"Are You Married?" Two Sexual-Minority Students' Perspectives on Field Placements

Abstract

"Are you married?" It is my first day of field placement. I had prepared so carefully by moving the ring my lover gave me to my right hand and leaving my pink triangle earring at home. Dressed in "professional clothes," I knew that I could pass undetected. Now, confronted with this question, how do I respond?

Sexual Minority Supervision

“…Negative attitudes and behaviors of mental health professionals regarding sexual minorities are well documented (Casas, Brady, & Ponterotto, 1983;DeCrescenzo, 1984;Fort, Steiner, & Conrad, 1971;Garfinkle & Morin, 1978;Garnets et al, 1991;Gartrell, Kramer, & Brodie, 1974;Graham, Rawlings, Halpem, & Hermes, 1984;Messing, Schoenberg, & Stephens, 1984;Morin, 1977;NASW National Committee on Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Issues, 2000;Riddle & Sang, 1978;Winsniewski & Toomey, 1987). Since sexual minority mental health professionals also experience this kind of discrimination in the workplace (Messinger & Topal, 1997), this phenomenon applies to the supervisory relationship as well (Halpert & Pfaller, 2001).…”

“…In this way, through no ill intent, sexual minority clinicians are often supervised by individuals who have developed their own homophobic and heterosexist belief systems (Halpert & Pfaller, 2001). As heterosexual supervisors are not specifically faced with identity management issues in the same ways as their sexual minority supervisees (Messinger & Topal, 1997), the role of such homophobic and heterosexist beliefs complicates the relationship between supervisor and sexual minority supervisee (Buhrke, 1989;Halpert & Pfaller, 2001).…”

“…Each of these factors creates significant issues of identity management with which sexual minority clinicians must contend (Satterly, 2004b). Nonsexual minority supervisors, while indeed managing their own identity issues, are often at a loss to understand the ways that these things directly affect sexual minority therapists in their everyday practice (Messinger, 2004;Messinger & Topal, 1997;Pfohl, 2004). Lacking this awareness, non-sexual minority supervisors are handicapped in their capacity to assist sexual minority clinicians to manage the issues of identity and oppression within the therapeutic milieu.…”

Is Social Work the Best Educational Degree for Child Welfare Practitioners?

“…Curricular experts remind us that child welfare content is inconsistently incorporated across social work programs (Tracy & Pine, 2000). Unrau and Wehrman (2003) and Morton (2002) describe and debate preferred foundation content, while others recommend the inclusion of specialized content (Messinger & Topal, 1997;Mallon, 1997).…”

Policy and Practice

“…Although few studies have discussed the affect of this homophobia specifically on gay and lesbian social work students (e.g., Messinger & Topal, 1997), researchers have studied the impact of hostile contexts on gay men and lesbians in other academic arenas, including as undergraduates (DeSurra & Church, 1994;Waldo, 1998), medical students (Oriel, Madlon-Kay, Govaker, & Mersy, 1996;Risdon, Cook, & Willms, 2000), and law students (Austin, Cain, Mack, Strader, & Vaseleck, 1998). Gay and lesbian students in these studies describe feeling invisible, being mocked, having their opinions and/or personal relationships devalued, having property destroyed, and being physically attacked.…”