I wanted a female therapist. I got matched with a TiM.

[–] Calliope 140 points

I find it disturbing that there are trans-identified therapists practicing. Obviously no person is perfect, and this extends to therapists, and you don't necessarily have to practice what you're helping others with, but still. It's kind of a 'physician heal thyself' situation. I believe that in order to help other people you need to have your own mental health stuff in order, and being trans is a walking untreated mental health disorder. How is that conducive to offering good and effective mental health care?

[–] reed_that_bends [OP] 109 points

To be fair, and I speak from experience here, the overwhelming majority of therapists of all kinds (including psychologists and psychiatrists) have issues of their own that brought them to therapy, which brought them into then studying therapy and becoming practitioners. The worst ones don't realize or admit they have issues, but they have major Narcissistic Personality Disorder and psychopathy and enjoy wielding power over others and messing with them (I have met one of these, and it was truly terrifying). But most people who go into counseling have some form of depression, anxiety, something in their history that drew them into the field of work they are in. So when we say to people, like we all like to do, "hey you should get some therapy," it should come with the caveat, "and make sure you choose your therapist really carefully."

[–] unknownfemale 42 points

Edited

Too true. I had a therapist who talked about his alcoholism (entirely unrelated to my topics) for most of my therapy session. It is extremely important to not stick with someone who gives you red flags during this vulnerable moment. I hope you can be matched with someone who is good for you

[–] proudcatlady 19 points

Edited

Nigel and I went to a couples’ counselor who started rambling about pedophilia in the middle of our session (after talking about her prior work with trans people) because I told her my bisexuality occasionally causes insecurity in the relationship. So she thought mentioning that pedophilia isn’t a choice was somehow appropriate? UHHHH nope

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[–] SamuraiGhostCat 1 points

Omg, wtf is wrong with scrotes? I would’ve reported him. That is very inappropriate.

[–] Starient ✨🦋👾 35 points

Yep yep yep. I had a therapist as a step-parent, and one as my uncle, plus I’ve been friends with many therapists in my personal life. All in the past now because Jesus Christ they were all a fucking train wreck. Like I wouldn’t trust these people to tell them about my day, let alone my traumas.

I do think that good therapists exist, and I don’t think having had a mental illness means someone can’t be a good therapist, but so many of them get into it for selfish reasons. Or they just like gossip.

Side note: what’s crazy is that my former step parent actually apologized to my sibling for the harm she had done when we were growing up and she was getting her PhD. Not me, just him. Fucking bonkers. I even reached out to her once to try to talk to her about some things in my past she may have witnessed, and she completely ignored me. I even reached out to other people in her life to ask if they could help me contact her. Maybe she was afraid I didn’t have a high opinion of her, but woman the fuck up you coward, my opinion is so much worse now.

[–] lucrecia 38 points

But most people who go into counseling have some form of depression, anxiety, something in their history that drew them into the field of work they are in.

So true. I think this is one of the reasons those fields can be so vulnerable to hiring predators; I'd guess a tendency toward depression and anxiety can leave one vulnerable to the "you really hurt my feelings by saying no" brand of emotional manipulation.

[–] Calliope 22 points

That's totally fair, and I understand that. My struggles with mental health have led to me wanting to help others. I'm not saying a therapist can't have mental health issues, but if you're a therapist who doesn't have control of your struggles, how does that affect your clients? Extremely poorly, and I speak from experience on that one. My last therapist was a train wreck, and I bounced as soon as I realized she wasn't taking her own advice, but she did do a lot of damage to me before I left.

[–] fizzygiglet 12 points

I agree. If I had a therapist with chronic depression and/or anxiety, I would have no problem with that, so long as it didn’t affect the quality of my care. In fact, it may help them to empathise. But I think the important line that you are drawing in the sand is that therapists who are actively suffering from a delusion ought not to be in that line of work. Having a clear and undistorted perception of reality should be a basic prerequisite for anyone trying to help mentally ill people.

[–] hmimperialtortie AGP = evil 18 points

Yes, exactly, and being a TIM is a specifically misogynistic and predatory behaviour. They are by definition unfit to practice.

[–] hellamomzilla 12 points

Important comment.

[–] littleowl12 65 points

It's more than just a disorder- it's an ideology they feel obligated to spread. They are no better than Christian counselors. The end goal is to make you a better Christian, not better.

[–] LadySparklz 27 points

Yes! Exactly. I have had the Christian type and it went exactly the way you'd assume it would. Gender ideology would be no different.

You can be weird and be a therapist. Heck, my all time favourite therapist had a wall of Beanie Babies in his office! Just don't be ideological because that will creep into the therapy.

[–] Gould2022 7 points

Edited

Double hitter ; trans preacher and forcing women to share their darkest secrets .

[–] proudcatlady 2 points

That last sentence is going in my diary. Thanks!

[–] piqued 49 points

Even worse is that there seems to be so goddamn many of them. TWO services matched OP to a TIM even though she stated she wanted a woman.

How on Earth are people like this in any way suited to provide therapy to others (except maybe other trans people)?

[–] madderthanhell 31 points

Perhaps the matching software is set up to increase likelihood of matching a woman with a TIM if she specifies she wants a female therapist. I wouldn't put it past them.

[–] proudcatlady 6 points

This thought crossed my mind as well. Wish there were a tinfoil hat emoji

[–] reed_that_bends [OP] 31 points

I wouldn't believe it myself I hadn't experienced it. The first time I thought it was an anomaly, oh well, moved on. The second time? OMG there is a pattern here.

[–] Galko 41 points

It's probably because there is an availability score, and it will push therapists with lots of open appointments to the top of matching, because that helps people get care faster. In principle a good thing. However, it's very likely that many women have chosen not to continue therapy once they realized their therapist had a penis, thereby leaving the TiM with lots of open appointments. Rinse and repeat.

What organizations need is to see that this nonsense makes women opt out of therapy, which hurts the org and women, but I can only assume they can't fire the TiMs "because discrimination."

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[–] LOriginedumonde 9 points

Were the questions they asked for the match general or detailed?

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[–] Philogynist 🦋🌍🍃 8 points

As someone who seeks out therapists a lot and live in maybe the most liberal state and city in the US, I have never encountered (through an online search or being matched through the intake process) a trans therapist. Aside from my anecdotal experience, it's statistically incredibly rare and, while I feel for OP, instances like these are an anomaly.

[–] reed_that_bends [OP] 9 points

Have you had to look for a therapist recently? Meaning, within the past year? I'm surprised you have no encountered a trans identified therapist. In addition to the 2 I've been matched with, I know a third in my social group.

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[–] Boudicaea 22 points

The old stereotype that psych majors all have issues and are just in it to see how screwed up they are comes to mind....

[–] proudcatlady 7 points

It is the same energy as Jordan Peterson writing self-help books

[–] Calliope 4 points

EXACTLY!!! Thank you for that very apt comparison.

[–] Gould2022 2 points

They either mentally ill or sociopaths,

[–] Lilith 29 points

Edited

This has happened to me before. I declined. I had a reason unrelated to not being the right gender, stated them, and was placed with a different provider at the same location.

One of the patients of this TIM ran out of his room while I was in the waiting room, hollering about being traumatized by him. Now, I am sadly aware of how common it is for men to try to procure rape stories for their own sick amusement and quickly filled in the gaps myself.

All that said, these places are putting women at risk when they do that. Anyone with sexual trauma should automatically be assigned to a same-sex therapist, period.

[–] SueGen 13 points

Jesus, how terrible for that woman.

A year ago, I might have gone thru the first session just to be polite, but I am 💯 confident that today I would go in and tell the man that I asked for a female therapist and this won’t work for me.

[–] Gould2022 12 points

Aim is to Procure rape stories and sexual trauma. Agreed.

[–] SulphuricMirror 17 points

Oh no, I feel so bad for the patient that ended up with him. I hope she is doing better now, wherever she is. Probably insta-peaked her right there.

[–] Lilith 11 points

yeah I felt horribly for her at the time. It was a few years back. I hope she's okay now too.

[–] NewMa 56 points

I just do not trust a TiM , especially on telehealth, to not be beating it to the sound of my tears. I just ... don't.

You didn't get to be a TiM by being a healthy person.

[–] XX_Power 12 points

I'll be straight, i wouldn't even trust an AGP TIM to do my laundry. Putting one in charge of traumatized women's health is insanity. This is literally a man who sexually gets off by pretending that he's a woman and fetishizes things like periods, but they want to trust this crossdresser with healing the trauma of raped women?

[–] proudcatlady 12 points

I don’t trust a male therapist period. I’m shocked how many ladies on here have said they have had or do have male therapists. I would assume 100% he’s in it for jerkoff material. Also, empathy is important for therapists to have for their clients…? Men barely empathize with each other and basically can’t with us

[–] EternaEspiral evil latina terf 10 points

I had a male therapist for a while, ended up say thing I "could be a normal woman" aka date men. So all the time I saw him he was just thinking that, I talked to him about my love life, discrimination... He never took me seriously! I just never went back after that.

[–] hmimperialtortie AGP = evil 7 points

Or even simply a decent one.

[–] fizzygiglet 10 points

That makes me really, really angry. The very reason I’m on the waitlist for therapy at the moment is because I have PTSD due to a history of sexual abuse at the hands of male medical professionals (one doctor, and one nurse). I already turned down group therapy because they couldn’t guarantee me an all female group, including the therapist.

Posts like yours make me worry for fellow victims of medical trauma who may feel revictimised by this blatant transgression of boundaries. The fact that I’ve experienced sexual assault twice in the world of medicine—not to mention the countless instances of sexual harassment and misogynistic comments—is proof that this kind of thing is all too common, especially among chronically ill women like us. If you can stomach it, you might want to consider writing to your uni and/or the app and reminding them that many women require female therapists as a matter of both emotional well-being and physical safety. Like you, my health condition is also distinctly female, as you so eloquently put it, and I would never feel comfortable discussing it with a male therapist, let alone disclosing my sexual traumas. As much as I wish I could just get over it, it wouldn’t make a difference to me how such a person identifies; when I’m left alone with male medical professionals, my body reacts viscerally, and I’m prone to having panic attacks.

With all of that said, you shouldn’t have to be a rape survivor to be able to exclude male doctors from your search. Really, any reason is reason enough to warrant appropriate accommodation. On that note, best of luck finding an actual female therapist, OP! You deserve respect and compassion, especially in a clinical setting ffs.

[–] CriminallyCritical 34 points

This happened to me too. I recently signed up with the county Developmental Disability services and said I don’t want male providers and that includes transwomen. I started to try to justify it and she told me that that’s never something I should have to explain.

[–] Gould2022 11 points

Something I have learned recently is to state your point. Don’t explain or over comment. Just say no

[–] IronicWolf 52 points

What kind of a therapist forces patients (who are inherently vulnerable) to violate boundaries? They know this patient has asked for a woman, but they put themselves forward? Knowing that many women seeking therapists have histories of sexual trauma or who have been victimised by men.

To me it’s a red flag that the therapist is at best a charlatan. Good therapists want the best for their clients and know that means setting their own egos aside.

It’s quite common to hear the complaint that therapy is inaccessible to some groups because not enough therapists are from minority ethnic backgrounds or religions or cultures etc etc In other words, people acknowledge that patients need therapists they can build a good rapport with and who they think can more easily identify with them and their situations. Yet when it comes to trans therapists, this all goes out the window. A patient can reject and not want a therapist for any reason. You cannot build a good therapeutic relationship if the patient feels some sort of coercion or boundary violation. Honestly, this is basic stuff.

[–] reed_that_bends [OP] 47 points

The answer is: a bad therapist.

I can only imagine how increasingly hard it is to be a Muslim or Orthodox Jewish woman in the Western world right now. There are cultures and religions where you just can NOT be alone in a room with a man who you are not related to. These women are already struggling with patriarchy as we already know, but putting that to side, think of how hard it is becoming for them when they are also shut out of female-only spaces now. :( Because those don't really exist anymore.

[–] pennygadget 17 points

There are cultures and religions where you just can NOT be alone in a room with a man who you are not related to. These women are already struggling with patriarchy as we already know, but putting that to side, think of how hard it is becoming for them when they are also shut out of female-only spaces now. :( Because those don't really exist anymore.

It really goes to show that these woke lefties actually don't give a fuck about marginalized groups (or, more precisely, they don't care about marginalized women).

If schools, workplaces, shops, gyms, etc cannot guarantee a female only environment in intimate spaces, that will result in men in orthodox societies keeping their women on an even tighter leash. Muslim girls will be pulled from school and Muslim women won't be allowed to get jobs. And more super religious people will homeschool (even if they are woefully unqualified to do so) to protect their girls' purity. All so a bunch of dudes can feel "validated" while they piss or change clothes

[–] SulphuricMirror 9 points

One of my first posts on this site was wondering about how this very issue would play out. If there is a public pool that has women-only time, that time if now open to all who want to pretend to be women or "other genders", so now muslim girls and women can't go swimming, etc. It just removes them from participating in society completely.

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[–] proudcatlady 5 points

Edited

while they piss or change clothes

Did you mean: while they masturbate on camera for Twitter?

[–] [Deleted] 4 points

I'm part of of one those cultures, and I actually feel sad for you guys that you don't get to experience all female spaces, because we still have them; women's safety and privacy is taken very seriously. It does suck that we basically can't participate in secular society anymore, and it makes women less likely to leave the community because there's nowhere to go anymore. I never thought I'd say this, I always felt trapped and oppressed in my community, but now that I see what's happening to normal/secular society, I'm not so sure anymore which one is more oppressive.

[–] reed_that_bends [OP] 5 points

I think a lot of us do know what we are missing on that front in terms of women's spaces. At least, let me speak for myself, I have actively envied women in certain cultures have access to women-only spaces (also the emphasis on community and family). Some in the secular capitalist West think we have everything figure out. Clearly we do not.

[–] Gould2022 0 points

They will not target islamic or Jewish community yet. To strong links to religious text.

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[–] pennygadget 24 points

Yet when it comes to trans therapists, this all goes out the window.

This is the most galling thing. Wokies go on and on about how lived experience matters. There is a database of Black therapists because the industry recognizes that many Black folks are less likely to open up to a White therapist who cannot fully understand their issues.

But, when it comes to females, we're supposed to pretend that a 50 year old man who "became a woman" last week gets us. And if we're not comfortable with spilling our intimate traumas to a TIM, we're bigoted TERFs

[–] a-witch-a-broad 27 points

What kind of a therapist forces patients (who are inherently vulnerable) to violate boundaries?

A predator employing the easiest-to-implement filter available to him: one provided and enforced by society. Anyone who comes in going along with the pretense that he's a woman has self-selected into the "people without boundaries or willing to violate their own boundaries" group.

[–] reed_that_bends [OP] 3 points

This concept needs to be front and center in our discussion about women's spaces.

[–] a-witch-a-broad 2 points

Understanding who benefits from our compliance is a necessary step toward avoiding situations that don't benefit us.

[–] hmimperialtortie AGP = evil 11 points

TIMs don’t want the best for anyone. The want victims to gratify their boners.

[–] Philogynist 🦋🌍🍃 38 points

Edited

I don't mind that there are trans therapists, but what I do mind is when they do not disclose their trans status and clients, like you, end up seeking a female therapist and getting a male.

I think trans therapists should indicate their ideology in the same way that Christian therapists should. It's so wrong on so many levels to match a client with someone of one sex if they are seeking the other sex.

[–] SueGen 7 points

I imagine it’s ALWAYS TIMs trying to fly under the radar. Women will always clock them but we won’t kill them. If I were a TIF I sure wouldn’t try to put something over a male patient.

[–] Philogynist 🦋🌍🍃 4 points

I even consider therapist TIFs disguising themselves as wrong regardless of less of the threat of physical violence. Like, for the male sexual abuse victims seeking out therapy because they were sexually abused by female family members as kids, or whatever, shouldn't be forced to discuss that trauma with a woman larping as a man. But yeah I would like to know the statistics behind how many transwomen versus transmen are therapists.

[–] zuubat 11 points

Edited

If it's a problem of too much demand for female therapists, then would they let you do a ranked-choice preference?

Here's mine:

female
male
NEVER female pretending to be male
12TH OF NEVER male pretending to be female

[–] loren 33 points

Edited

I would submit a report anywhere you can. I had a male doctor from the time I was 14 to age 24. Stopped seeing him because he started touching groping me during visits, even in front of female staff that was present, amongst other things. Anytime I would request a female provider after that I would see he would re-assign himself to my appointments an hour before they’d start so I was able to use that for my report because it was logged. This is typically taken very seriously.

[–] Philogynist 🦋🌍🍃 13 points

Wow wtf

[–] proudcatlady 8 points

I hope that asshat is sleeping under a newspaper in a ditch, unable to find work

[–] reed_that_bends [OP] 12 points

So, so horrible. I'm sorry to hear that happened to you.

[–] hmimperialtortie AGP = evil 13 points

Not only a biological male (the only kind) but one you already know is a sexual pervert because he forces his fetish on everyone. TIMs should not be in any sort of healthcare.

[–] SamuraiGhostCat 0 points

They shouldn’t be in any public space, really. Only male prisons are acceptable

[–] hmimperialtortie AGP = evil 1 points

I agree. Being a TIM is basically a sexual assault imo. A criminal offence.

[–] ProMoleratWaxer 36 points

I think there might be a lifecycle where both sexes prefer a female therapist, so they're in higher demand, most people do not want to be therapised by someone with huge mental illness flags, TIM gets rejected back into pool of available 'female' therapists, cycle continues until he comes across a person that doesn't have better options, exclusively scrounging up patronage of desperate people.

[–] IrishTheFrenchie 38 points

TIM gets rejected back into pool of available 'female' therapists, cycle continues until he comes across a person that doesn't have better options, exclusively scrounging up patronage of desperate people.

In the late 90's, when I first started as a pharmacist, I got a phone call from a psychiatrist who called in a combo of controlled substances in pretty large quantities. I was new, so I took the order, hung up, and turned to the other pharmacist and said, "I think a man just called in and faked a high voice to pretend to be this woman doctor and called in these prescriptions."

Nope. The psychiatrist was a TiM. And every single one of his patients was a substance abuser seeking the same combination of controlled substances and the same large quantities.

So you are correct. Patients with a real need for a psychiatrist aren't going to a TiM. So he got all the drug seekers.

[–] meranii 7 points

Eewww, I don't even want to imagine what went on during his sessions with vulnerable drug addicted patients desperate to get their fix. Only question is, were they already drug seeking when they ended up with him (and he had a rep in the community for being easy to "convince") or did he get them hooked?

I'm not surprised someone who stuffs himself with hormones daily wouldn't have a problem with handing out controlled substances willy-nilly.

[–] bellatrixbells BoobatrixRex 1 points

I'm sorry, he was prescribing controlled substances to known addicts in large quantities... ??????????????

Is there anything anyone could have done... ????

[–] IrishTheFrenchie 2 points

Not really. Not back then. No one really cared.

The things I’ve seen. 😐😐

[–] SulphuricMirror 5 points

Yikes

[–] RisingUp 25 points

Similar to why they're so prevalent on dating apps. That makes a lot of sense.

[–] Starient ✨🦋👾 6 points

Yep, I have tried to explain in the past why trans and poly people are so prevalent on dating apps. In the case of the former, it's because people are looking for partners based on sex, not gender, and in the latter, well they're just always going to be there because they are never really "off the market".

I wish people would take this into account for the w4w dating scene. There don't need to be that many TIMs for the apps to get flooded, because they rarely leave. It's hilarious to me, too, how sometimes they get a girlfriend, but stay on the app because they then decide they are poly. Lol. Can't even accept a women when he finally finds one.

[–] MissMilotic 2 points

Yeah, the vast majority of MTFs are poly for some reason. You'd think that they would be satisfied with just one woman, considering how hard it is for most of them to find anyone to date.

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Rant I wanted a female therapist. I got matched with a TiM.

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