Griffin Hansbury, MA, LCSW, is an analytic candidate and a psychotherapist in private practice and at the Callen-Lorde Community Health Center in New York City. A specialist and clinical supervisor in working with trans patients, his writing on the topic has appeared in journals such as Studies in Gender and Sexuality and Psychoanalytic Social Work.

Carrie Davis, MSW, is a social worker and the Director of Community Services, including the adult, youth and family community and social services programs at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center in New York City where she has worked since 1998. Carrie is also the former Coordinator of the Center's Gender Identity Project where her work focused on offering counseling and groups for transgender and gender non-conforming youth and adults, partners and those who are gender questioning.

Carrie was responsible for developing the core of the Center's Trans-Care competency training curriculum for the Center Training Institute and has delivered that curriculum to more than 5,000 providers including governmental agencies, non-for-profit agencies, schools, and individuals in private practice. She has worked to be a force for change through advocacy, movement building and community empowerment. Her leadership was critical in helping New York City legislate protections and release guidelines that aid public accommodations in implementing the 2002 city law banning discrimination based on gender identity or expression. She has worked collaboratively with the New York Department of Homeless Services, Police Department, Commission on Human Rights, Department of Correction, and the Human Resources Administration, and others to develop guidelines for serving transgender New Yorkers.

In addition to Carrie's work at the Center, she currently serves on the New York City Police Department LGBT Advisory Committee, the All Gender Health Online Research Project Advisory Board, and has previously served on the board of directors of the Sylvia Rivera Law Project (SRLP), the International Foundation for Gender Education (IFGE), the New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy (NYAGRA) and GenderPAC, as well as the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) Board of Advisors. The 2nd edition of Gary Mallon's Social Work Practice with Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender People included her chapter on "Social work practice with transgender and gender non-conforming people." Carrie joined the Hunter College School of Social Work as an Adjunct Lecturer and has taught there since 2007.

Katherine Rachlin, Ph.D., is a licensed psychologist in New York and AASECT certified sex therapist. An advocate for the transgender community for more than 20 years, she has worked with hundreds of transgender people, their families and partners to successfully negotiate all aspects of gender exploration and gender transition. She also provides supervision and training for psychotherapists working with transgendered clients. Dr. Rachlin is a former member of the board of directors of The World Professional Association for Transgender Health and has served on the board of FTM-International. Her Published papers include: Transgendered individuals' experiences of psychotherapy, The future of GID NOS in the DSM-V; Hysterectomy and oophorectomy experiences of female-to-male transgender individuals; FTM-identified individuals' utilization of health care; and Factors which influence female-to-male individuals' decisions when considering genital surgery.

Individuals who are not engaged in a social transition from one gender to another may request hormones and/or surgery. The people who fall into this category represent a diverse group. Those who desire physical changes while living in their assigned gender may pose a challenge to mental health and medical providers. This paper includes a review of the relevant literature, Standards of Care, and a discussion of two cases of patients who were seen in psychotherapy by the presenter. The first case illustrates the practice of giving hormone therapy to female-identified people who live as men. The second case illustrates the practice of mastectomy and chest reconstruction for female-identified people who live as female or genderqueer. This issue affects a wide range of people from gender warriors to the Dad next-door. Gender specialists may routinely support individuals who use medical interventions in ways that suite unique identities and life circumstances, though these practices are not well documented in the professional literature.

Irwin Krieger, LCSW, is a clinical social worker in private practice in New Haven, CT. He has over 25 years of experience working as a therapist for the GLBT community. With a BA in Psychology from Yale and an MSW from the University of Connecticut, he is Board Certified in Clinical Social Work. Since 2003 he has been working extensively with transgender adults and teens and their families. In the past few years, he has given presentations regarding transgender services to medical and mental health professionals. Irwin Krieger is the author of Helping Your Transgender Teen: a Guide for Parents. See helpingyourtransgenderteen.com for information about the book and an extensive listing of resources for parents of transgender teens.

This workshop will help clinicians build a bridge between these parents and their transgender teens so each can better understand the other's needs and views. In this workshop we will examine the delicate balance between authenticity and safety in the lives of transgender teens and their parents. Parents need basic information about gender identity to understand what their teen is experiencing. We will discuss ways to help parents address the fears and concerns that arise when they find out that their teen is seeking gender transition. Fear and lack of information hamper parents in their efforts to fully nurture and support their transgender teen. By supporting the adolescent while at the same time endorsing the parents' need for time and understanding, the clinician helps the family move from conflict to cooperation. Initially the emphasis is on steps that provide further clarification and understanding of the teen's gender identity, for both the teen and the parents. If these early steps confirm that full gender transition is the best path, teens and their parents are then ready to move ahead with medical interventions at the appropriate time. This workshop presents an approach that has been effective in helping numerous families move toward a collaborative and positive outcome for their teenagers.

AndreA Neumann Mascis, Ph.D., is a psychologist and gender specialist who has been working with transgender and gender variant people and working in trans community in San Francisco and Boston for thirteen years. AndreA is founder and developer of The Meeting Point: a Multidimensional Center for Healing and Growth in Jamaica Plain, MA. The Meeting Point serves the LGBT community, survivors and the disability community, and is growing to meet the unique strengths and needs of queer people and their allies through community activity and personalized approaches to wellness. AndreA's areas of specialty include working with trauma and complex PTSD having directed a women's trauma program for an LGBT agency in San Francisco, and developed specialized trauma curricula for specific populations including homeless and chronically mentally ill people in San Francisco and Boston Work has also included education and training for universities, hospitals, providers, non-profits and community members.

Being a gender variant survivor of trauma is a profound and psychosocially complex experience for survivor and provider alike. Both gender variance and trauma profoundly shape and reshape sense of self, intimacy and sexuality, self efficacy and resiliency and organize a sense of strength and meaning in the world. Historically the relationship between these life experiences has been viewed with trepidation. In the past assessments of gender identity have viewed trauma as a potential differential in the diagnosis of GID. Subsequently treatment responses to the co-occurrence of these experiences have regarded them not as causal but as competing areas of specialty. This has at times resulted in divided care, either in treatment planning or multiple providers as if trauma could be responded to or resolved separately from gender identity. Beyond the issue of diagnosis and treatment, what is missed is some of the unique resources for strength and healing that trans identity can bring to surviving trauma or the ways in which the psychological resources of survival can support a profoundly meaningful transition. This workshop will be designed for advanced clinical framework and discussion. The goal will be to begin to redress this deficit in treatment knowledge for trauma survivors.

S.J. Langer, LCSW-R, is a psychotherapist and writer in New York City. Ze maintains a private practice while writing and speaking about gender and sexuality. Most recently, ze presented at WPATH's Biennial Symposium and School of Visual Arts, Graduate Art Therapy program. In addition, ze has taught at New York University & Adelphi University and supervises social work interns for the LGBT Community Services Center. Ze's academic articles include How Dresses Can Make You Mentally Ill: Examining Gender Identity Disorder in Childhood and Gender (dis)agreement: A Dialogue on the Clinical Implications of Gendered Language.

As close as one may attempt to arrive at the gender of one's psyche, there will always be something lacking, to reckon with, specifically, the body's deception of the psychic body-image. The mourning of one's body for a transgender, transsexual or genderqueer person may follow a unique path but it shares the universal human experience of self-acceptance. When a person comes to accept that aspects of their material body does not match their psychological and performative gender, there is a loss for what was never present and for what will never be of their body. The phantom is mourned and reclaimed. In the process of the individual recognizing their gender identity, there is enjoyment at the acknowledgement of their corrected gender expression as one acquires social and physical attributes. We will explore the grief at aspects of the body, which cannot be fully created, even if completely socially performed. Through the process of mourning, the subject finds the livable compromises and the good-enough body. The individual may have access to gender confirming medical interventions or other means of bodily modification, however the limits of their acceptability and effectiveness needs to be considered as well as the fear of rejection and finances. The body, must ultimately, be accepted as an imperfect project. Thus in working through emotionally and physically, one's body can move from something to be endured, to something to be enjoyed. Not just a body one is born with, but rather, a self-created work of art. In addition, this presentation will explore how trans and queer gender individuals integrate their bodily experiences into their self-image and self-representation. The intersection of the individual's body with one's partner will also be explored in relation to intimacy and sex. This phenomenon will be placed in the larger context of human development using clinical examples, queer and gender theory; as well as, philosophy and psychoanalysis.

Jean Malpas, LMHC, LMFT, is the Director of the Gender Family Project at the Ackerman Institute for the Family and a psychotherapist in private practice in New York City. He has worked in the LGBT communities for more than 10 years. He currently works with families of gender nonconforming and transgender children and teenagers and runs support groups for parents and children. His work is being published in the Journal of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Family Studies (2006); Family Process (in press) and the Handbook of Affirmative LGBT couple and family therapy (in press).

Families of gender nonconforming children need to negotiate the interactions between two cultures of gender: a culture of gender as a unchangeable binary, most often imported from their familial and social norms, and a culture of a gender as a fluid spectrum, as articulated by their child. When those cultures differ greatly, parents may experience the need to choose between accepting their child's nonconforming identity or protecting them by acculturating them more forcefully according to the mainstream gender culture. This dilemma often translates into tensions and conflicts that can severely erode the parent/child bond and create marital conflicts. This workshop will articulate and discuss the dilemmas faced by parents of gender nonconforming pre-pubescent children. It will address the many ways parents can be supportive of their child's sense of self while keeping them safe and keeping open possibilities for their future gender identity. Decisions regarding clothing, gender expression, family relationships as well as issues with school bathroom, teasing and bullying will be addressed. A discussion will emphasize how to support parents tolerating not knowing whether their child will or will not become transgender, gay, lesbian or straight. A family-oriented approach will illustrate how parents and children can improve their communication on gender-related issues, repair moments of disconnection and navigate together the many shades of grey of gender before puberty.

Sebastián Colón-Otero, LMSW, Callen-Lorde, is a Puerto Rican trans man who brings over fifteen years of experience as an educator, trainer, and community organizer to his work with LGBTQI communities and practice as psychotherapist. He draws on influences from queer theory, gender studies, critical race theory, feminism, and anti-colonialism in his work. Sebastian earned his MSW from the University of Michigan School of Social Work. He currently provides bilingual psychotherapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and trauma healing services to LGBTQI clients at the Callen-Lorde Community Health Center in New York City. He is particularly interested in the development of culturally sensitive approaches for the provision of comprehensive and effective affirmative psychotherapy to Latino/a immigrant transgender communities. He is currently working on developing an interpretation of trans Latin@ identity development based on the work of chicana theorist Gloria Anzaldua.

The impact of the intersecting experiences of oppression in the lives of Latina trans women are complex, and manifest in a variety of ways in therapeutic settings. For those of us working with trans Latina clients, addressing the mental health consequences of their experiences can present serious challenges. While in many cases, experiences of oppression and abuse emerge in the clinical setting as symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Anxiety, and Depression, clinicians must bring an especially nuanced understanding of how gender, class, cultural differences, race/ethnicity, varied socio-political contexts, family relations and personal experiences significantly influence the realties of this population. This workshop will explore some factors to consider in the clinical approach to working with trans Latina immigrants, including the roles of language, culture, and socio-political contexts. We will also address some of the challenges clinicians may face in understanding clients' self-definition, identity development, and cognitive understandings/assumptions as related to clinical symptoms.

Deborah Sherman, BC-DMT, LPC, has been practicing, first as a Dance/Movement Therapist, then as a Psychoanalyst for many years. She received her analytic training from the Institute for the Psychoanalytic Study of Subjectivity (NYC), has been a staff therapist at the Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy's GLAP program, and is on the faculty of the Institute for Relational Psychoanalysis of Philadelphia. Ms. Sherman has also been a long-time member of Shock of Gray, an experimental theatre company. With Shock of Gray she contributed to and performed in "Smoke & Mirrors: An Exploration of Lesbian Identities Over 4 Decades". Deborah Sherman maintains a private practice in NYC and Philadelphia.

In this workshop, two lesbian therapists each present their work with patients who are struggling with their gender and their sexuality, one with the fear of transitioning and the other with accessing her boy self. In both treatments the therapeutic relationship itself becomes the site of uncontainable states of anxiety, shame and sexual intensity. The exploration of each patient's history of developmental and sexual trauma is communicated and felt in the mind and body of both the patient and the therapist. How to learn from and make use of one's own countertransference in these tumultuous treatments will be a part of the presentation.

Sandra Silverman, LCSW, teaches and supervises at the Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy and the Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Study Center. Her articles have been published in Psychoanalytic Dialogues, The Journal of Lesbian and Gay Psychotherapy, Relational Psychoanalysis Volume 3 and Good Enough Endings: Breaks, Interruptions and Terminations from Contemporary Relational Perspectives. She is in private practice in Manhattan.

Avgi Saketopoulou is a psychoanalytic candidate at the NYU PostDoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis. She is on the editorial board of Psychoanalytic Dialogues and Studies in Gender and Sexuality. She has published numerous articles on gender, class, race and sexuality. She is the recipient of a Ruth Stein Prize and a Rosetta Harris Fellowship from NYU. Avgi does pro bono work with LGBT asylum seekers in NYC and teaches and supervises nationally.

How do serious mental illness and transgender experience brush up against each other? This question has historically collapsed gender atypicality with psychopathology; here it is taken up here from a different angle. This paper will explore how massive gender trauma presses on mental health. Using clinical vignettes from psychoanalytically oriented treatments of trans-identified adults and from play therapy with atypically gendered children, I will trace how early relational traumas related to mis-gendering and how traumas of unintelligibility destabilize and unsettle psychic equilibrium. I will illustrate how the accretion of such psychic events can antagonize healthy psychic development and how ensuing possible disruptions in psychic functioning range from anxiety, to depression and the serious problem of suicidality. At the very far end of the spectrum, lie psychotic processes and thought disorder. The latter, a much neglected area in trans studies, leaves unexplored the space where trans experience meets serious mental illness. As a result, gender variance becomes easily dismissible when encountered concurrently with psychopathology and psychotic disorders become an uncontestable exclusion criterion when it comes to considerations of medical interventions which aim to align internal experience with bodily materiality.

Elijah C. Nealy, M.Div., LCSW, is an out transgender man with over 25 years experience as a clinician, trainer and consultant around LGBT concerns. He is the former director of adolescent & adult mental health and social services at the LGBT Community Center in NYC, and teaches part-time at Columbia University's School of Social Work. The foster/adoptive parent of 3 amazing young people, Elijah brings a particular passion to issues of children and youth. In his private practice, he specializes in gender identity concerns with youth, adults, and families, as well as seeing individuals and couples around a wide range of other life issues.

While aspects of the transgender experience are unique, issues of disclosure and vulnerability in the therapeutic relationship affect all clinicians. Designed for both trans-identified and cisgender therapists and social service workers, this presentation will highlight the opportunities and challenges of associated with therapist authenticity and visibility. Comprised of transgender-identified presenters from both private practice and community-based settings, this roundtable conversation will focus on exploring the intersections of identity in clinical practice. Topics to be discussed include professional use of self as it particularly impacts transgender clinicians, dialogue regarding social location of the therapist, dynamics of transference and counter transference with both transgender and cisgender clients, navigating intersecting relationships and communities, benefits and challenges of serving as a visible role model, and protecting boundaries and enhancing self-care. Through the use of personal disclosure and case examples, panelists will share their professional experiences in an effort to further deepen our discussion of what it means to be authentic in our clinical practice.

Alexis Lake, MSS, LSW, is a Licensed Social Worker specializing in individual, couples, partners, and family therapy. She is also a trained and experienced mediator who does divorce and custody mediation, family mediation, and business/education mediations. A graduate of Bryn Mawr College's School of Social Work and Social Research, she is currently working with a broad spectrum of clients. Alexis has presented at the University of Pennsylvania, St. Joseph's University, Bryn Mawr College, Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine (PCOM), the Keystone Conference in Harrisburg, Renaissance Of Southeastern Pennsylvania (R.O.S.E.), the Pennsylvania Society of Clinical Social Workers in Lancaster, and to companies and non-profit organizations in Wayne, York, Harrisburg, and Lancaster, PA where she discussed transgender issues as they relate to the individual and family, loved ones, friends and their community. She also co-produced a highly regarded one day seminar at Bryn Mawr College where nationally recognized experts in the field of transgender care spoke to a large audience of local therapists.

Ms. Kim Watson is the Co-founder and Medical Patient Coordinator of Community Kinship Life. Kim is also a political activist and has worked with Trans Justice, a political group created by and for Trans and Gender Non-conforming people of color, a new project of The Audre Lorde Project, which is a LGBTST People of Color community organizing center in New York City. Ms. Watson sits on several boards for HIV/AIDS along with other health related issues affecting the transgender community.

Arlene Istar Lev, LCSW-R, CASAC , is a social worker, family therapist, and educator whose work addresses the unique therapeutic needs of LGBTQ people. She is the founder of Choices Counseling and Consulting (choicesconsulting.com) in Albany, New York. She is a part-time faculty member of the University at Albany, School of Social Welfare and Empire College. She is the author of Transgender Emergence and The Complete Lesbian and Gay Parenting Guide.

The field of transgender health is expanding, and increasing numbers of therapists have become advocates for trans people and their diverse identities and expressions. However, given the lack of resources and training, there are few opportunities available for clinicians to discuss clients with complex mental health problems that make transition issues more challenging. This workshop will attempt to address some of these challenges and explore new ways to advocate for clients who face these concerns. This is an advanced clinical workshop which will examine cases that involve ethical dilemmas and complex psychological presentations. Each presenter will discuss a case and emphasized the therapeutic challenges they faced, and then the other therapists will discuss and reflect on the process. Each therapist will present a case in which family and/or context issues (race, class, etc) are the primary focus of treatment. Presenters will explore how these issues impact clients' challenges in gender exploration and expression and the dynamic with the therapist.

Shannon Sennott, LICSW, is an LGBTQ family therapist who was clinically trained at the Smith School for Social Work and the Eastern Group Psychotherapy Society in New York City. Shannon has a broad range of expertise having completed clinical trainings in anxiety disorders, depressive and mood disorders, dual diagnosis, sexuality and gender identity concerns, grief and loss, and trauma. Shannon works with individuals, couples, and groups, and especially enjoys working with those in alternative family structures. Her clinical orientation is influenced by narrative and dialogical network approaches, which emphasize awareness of societal marginality and oppression. Shannon is also the founder of the advocacy and education organization, TRANSLATE GENDER, Inc. and the author of the article, "Gender disorder as gender oppression: A transfeminist approach to rethinking the pathologization of gender non-conformity", published in Women and Therapy Journal, spring 2011.

Kathleen Miller, LMSW, MFA, is a clinical social worker and Staff Therapist with the Gay and Lesbian Affirmative Psychotherapy (GLAP) division of the Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy. She is also a member of GLAP's Clinical Certification Program. With Kristin Keefe, she co-led a workshop in October 2011 for CUNY Hunter's mental health counseling students on LGBTQ Affirmative Therapy. Prior to her work at GLAP, Kathleen has worked at Harvey Milk High School and Visiting Nurse.

As cisgender female clinicians, our participation in GLAP's transgender supervision group has deepened our awareness of some of the clinical, intra-psychic issues that our transgender clients face. Our participation in this supervision group has also deepened the way that we as clinicans understand our own countertransference. One of the primary mechanisms that has allowed this to occur is the phenomenon of parallel process. In this presentation, each presenter will provide a brief clinical vignette, highlighting a point of struggle, change, or impasse in her work with a trans-identified client. After the presentation of each vignette, both presenters and audience members will function as a group, using parallel process to generate feedback and discussion.

Beth Zacher, LMSW, is a clinical social worker at Mount Sinai Adolescent Health Center, where she conducts individual, family, and couples psychotherapy sessions with adolescents and their families. Beth is also the co-facilitator of AHC's HIV positive support group and specializes in working with transgender youth and young adults. For the past year she has been a participant in GLAP's clinical certification program, with a transgender concentration. She received her MSW from Smith College School for Social work in Northampton, MA and her BA in Anthropology and Spanish at UCLA. Previous to her social work training she helped to create youth development programs in San Francisco, CA at First Graduate, an organization that seeks to help youth finish high school and become the first in their families to graduate from college.

Amelia Pope, MSW, is a staff therapist and certification candidate for the Gay and Lesbian Affirmative Psychotherapy division at the Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy. Amelia obtained her MSW from the Columbia University School of Social Work in 2011. Amelia has volunteered with the Gay Health Advocacy program at Columbia University and was actively involved in Columbia's Queer Caucus. Amelia brings 12 years of yoga practice into her clinical work and completed a 200-hour yoga certification in 2009. Amelia has volunteered for the Lineage project, an organization that brings mindfulness and yoga to incarcerated and at-risk youth in the New York City area.

Kristin Keefe, MHC, is a Mental Health Counselor at the Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy, GLAP (Gay Lesbian Affirmative Psychotherapy) Division. While working toward the GLAP Clinical Certification, Kristin participates in coursework and a study group for clinicians treating clients who present along the transgender spectrum. Kristin serves as a member of GLAP's Executive Committee. Kristin also teaches courses in the Mental Health Counseling Program at The City College of New York. Her background includes case management at Harlem Hospital's Methadone Treatment Program.

Stephanie Budge, PhD, is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Educational and Counseling Psychology at the University of Louisville. Stephanie's research interests include the emotional and coping processes for transgender individuals, LGBQ issues, infusing social justice into research, and the effectiveness of psychotherapy.

Psychologists have only recently begun to address transgender wellbeing and therapeutic processes in the research literature. While it is exciting to see the field take notice of the therapeutic process involved in working with transgender individuals, we are still far from understanding the spectrum of experiences within this community. Several articles have discussed "emotion work" (e.g., Pfeffer, 2010; Schrock, Holden, & Reid, 2004) or included anecdotal information about emotions involved in the transitioning process (e.g., Devor, 2004). However, specific literature addressing the coping processes for complex emotional experiences at different stages of the gender identity and transition processes does not exist. This presentation has two purposes: (a) to present the results of a qualitative study investigating the emotional and coping experiences of transgender individuals as they relate to their psychological well-being, and (b) to discuss the clinical implications and possible therapeutic interventions based on the separate stages of identity and transitioning processes.

Sabra L. Katz-Wise, MS, is a Ph.D. candidate in Developmental Psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research interests include LGBTQ psychology; the development of gender-related constructs across transitions; social roles and identities, such as parenthood; psychology of women; and women's health. She is currently working on her dissertation, which investigates sexual identity development and sexual fluidity in sexual minority young adults.

Alison Aldrich, LCSW is a Clinical Assistant Professor at NYU's Silver School of Social Work. Professor Aldrich's practice experience for over a decade has been in the field of HIV and AIDS. In this regard Alison has worked as a Case Manager, Social Work Supervisor and as the Assistant Director of Clinical Services at Bailey House, a community-based housing program that provides supportive housing to homeless HIV-positive individuals and families with mental illness and substance abuse histories. Ms. Aldrich has been involved with the Gender Identity Project at the LGBT Community Center for over 10 years having co facilitated numerous cycles of support groups for the transgender community including those that assist Trans-Partners, Trans-Couples and Trans-Families.

This presentation will examine an emergent model of peer partnered group support that has created a unique trans positive environment for trans individuals, family members, allies and friends as developed by the Gender Identity Project (GIP) at the LGBT Community Center in New York City. A review of the formation and structure of the peer partnered Trans Family Support Group at the LGBT Community Center will provide a platform for the shifts that occurred as a result of significant changes in the social, political and legal environment in New York City that took place in the two decades between 1989 and 2011. Also, a series of interviews and questions of the Trans Family Support Group peer facilitators, students, administrators, clinicians and family members will reveal the strengths and challenges of the Trans Family Group structure as it stands today.

Suzanne Iasenza, PhD, is on the faculties of ICP, Adelphi University's Postgradute Program in Psychoanalysis, and the Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Study Center (PPSC). She maintains a private practice in psychotherapy and sex therapy in NYC.

This presentation will identify some of the challenges and joys in developing sexual intimacy in trans couples. Themes will include how gender and sexuality intersect, how gender transition influences sexual orientation, and ways that intimacy and sexual behavior are shaped by gender/sexual identifications. Case material will be used to illustrate how to gather and utilize sexual history information, expand couple capacity to constructively discuss sexual needs, wishes and concerns, and how to co-construct a mutually satisfying sexual intimacy.

Cooper Sabatino, LMSW, is a queer and transgender therapist working at Callen-Lorde Community Health Center. He graduated from Hunter College School of Social Work, and is interested in transference, countertransference and in examining how transphobia and homophobia affect agency policy, staff relations, and the therapeutic dyad.

Social work practice must include a critical awareness of the impact of gender and heteronormativity on all aspects of practice. This presentation examines the intersection of transformative social work practice and traditional social work training in areas of self-disclosure, boundaries, transference/countertransference as they relate to belonging to and working with transgender communities. We will offer a framework for practitioners to engage in transformative practice in professional and intentional ways.

Jama Shelton, LMSW, is a doctoral candidate (ABD status) in Social Welfare at the CUNY Graduate Center and an adjunct professor at the Hunter College School of Social Work. She is also the Coordinator of Research, Evaluation and Training at the Ali Forney Center (AFC). Prior to her current position, she served as the Director of Transitional Living. Born from experiences at AFC, her dissertation will explore the interplay of housing instability and gender identity development and assertion among transgender and gender non-conforming youth experiencing homelessness.

Gretchen Winterkorn, LMSW, is a queer, femme clinician directing the HELP program at the VillageCare Health Center. She graduated from Hunter College School of Social Work and is currently training at the Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy. Using her experiences in the trans and queer communities, she is interested in examining the impact of dual role, over/identification with clients, disclosure and a lack of adequate vocabulary impact clinical work with trans clients.

julie graham, MFT, is the Gender Services Coordinator of South Van Ness Adult Behavioral Health Services and is a member of Bay Area Gender Associates. julie is a gender specialist and works exclusively with gender non-conforming, transgender and transsexual people over the past six years. Julie is interested in decreasing the misdiagnosis of the gender community among mental health professionals and expanding provider sensitivity and knowledge to assist people on the gender spectrum.

This presentation will survey the substantial biopsychosocial implications of childhood bullying across the life span. Gender non-conforming children, people of color, neurodiverse people and people with disabilities are frequent targets of bullying. This workshop will cover statistics related to bullying and gender non-conforming, transsexual and transgender people as children and as adults to identify the scope of the problem and will primarily look at long term physical, mental and social effects. The presenter will review current research on bullying, verbal and physical abuse in childhood with an emphasis on inflammatory disease process. Clinicians will learn to better understand the importance of assessing clients for a history of bullying and how to intervene to improve health outcomes and quality of life as people age. We will briefly discuss yoga, EMDR, relational psychotherapy, and stress reduction skills.

Ezra MF Goetzen, MA, LMHCA, is a gender queer, polish immigrant who has been a queer community activist since 14 and had turned to the discipline of psychology to further explore and advocate gender queer and trans rights. He/ze has conducted qualitative research with transgender youth as well as gender queer adults regarding the phenomenology of family roles and the negotiation of embodying gender queer identities. He/ze has interned at a Seattle queer focused mental health agency where he/ze counseled transgender and queer individuals and is currently finishing his/zis dissertation regarding the meaning of the gender queer experience.

Gender queer identity's overarching theme of "I am not this" underlines its experience. For some, gender queer identity, negotiated through daily experiences of living within the gender binary, comes to be defined by what it is not. This not being in turn inspires a multifaceted and ambiguous yet composed gender identity. Through constructing a distinct gender self, many transgender and gender queer individuals come to develop a visceral sense of subjectivity. As I observe my clinical work, my clients did not necessarily feel more empowered due to appearing more male or more female, but through negotiating each self defining decision and each step in differentiation from rigid roles and behavioral patterns learned and continually enacted in their early caregiver relationships. The presentation explores how through gender based differentiation gender queer and transgender people articulate themselves, not only their genders.