Laura A. Jacobs, LCSW-R

Laura A. Jacobs: ① Train, Downtown

About a third of my clients are trans or nonbinary youth and adolescents who had only witnessed the advancements of the 2000s–2010s. They believed progress would be linear and ongoing, and how were they to know otherwise? To them, the results of November 8, 2016, suggested their lives would be unlivable; most had only recently come out and were still addressing acne, dating, and the beginnings of independence while simultaneously questioning their genders and already anxious about decisions that would have lifelong impact. Almost all were now panicked that they would need to flee due to increasing violence and the incoming administration’s transparent intent to assault transgender and gender nonbinary people in all ways possible. They could only interpret increased oppression as an inevitable turn toward fascism and compulsory heteronormativity. Many expected to be dead.

I had the same fears, and was shaken by the intergenerational post-traumatic stress that I’d be herded to a camp and murdered by my own government as were so many of my grandparents’ and great-grandparents’ generations. I reminded clients that I faced the same situation they did, and revealed more of my internal life than I might have otherwise. Likely I needed them, too. Simultaneously, I attempted to portray a determination I didn’t always feel in session and when speaking at conferences and in the media, again both “traumatized community member” and “confident expert.” Occasionally I dissociated with clients, and twice I asked that they restrain their outrage at current events when I was already overwhelmed. Some moments I’ve had less to give.