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A Black trans nonbinary therapist shares tips for emotional well-being during Trump 2.0
February 03 2025, 08:15

Donald Trump’s inauguration has caused a dramatic increase in calls to LGBTQ+ mental health hotlines, and studies have shown that anti-LGBTQ+ legislation worsens queer people’s emotional well-being. As a result, queer therapists are on the front lines of helping ensure that LGBTQ+ people remain safe and healthy for Trump’s onslaught of anti-queer politics.

In the hopes of providing additional assistance, LGBTQ Nation spoke with Day Hancock-Murphy — a Black transgender and nonbinary marriage and family therapist associate in Portland, Oregon — about how he’s advising clients on protecting their psychological well-being over the next four years.

Related

Black & queer therapist explains how to stay mentally healthy during Trump 2.0
Protecting your mental health is tough amid anti-LGBTQ+ attacks, but here’s some advice on how to stay safe during the next four years.

The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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LGBTQ Nation: What things are you hearing from your clients these days?

Day Hancock-Murphy: Lots of questions about safety…. mobilizing to create containers for safety, lots of people saying, “If you have to get legal name change documents, do it now.” …. There are some queer folks and trans folks who are very, very pro-arming [themselves with guns] these days.

In general, there’s really just a lot of fear and uncertainty and feeling big feelings of just like abandonment, lots of big trauma responses and not feeling safe. Often, LGBTQIA folks, even starting back with Reagan’s administration, we tend to just be left behind or our needs are minimized, or if there’s a crisis going on, it gets blamed on us.

A lot of people are starting this new administration already feeling emotionally and psychologically depleted, especially if they can’t access mental healthcare. How would you advise people who feel like that?

The [first] Trump administration was a traumatic event, especially if you’re a marginalized identity. And so what a lot of people don’t realize is that, when we are back in a situation that is making a space for trauma, our body actively starts to activate. Our nervous system starts to blow up. And so what a lot of people are experiencing right now is a freeze response, which is a very basic kind of primal thing.

So a lot of people first need to be told, “Well, what you’re experiencing is valid. You not only went through a very traumatic presidency that has kind of fundamentally changed how [you] see people, lessens some of [your] trust that people are going to do [the right thing.]” People are having this experience where they’re like, “I don’t know what to do,” and if we’re going to go through another four years of people being awful, it is immobilizing.

Well, the first thing to do is to validate that that’s a totally normal experience. It is a lot to take in, and it’s a lot to hold. And then people are telling you, “Move, move, move. Do, do, do [something proactive]. Protect, protect, protect” — it’s overwhelming.

So one of the first things to getting to the point where we can think clearly is normalizing that we’re having a response, and then you move into figuring out what you need to feel safe. And once you feel safe, then you can start to make bigger decisions. Often, if we’re acting out of panic, it’s going to come back to bite us.

What sorts of things do people need to feel safe?

People at their core need to feel emotionally safe, and if we feel emotionally safe, we can handle quite a bit. So if you go into your day-to-day life and you’re like, “I have my community, I have my friends, my family is there for me,” then, “I’m going to be able to handle this” is going to be sort of like the main thought you’re going to have.

One of the things that makes it really difficult for the LGBTQ community to find emotional safety is that we are often at the cross-section of quite a few systems of inequity. Often we don’t have family, we don’t have community, we may not be able to build those networks that help us feel like we aren’t alone. And so the thing that is so integral to building emotional safety as we go into this presidency is that we need to be a community.

We don’t have to, like, bend over backwards for a stranger or suddenly take on all of their problems. But if you notice that someone in your community is alone, maybe see if they want to go for [a tea or coffee]. Tell them about a community event that’s happening. Let them know that you see them. And that’s going to go a long way to building community and letting someone know “I am seen and held and I am not alone.”

Since the election, I’ve seen people who have said that we need to toughen up, focus on ourselves and get ready to fight and others who have said we need to stay open and sensitive to others’ needs, lest we lose our humanity. What’s the right balance?

[In the past,] I moved to a smaller town for the first time in my life that was very, very, very white, and [I experienced] more racism than I have ever experienced, period. And it was on such an ongoing basis that it really started to like, f**k with me mentally.

One of the things that I would say to my [graduate school therapy] supervisor … was like, “It is so hard to exist that it feels like I really need to just toughen up and get hard so that none of this is getting to me.” And my advisor at the time looked at me and said, “Don’t do that. Then you won’t be able to take in any of the good things. You won’t be able to be soft. You won’t be able to connect and feel the things that are good with the bad.

So it can sometimes feel like we have to toughen up in order to survive, but that is going to lock us away from a lot of opportunity…. There’s a meme and it says, “Be soft, but be ready,” and it has a really cute image of a bunny and then they have a knife. So that’s kind of the energy that I think we need to go into this with. Like, if you’re a soft person, don’t lock away your softness. People are going to need it, and you’re going to need it.

Sometimes softness comes in so many different varieties. Like, if your friend is having a bad day, you can say, “Come over to my house. You can rot on my couch. I’m going to make us tea,” and you just exist together and just by holding space and recognizing that that person had a bad day, you’re already helping to make them feel better, and you’re sharing space — so by default, you’re getting some energy back. It’s helping you to feel better.

[Maybe it’s] going on a walk… and just like having a moment where you’re on a walk and it’s freezing, but you’re outside, and you see something you haven’t seen before, and you let that, sink into you, and you’re like, “This is really enjoyable.”

What would you say to someone who criticizes such activities as self-indulgent distractions that do nothing to fight fascism?

I would probably ask them, “Why do I have to fight fascism 24 hours a day?” That’s not helping anyone. And then second, I would probably say, “Well, how am I going to get the energy to fight fascism if I don’t have a little treat
every once in a while?”

Consuming media can help us feel informed and empowered but also overwhelmed and helpless. What’s the best way to find a healthy balance?

We live in a very connected world, for better or worse…. And some people feel like they have to be on their phone and constantly up on the news. And that can create some compulsions or obsession, and especially if you’re experiencing anxiety or if you have any sort of [obsessive-compulsive disorder] or anything like that, it can get out of hand very quickly. And everybody’s got a little bit of anxiety right now, so staying plugged in is just going to feed it.

So it’s important to [think of] having boundaries and being mindful about what you need, checking in with yourself.

Let’s say somebody went into this [last] week after the inauguration, and they felt that it was their duty to stay plugged in for the whole week. If like, by Friday, they noticed that they were feeling really on edge, very jittery, paranoid, maybe they were isolating from people, that’s a pretty good sign that they’ve done too much.

If someone were noticing that they are having a noticeable mood drop, they’re maybe having an increase in isolation or paranoia, they’re feeling a sense of hopelessness, and then that hopelessness is feeding into them checking media, then it’s probably time to have an honest conversation around boundaries around media and taking a break.

It’s very important for me and my sanity that I consume the bare minimum of news, so I’m staying off the news today. I’m going to probably go watch a Martin Luther King documentary this evening, try to inject a bit of hopefulness. And then, [if] I might look at the news this week, I am very cognizant of the fact that I have I want to preserve my energy and my well-being.

What would you tell someone who may not have enough money to get mental healthcare?

I am a firm believer in keeping my therapy sliding scale, inherently, but I also reserve some of my caseload plots for a much lower sliding scale. And some therapists do that, so it never hurts to ask. And some, if you check their websites and their pricing, they’ll list that they do.

And also, some therapy can be better than no therapy. So check to see if they’re fine with seeing you twice a month, because that can be infinitely more useful than no therapy. Also, group therapy can be extremely low cost, so that can be a good option. Normally it’s like a run of eight to 10 weeks, and that’s a great thing because it helps you to feel like your community, which is really nice.

And regarding books, we are in a very lovely era right now where there are so many books coming out that are written by folks in the field who are taking like the knowledge that I get taught in a master’s program or a doctor program, and making it super accessible.

Like, just on my desk right now, I have The Pain We Carry, which is about healing from complex PTSD for people of color, and it’s written by a woman of color, and it’s a part of a larger series of books that are oriented around social justice, and so this book is fantastic. I’ve been reading it both for myself and for other people, and it has a lot of concepts that are written very clearly and accessibly.

Another really common thing that people of color [do], like it happens in so many different ways, but one of the things that I’ve seen in Black communities is people, like Black women, will do what’s called like a “sister circle.” It’s like a group where you get together with other Black women and you support each other and talk about, like, mental health struggles that you’re going through and you get a sympathetic ear. Honestly, at the end of the day, the biggest factor in healing is that someone is listening to you, holding space for you, and seeing the human in you. So something like that can be very, very healing, and there’s and there’s so many different versions of that in so many cultures that just going back to that can be really nourishing,

There are so many intuitive practices that we can go back to that don’t require therapy, that can still help you to heal, whether that’s books … you go to your pastor, or maybe you have a friend who has a master’s in psychology, but you don’t want to go to therapy, [or] you go and talk to my friends about what’s going on for you, maybe you have an elder who’s been around the block a time or two. You go talk to them. The biggest thing is that seeking resources and talking about what you’re experiencing is going to be a really valuable resource.

For people who are less marginalized or targeted by this administration, how can they be helpful allies to those are are more marginalized or targeted?

Allyship is very important. Going to the people who are inherently disadvantaged and directly trying to meet some of their community needs that you’re seeing is very important. [Like standing up for them if someone says something ridiculous or the administration passes a hurtful policy.]

Sometimes your presence is really necessary; that can be super useful. It also goes beyond this culture in the Pacific Northwest of thinking that putting a “Black Lives Matter” sign on my lawn makes you a great ally. That really doesn’t do anything. Actually donating, whether it’s your time or giving money, can be really helpful.

If your [person of color] friend is very stressed out, buy them a meal, get them a coffee, say, “I don’t know what you’re going through, but like, if you need to just rant at me for 30 minutes, I will just shut up and nod. I will be here for you.”

One of the things that’s really annoying that seems to always happen, and I strongly recommend that people don’t do this, is if something awful happens to a community specifically, and then, you start to get those text messages from your white friends, and they’re like, “Are you okay? I’m here for you.”

I think [it’s better to] first ask if the person needs support. Like, “Hey, this really terrible thing happened today. Do you need anything?” I don’t want to assume that they’re impacted, because for a lot of people of color, [that sort of bad news] is just kind of another day.

When you get that text from a white person, it can sometimes come across as like they are inherently saying, “I don’t understand. I want to help you. I’m assuming, from my perspective, that you’re upset.” So I think dialog is the main thing, just like asking if people need your allyship before you force the allyship on them, especially at random moments like that. Or if you know that you have a friend who’s kind of sensitive when bad news happens, like maybe just being like, “Hey, I’m going to take you for a coffee because today is awful. How does that sound to you?”

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