I support queer and trans youth, but their parents make me anxious! Closing the gap in our service approach.

By Rahim Thawer, MSW

People often ask me, “What do social workers do?” If that’s a question you have, you’ll find the answer on this page by the Canadian Association of Social Workers. Child protection and welfare are one of the most common associations people make with the profession of social work. Our actual roles are, of course, much more varied. I’ve mostly worked with adults as a clinical social worker, with the exception of a couple of years in youth mental health. This essay is a reflection on some of the anxieties that I observed that came to the surface when social workers were queer- and trans-affirming with youth, but struggled with supporting families adequately. Consider the following scenarios.

Jodi — 13 years old

I met Jodi when she was assigned to one of the foster families we work with at the child welfare agency. I would do monthly home visits to see how she was adjusting to her new home. She was somewhat withdrawn for the first couple of visits. Then I started to see more of her personality, and her performance in school was on a steady incline. I received a call from Jodi’s school one afternoon when she refused to participate in Phys Ed and had “a meltdown,” as described by one of the teachers. Jodi couldn’t explain the despair and anguish she was experiencing to her teachers or foster parents. But she opened up to me about “wanting to fit in with the boys.” I knew exactly what was needed: ongoing conversations about gender identity, education for teachers/parents, perhaps supporting new pronoun use (with time), and connection to peer/affirming services. I did it — I helped in a way others couldn’t, and it made all the difference.

Ra’ees — 15 years old

Ra’ees got into a physical altercation at school early in the fall term and was suspended for two weeks. He was so upset he didn’t want to go back to school, but his parents were adamant that he return promptly. They also demanded that he turn things around in order to bring home better grades and get into university. Ra’ees returned to school but simply couldn’t keep up with the work, so he started skipping classes. Once his parents found out, there was a huge “blow up” at home, at which point the neighbours called the police. Child welfare was notified so they could pursue an investigation. The family reluctantly entered a “keeping families together” (a.k.a. wrap-around) program for parent-teen conflict. When I met Ra’ees, his affect was warm and calm. He told jokes and seemed quite bright. I almost couldn’t believe he was engaged in conflict.

When I talked to him about his truancy, he shared that people at school were spreading rumours about his sexual orientation and he had become really upset. I wanted to ask him more about his sexuality but I only had one individual session with him before meeting with the whole family. When the family came together, Ra’ees talked mostly about the weight and pressure of family expectations, uncertainty about whether or not post-secondary was right for him, and wanting to find work so he could live on his own in a couple of years. His parents could not understand his perspective. I wondered if there was a connection between the rumours at school, his actual journey in questioning his sexuality, the ambivalence around school, and his resistance toward his parents’ well-intentioned but overbearing career mapping. Still, I could not bring myself to bring up sexuality or the rumours in front of his parents. They were from a different culture from myself and I worried I might only make things worse. By 16, Ra’ees had aged out of child welfare programs. It didn’t look like he was going to complete high school but he had found work and he was living at youth shelter temporarily.

As social workers, we are often working with people who are part of vulnerable communities. We seek training to strengthen our interventions, increase our cultural competence, and avoid causing any further harm. With this in mind, let’s consider some of the elements presented in the scenarios above.

What made Jodi and Ra’ees’ situations different?

Both of these clients were young people in need; both alluded to, without declaring in any explicit way, that they were questioning their gender or sexual identity. And both were in situations where the adults around them didn’t understand them very well.

Why did the worker feel empowered to support the young person in one situation while being apprehensive in the other?

Perhaps the worker saw themselves as being in closer proximity (or affinity) to the child in foster care, almost like a surrogate parent? I think there’s a good chance the worker had assumptions about the cultural background and subsequent response of the parents in the other situation.

Was Ra’ees trajectory through wrap-around services defined by a focus on tangible outcomes or one riddled with bias?

Was there a pause taken where the worker thought, ‘Let’s not create more conflict but let’s focus on helping the family hear each other’? Where did the bias become an obstacle?

If we were to develop a stage-wise plan for supporting someone like Ra’ees — this time addressing his sexuality — what might this look like?

Several questions arise: Do we have to alter the service? Do we have to collaborate with other partners? Do we need more individual sessions? Do we need to collect resources and do a deep dive so that we’re prepared to support his parents regardless of what their response or reaction is?

What does it look like to be anti-racist and confront difficult issues with racialized parents when the worker is white?

One thing I encourage social workers to do is to prepare to do some psychoeducation and answer questions parents might have if their child were to come out. [log in to unmask]" style="color:rgb(51,51,50);text-decoration:underline" target="_blank">Here’s a guide for what that process might look like. It is important that we’re mindful about the place from which we’re responding. Are we responding from a place of care and compassion or are we responding from a place of retaliation, having taken offence from a reactionary position?

New Operating Assumptions

If we’re going to do this work, we need to think about what some of our newer operating assumptions might be. Think about Ra’ees and how he may have slipped through the cracks. Here’s a list of five operating suggestions that I’m bringing to the table:

1. Resist racist dichotomies and the pressure to buy into homo-nationalism;
2. Appreciate the nuances of the immigration experience;
3. Don’t pedal toward nationalism and Canadian-values;
4. Use reflexivity to examine biases;
5. Take cues from the young person about support needs;
6. Prepare for tough conversations.

1. Resist racist dichotomies and pressure to buy into homo-nationalism

All the knowledge and language we have around sexuality and gender in a Western context is also available (and being produced) across the world. Access to this knowledge and language is a likely function of exposure, education, class, systems of hetero/cis-sexism. This is true for white and racialized families alike. The big dichotomy we need to break down here is between two assumptions: people who are newcomers and/or from a culture that’s “backward,” and don’t understand LGBTQ identities; and those who see Canada as a progressive place primarily made up of a white dominant culture where fluid gender and sexualities or multiple sexual/gender identities are accepted. Neither of those statements is true.

2. Appreciate the nuances of the immigration experience

The immigration experience is wrapped up in experiences of loss, sacrifice, trauma, intergenerational planning, access to opportunities, and legacy-making. Queerness disrupts the dream and end-goals of legacies and activates a grief response. I can tell you, as a racialized queer person, that so much of my resistance to hetero-normativity, and my ideas about what liberation is, has not been about fitting into a straight world — it’s been about creating my own script, my own plan for how to be in the world; creating my own narrative of what it means to be part of society without prioritizing institutions like marriage and children. This outlook raises a question: How do we create space for the disconnect between generations of people if we’re working with a racialized newcomer family who has had to endure the trauma and grief of immigration, and now feel like they’ve lost an idea of their child and the linear planning that they had done around what they were going to leave behind? Migration is somewhat synonymous with sacrificing: it involves moving to another place where you likely know very few people, where you will experience racism and xenophobia, and where you’ll struggle financially for years — all in hopes of a “better life.” There’s lots of pain here for the entire family: the young person who’s coming out and seeking liberation in new ways, as well as the family who is grieving what feels like a loss of their child.

3. Don’t pedal toward nationalism and Canadian-values

Our work isn’t to teach racialized newcomers about what it means to be a “progressive Canadian.” Rather, it’s to provide resources and information that reflect sexual and gender diversity within many cultures and religions. Never should we ever say, “This is how we do it in Canada,” when it comes to physical harm or what we assume are Canadian values. There’s no such thing as a Canadian value; that is a construction designed to make Canada seem progressive when actually, there are lots of white and Canadian-born people here who are not progressive, not enlightened, and not anti-oppressive.

Rather, we need to provide resources and information that reflects sexual and gender diversity within many cultures and religions. We need to be able to say, “I am not from your community but I know queer and trans people exist in your community. I’ve met them — they’ve come to seek services and support through child welfare. We know some of these folks who exist in the community and they have resources. I’m happy to connect you to them if you like, but I don’t think we can avoid this topic. Your child has brought it to the table; you need to have this conversation. If as a parent you don’t have a ton to say, it’ll be an opportunity for you to ask questions, or for me to ask questions, and listen to what your child has to say.”

4. Use reflexivity to examine biases

We all have biases. We just do. Supervision, consultation, and self-reflexivity are resources we must draw on throughout our careers so we can balance our desire to produce tangible outcomes with supporting the most vulnerable in our societies.

5. Take cues from the young person

Supporting the most vulnerable is not the same as having tangible outcomes. I wonder, in the scenario about Ra’ees’ family, if a bit more probing about how Ra’ees wanted to be supported might have inched him forward in a way that made school a bit more tolerable. Was there any truth to the rumors or did Ra’ees want resources that his parents may or may not need to know about? It’s hard to know if he was struggling with behavior issues that might easily be labeled as oppositional defiance, ADHD, a learning disability, or if it was that his school and then, subsequently, the support he received, weren’t accessible spaces for him to be who he is or even explore who he wants to be. That’s what makes him the most vulnerable of the person in the family.

6. Preparing for tough questions and conversations is key!

I’ve given a list of seven questions and provided some possible answers or ways to approach those questions. Each of us needs to think about which questions come up throughout our careers and within our teams, and then start preparing how we want to respond to these questions from a place of compassion, rooted in a solid grounding of wanting to educate without being condescending. It’s very important we invite people into our conversations.

Conclusion

Social workers working with queer and trans youth are in a critical position that can shift the trajectory of their clients’ lives — both positively and negatively. Direct service within child welfare, child protection and youth mental health cannot be seen as individual client services. A family-level intervention is often needed. Social workers are challenged then to consider their own biases around culture and sexuality and the ways they can critically approach their support interventions with queer and trans youth and their families.