This book review comes from another of our members.
Supporting Trans People of Colour: How to Make Your Practice Inclusive. By Sabah Choudrey
London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2022
Paperback, 208 pages, £16.99. ISBN: 978-1787750593
I begin by acknowledging the lens through which I read this book and am writing now: I am a trans/non-binary psychotherapist; I am white, in my 50s, middle-class and neurodivergent.
On beginning to read Supporting Trans People of Colour: How to Make Your Practice Inclusive, I was struck by the author’s approach: Choudrey combines their own lived experience with voices from the community (via an anonymous survey) and with the voices, frameworks and tools of elders, researchers, leaders and organisations (for example, BARC Collective, adrienne maree brown, Brené Brown, Justice Founders and many more). This was a very powerful thread throughout the book and I experienced the writing as though it was flowing from a broad collection of lived experience and wisdom.
My second impression was of the holding and educating that is done by Choudrey. While the first section (Identity and Intersectionality) provides an extremely helpful resource on terminology, language, white privilege, cis privilege and the experience of trans people of colour in the UK in various areas (criminal justice, healthcare, faith, etc.), I wish that such education did not fall on the shoulders of those within the community and I acknowledge the effort it must have taken to put this book together.
The chapter Creating a Safe(r) Space was illuminating to me. Safety is such an important theme for the trans community and the encouragement to think about not being able to guarantee safe spaces but to “be accountable to harmdoing and transparent to risk taking” (p.67) in order to create safe(r) spaces, was very helpful for my own thinking about safety and the spaces I offer as a therapist, raising my awareness of my own responsibility. Equally, asking the question: “safer for whom?” (p.67) has already proven helpful to me in group and institutional settings to think more deeply about privilege and how I inhabit spaces.
Similarly, the chapter Holding a Safe(r) Space outlines the need for us to be active in this endeavour, especially given the fact that trans people are often not allowed by society to take up space. Choudrey continually encourages us to think about intersectionality and overlapping areas of oppression, and this chapter offers helpful sections to understand not just race and gender, but also sexuality, dis/ability, language, access, and class. I admit that class is not an area that I have given a lot of thought to, and this section highlighted my hesitation to think about class privilege, providing me with a great starting point for doing some personal work in this area. The recommendations and discussion in this section have helped me to begin my reflections on how class and classism might impact my work.
Any topic around oppression can feel overwhelming to tackle, but this book offers many practical and manageable starting points for professionals and organisations (therapists, healthcare professionals, charities, educators, and others). The range of subjects covered is broad but always comes back to lived experience and meaningful actions. For example, there were some small actions I could immediately take in my therapy practice, even as I was reading the section on Agreements, contracts and policies. I reviewed my contract and added more detail to provide greater transparency. I also added a task to my calendar to review it regularly because, as Choudrey reminds us, inclusion is an ongoing process. In the chapter Celebrate and Commemorate, I found the calendar of cultural, historical, and social events useful – I know how isolating it can feel if a significant day is not acknowledged by those around us, and educating myself about events important to other communities feels like an easy, supportive step to take.
The book contains moments to pause: breaks in the text in the form of boxes with points to reflect on. I found these challenging, inspiring, interesting… There were parts that raised questions requiring deeper self-examination and ongoing work, such as: Where do I hold influence in my life? How can I take responsibility for widening my circle and experience? Where is my collusion? What do I not see in my much-valued trans spaces?
The other chapters in the book include one entitled Practice (especially helpful for organisations, covering tokenism, visibility, and accessibility – whether your spaces are online or in-person – advertising and recruitment, and partnerships and funding) and one called Exclusion and Inclusion, which includes a 10-point summary for making your practice inclusive.
The care I have experienced in the trans community is something that is very precious and supportive to me, it helps me thrive in life. This book brought into sharp focus the whiteness of my trans spaces, and I realised with sadness that I do not think enough about how these spaces could be safer for trans people of colour. I want our community to be accessible and welcoming to all. Supporting Trans People of Colour provided me with practical ways to think about transforming my community spaces, as well as a wealth of information and points for further reflection. I ended the book feeling empowered.
Therapists Against Conversion Therapy and Transphobia 