Evelyn O. Pavlova

When I entered the LGBTQ community, I naïvely thought that it might be a relatively united front, as the members share the collective pain of sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination and oppression. I wanted to explore the type of world it was and how members dealt with their experiences.

Recently, I have been thinking about what it means to be an Ally. My contemplation has been prompted by others' misunderstanding of this notion, which lies in believing that if one supports gay rights or accepts trans people or generally approves of LGBTQIA individuals in our heteronormative and cisnormative society, then one can be considered an Ally. Although one can wish it were the case, support and acceptance are only the first steps. The gist of being an Ally is action.

Standards of Care (SOC) for the World Professional Association for Transgender Health is an important complication for counselors, who work with transsexual, transgender, and/or gender-nonconforming clients. Although many counselors do not specialize in trans* issues, all counselors must be aware of the document and its contents in order to advise the clients and make appropriate referrals.

The topic of outing others (i.e., sexual orientation, gender identity, or even an HIV status) is quite subtle. So far, I have not seen it being discussed anywhere in literature or academic settings, but I have witnessed such discussions in my personal life. I find it important to raise the subject, because we are not taught or trained to be aware in this area and, often, we learn through mistakes. But, perhaps, we can avoid some of them in the future.

In Coming Out, Pt.1 of my blog entry I was talking about the definition of coming out and the nature of the process. In the second part, I would like to mention the stages of coming out, as well as positive and negative consequences for counselors to consider, when they work with LGBTQIA clients.