The Problem With 'Inclusion' in Mainstream Behavioral Health
Everywhere you look, health care systems are advertising “LGBTQ-inclusive” services. But what does inclusion actually mean — and who does it really serve?
Too often, inclusion is a checkbox. A rainbow slapped on a website. A one-time training. But for trans people, it usually stops short of real change.
At The Source, we believe inclusion isn’t enough. What we need is transformation.
Inclusion Without Power Isn’t Progress
Mainstream mental health systems often invite trans people in without changing anything about how they operate. That leads to:
Being seen by providers who misgender or misunderstand us
Being forced into diagnostic frameworks that weren’t designed for our lives
Being tokenized or used as the “diversity” in a cisnormative program
Being expected to educate the very people meant to help us
That’s not inclusion. That’s assimilation — and it causes harm.
Inclusion Can’t Be Cosmetic
You can’t just swap out stock photos and call it equity. You can’t just say “we welcome all genders” without:
Training clinicians in trans-specific models of care
Addressing structural racism, fatphobia, ableism, and transmisogyny
Rebuilding intake processes, documentation, and policies to reflect our realities
Making space for lived experience leadership at every level
True inclusion requires ceding power, rethinking priorities, and co-creating care that actually fits us.
What We’re Doing Differently
At The Source, we’re not “including” trans people in someone else’s model. We’re building our own.
That means:
Clinical and peer providers with lived experience
Programming designed for trans folks, not adapted after the fact
A refusal to pathologize survival
Care that sees your gender not as a challenge to manage, but a truth to honor
You don’t need to be included in a system that was never meant for you. You deserve something better — care that starts with who you are.
