You Better (Social) Work: On Beg a Gay Social Worker

Contents:

• YOU BETTER (SOCIAL) WORK: ON BEG A GAY SOCIAL WORKER*
• SOCIAL WORK, SCHOOLS, AND “DON’T SAY GAY”
• TOM HOLLAND’S GAY SEX SCENE SETS SOCIAL MEDIA ALIGHT AFTER THE ACTOR SAID PLAYG THE ROLE ‘BROKE HIM’
• GAY MOSW MOSW CY GUI
• SOCIAL WORK WH GAY AND LBIAN ADOLCENTS
• SEXUAL INTY, STIGMA, AND DEPRSN: THE ROLE OF THE "ANTI-GAY PROPAGANDA LAW" MENTAL HEALTH AMONG MEN WHO HAVE SEX WH MEN MOSW, RSIA
• LGBTQ+ AFFIRMG THERAPISTS ROCKFORD, IL

YOU BETTER (SOCIAL) WORK: ON BEG A GAY SOCIAL WORKER*

It’d be impossible to rce beg gay to one aspect of my beg, but to set the stage, I’ll start wh my own g out story.

And yet, wh the cuttg echo of high school homophobic trma upled wh the fear of ath that only a gay sissy boy growg up the age of AIDS small town USA n feel, I wonred if this would be the last time I saw Dad. My closet—the one whose rners were led wh stuffed animals for protectn, the one whose door I antilly repaired when cracks of adolcent boy csh appeared, the one that provid the only shelter I knew a world that hated gay sissy boys—that closet burst to splters of rabows. Sadly, such is not the se for many Lbian, Gay, Bisexual, Queer, Intersex, and Asexual+ (LGBTQIA+) children.

SOCIAL WORK, SCHOOLS, AND “DON’T SAY GAY”

For example, as a gay sissy boy, my genr exprsn directly impacts my experience of the world sce nothg seems more threateng to men than a man who swish to the room. ) impact the daily liv of Queer folks a heteronormative, homophobic, transphobic, racist, classist world. In other words, a whe gay cis-male able-bodied social worker will have a different experience the field than that of, say, a Black bisexual social worker wh a physil disabily or a trans Latx social worker based upon the tersectnali.

Havg noted the two important pots, however, I n unequivolly say that I LOVE beg a gay social worker! In my graduate studi, I rell sperately rearchg how to manage my gay inty when workg wh straight clients. Upon enterg the field—wh different velopmental experienc om my heterosexual peers—I approach practice om my own lived experience of beg a gay sissy boy.

Swishg to my work, however, I regularly enunter homophobic clients, stunts, -workers, and supervisors.

TOM HOLLAND’S GAY SEX SCENE SETS SOCIAL MEDIA ALIGHT AFTER THE ACTOR SAID PLAYG THE ROLE ‘BROKE HIM’

For example, I rell stg a se nference about a gay male uple durg which a lleague turned to me and quipped, “I’d love to hear the homosexual perspective. Or the numero stori of my gay lleagu, one of whom was workg wh a client who began mutterg about wantg to kill homosexuals.

It do, fact, require ego-strength, wisdom, and qualy supervisn to navigate such homophobic reactns and attus while still enavorg to meet clients where they are and empower them to achieve their goals.

Navigatg homophobia wh clients is que different, however, om dog so wh lleagu or supervisors.

GAY MOSW MOSW CY GUI

Regardls, I long ago cid to neher lim my reer prospects nor trap myself a job wh a homophobic boss. For my cisgenr and heterosexual lleagu, I would ask how you might rpond to the 20-year-old ightened gay sissy boy g out to you? (Edor’s Note: The Parental Rights Edutn law, dubbed “Don’t Say Gay” by crics, go to effect Florida on July 1, 2022.

My mom lled me, on the borrle of tears, to tell me about a law my home state of Florida that is banng the e of the word “gay” gras K-3. A dghter who has suffered profely—not due to her inty as gay, but due to the slew of mental health and relatnship ncerns that followed this acknowledgment. There will likely be more suatns like this one, which an 18-year old was nied the opportuny to talk about beg gay a valedictorian speech.

SOCIAL WORK WH GAY AND LBIAN ADOLCENTS

And, although the law don’t explicly e the word “gay, ” that is s tt purpose, at the heart of s creator and the legislators who ndone .

In the fall of 1973, New York began placg queer children wh queer parents wh the aid of the Natnal Gay Task Force, a new gay-rights anizatn based Manhattan. The group’s head of muny servic, who had begun receivg panicked lls om agenci reprentg gay naways, started ördatg wh foster-re agenci Delaware and Connecticut. A ltle more than a year later, a twenty-six-year-old gay social worker named Michael Weltmann took up the e on behalf of a lbian uple who were seekg to serve as foster parents for a gay boy who had n away om home.

SEXUAL INTY, STIGMA, AND DEPRSN: THE ROLE OF THE "ANTI-GAY PROPAGANDA LAW" MENTAL HEALTH AMONG MEN WHO HAVE SEX WH MEN MOSW, RSIA

The boy “wanted to live wh her, and our office approved , ” Weltmann later explaed to the Philalphia Gay News. In the followg years, Weltmann registered two other queer foster parents: a man who had beiend a gay teen-ager while workg at a psychiatric hospal and a woman who had raised other foster kids for the partment before g out as lbian. Parts of emerged a handful of newspapers; “Radil Relatns, ” a history of the queer fay by the scholar Daniel Wunwe Rivers, published 2013, briefly not the existence of “tac programs” to match gay youth wh gay upl Illois and New Jersey.

Social workers were wrtlg wh the sheer number of kids the foster system; gay and trans kids, who were often rejected by prospective foster parents, were pecially difficult to place. ” When Randy wasn’t workg or volunteerg at the unsellg center, he ma his missn to troduce Ward to Seattle’s gay scene. Ward lled him “Mama Randy, ” and together they went to events such as the Universy of Washgton’s weekly “gay skate.

Mary Morrison, the head of the aln, lled the new regulatns “an asslt on gay people and women.

LGBTQ+ AFFIRMG THERAPISTS ROCKFORD, IL

When one uple clared their support for banng gay foster parents, sistg that there was “no place the foster re program for lbians and homos” or “their sordid and sful way of life, ” they were met wh tlls and boos. Up to that pot, the rejectn of gay foster parents was an implic policy—there were no formal l—bee was simply assumed that queer people uld not be f parents.

In a 1974 paper, Michael Shernoff, a gay psychotherapist, attributed the vant policy around gay foster parents to a lack of years later, June, 1979, the New York Tim reported on an openly gay mister named John Kuiper, om Catskill, New York, who had adopted a thirteen-year-old boy. Daniel Rivers, the historian, has scribed Kuiper as “the first openly gay man or lbian to publicly adopt a child the Uned Stat.