Therapy That Sees You: Why Affirming Care Matters for LGBTQIA+ Clients
Let’s be real, identifying as LGBTQIA+ doesn’t capture every part of your experience. But it does create the framework you’re living in.
As a clinician who often works with folks under that umbrella, I cannot emphasize enough how truly important affirming care is in the therapy space.
The Role of Identity in Therapy: Why It Matters
There is a lot of harm that can be done when a clinician fails to recognize how much identity impacts a person’s sense of self and worldview. It breaks my heart to know that many have worked with clinicians who were closed-minded or projected their own values onto clients, sometimes without even realizing it. These moments, unfortunately, can easily turn someone away from therapy entirely.
That’s why I find it so important to share my identity and create visibility for current and prospective clients—especially here in Nashville, where finding LGBTQIA+ affirming therapy can still feel like a challenge. My visibility communicates that I come from a place of lived understanding, something that can’t be taught in school.
How My Lived Experience Shapes My Work as a Clinician
As a transman with a fundamentalist Baptist background, I’ve had to unlearn the cisgender and heteronormative framework that Tennessee is certainly still stuck in. I knew I needed to find support from someone LGBTQIA+ affirming when I sought out my first therapist a decade ago while processing my gender dysphoria. Even today, after having transitioned and affirmed my identity in many ways, it remains essential to have a clinician who holds my identity with both tenderness and compassion. Thankfully, I found someone almost two years ago who continues to do that for me.
I want to highlight that there are many cisgender and heterosexual clinicians who provide excellent affirming care to queer folks. My first and current therapists are examples of that, and I am eternally grateful.
At times, it can be hard to hold self-compassion, love, and tenderness in one’s identity. That’s why it’s vital for your clinician to hold that space for you, until you can hold it for yourself.
There is nothing wrong with you. The world just hasn’t made itself safe for you yet.
At The Gaia Center for Embodied Healing, a Nashville based therapy and counseling practice, all of our clinicians provide identity-affirming care for LGBTQIA+ clients. It’s one of the many reasons I feel honored to work at this group practice. We acknowledge the ongoing impact of systemic oppression and are committed to trauma-informed, intersectional, and strengths-based care for queer folk. We honor evolving identities, nontraditional relationships, and lived experiences as valid sources of wisdom.
Through our affirming care, we focus on healing from shame, building connection, and processing trauma. We hold space for you. All of you. What a privilege it is to be part of your journey toward self-discovery and self-acceptance.
What Is LGBTQIA+ Affirming Care?
Affirming Care vs. Just Accepting Identity
Let’s talk about what affirming care looks like—and why it’s so important for queer and trans individuals seeking therapy in Nashville and beyond.
Affirming care doesn’t just “accept” a client’s identity. It means creating a space where identities, relationships, and lived experiences are respected, validated, and (more importantly) celebrated!
A clinician practicing affirming care demonstrates cultural competence through ongoing education about queer experiences, connects clients to community resources, advocates for their needs, and uses affirming language. An affirming clinician doesn’t make you explain why you are who you are. They meet you with respect, inclusion, and empowerment. They don’t just bring that energy into the session . . . they live it in their daily lives.
Why Affirming Care Is Essential for LGBTQIA+ Mental Health
It matters because queer, trans, and non-binary individuals exist. We have always existed. And we have always faced harm.
The Harm of Non-Affirming Therapy
Historically, the mental health and medical fields have pathologized, erased, criminalized, and misunderstood these identities. Queer clients seeking therapy don’t just bring personal trauma, they carry the weight of systemic, collective harm.
Subtle Acts of Harm in the Therapy Room
And it’s not just the overt acts of harm that matter. Subtle signals can cause immense damage:
Misgendering.
Body shaming.
Heteronormative assumptions.
Lack of understanding.
In a city like Nashville, where queer communities are vibrant but still navigating systemic and cultural barriers, these small moments in the therapy room matter deeply.
These “small” moments can re-traumatize individuals in the very space where they’re supposed to find healing.
Affirming care creates a space where queer clients don’t have to explain or defend themselves.
It matters because the ongoing stress of living in a marginalizing world takes a real toll. Without affirming care, that toll shows up as dissociation, hypervigilance, internalized shame, and difficulty trusting others.
Unlearning this trauma is hard. I’ve been trying to unlearn my own internalized shame for over a decade. Sharing this with you helps. Thank you for reading.
Healing Through Affirming Care
Affirming care isn’t just about symptom relief, it’s about the freedom to exist. An affirming space allows you to exist loudly. It is not optional. It is essential. It is not a specialty. It is the baseline for ethical, inclusive therapy. And you will find that here at The Gaia Center.
Affirming Therapy as a Lifeline for Queer and Trans Clients
Affirming care is a quiet act of revolution. It reminds you that you are not broken. You were never broken. You don’t need to be fixed.
You just need a space where you can be deeply known and seen. A space where you are encouraged to just be.
Our Commitment to Inclusive, Trauma-Informed Care
If you don’t identify as a queer individual or clinician, but you’ve taken the time to read this far, it shows how much you care. It shows that you’re choosing to become culturally competent in something you may never fully experience. Thank you.
As we continue to push for a world where all identities are embraced, affirming care stands as a powerful reminder that healing is possible, especially when we are met with understanding instead of judgment.
Whether you're a clinician, a client, or simply someone trying to show up better for your community, know that your efforts matter. Change happens in the quiet moments: in listening, in validating, in creating space for people to feel seen. Together, we can build a culture—here in Nashville and everywhere—where queer and trans individuals are not just supported, but where we are celebrated!
Affirming Care as a Path to Belonging and Freedom
Healing isn’t linear, and it doesn’t happen in isolation. It happens in the presence of safety, trust, and connection. Affirming care plants the seeds for that healing to take root. When we are given the space to be fully ourselves, to speak freely, to feel deeply, and to be met with empathy, we begin to rewrite the narratives shaped by shame and silence. In those moments, we begin to come home to ourselves.
If you identify as part of the LBGTQIA+ community, The Gaia Center offers therapy services in person at our office in West Nashville, as well as virtually across the state of Tennessee. We would be honored to support you in your journey.
