, once a month seems like not enough time to start.