New Social Work Role with Autistic Young Adults and Trans-ideology Really Worrying!

[bigkahunaburger]

So Im a Social Worker, and have a new very cool role working with young adults with autism who have started university. I had to do a lot of extra training for it, and I love it. I am now doing further training to become an autism assessor as well, as I find it so interesting.

However, something that really is worrying me is the vast majority of my young clients believe in trans-ideology. They believe they are trans/non-binary etc, and in my training for the job we were basically told we had to be pro-trans, gender affirm and support, and refer onto clinics, etc. I simply will not do that. In my training to be an autism assessor it is being rammed down our throats again that gender identity issues/trans is a 'co-occurring condition' of autism and to affirm. Its all absolute bollox and I am expected to go along with it. I consider it extremely harmful to these vulnerable young people. I have an employer for the university but when I start doing assessments and counselling though this will be under my private practice so then I can be open about my gender critical views, presumably?

Has anyone been in this position? I don't want to cause more harm by going along with this, but I do feel I may lose my university job if I don't. Anyone been through this, understand where I might stand, and any tips? How should I approach this with my employer?

I respect trans people at my place of work. I draw the line at sending them to "support" organisations, which quite frankly is more in the "asking them to accept Jesus" category than some kind of neutral zone. Specifically in the trans case I would refuse to put vulnerable people in the line of fire of organisations whose work I believe to be harmful.

I think there are a number of similarities between gender and ND affirming movements tbh and I say it as a likely autistic woman. There are parts of the movement I am not in agreement with but little discussion is possible without being told you're invalidating someone's personal experience.

Thank you everyone for your comments - even the ones I don't agree with. They help me to see how other people may view this. So far Ive been very quiet during induction around this. I was asked about my pronoun badge/email sig etc, and I responded with 'i don't do that'. Cue awkward silence and sideways glances, which I ignored. This happened in last role too, and that response seemed to be enough I wasnt pushed further, so I hope that will the case here. We also have had sessions on discussing gender identity with the client - it felt so wrong but I appeared to be the only one who was feeling this. Everyone else seemed to think it was fabulous and right on. I am going to discuss this with Social Work England as well. Ultimately my 'boss' is them - so I hope they will agree that I shouldn't be pushed into this.

I thought it was an interesting point earlier when someone said it wouldn't be ethical when counselling to share gender critical beliefs. I agree, but I also don't think its ethical to share gender affirming beliefs either. Like religion, or politics, my views shouldn't impact on counselling sessions. But I see gender affirming counselling as exactly that. I think its a cult - and a very very dangerous one for autistic youth. So I will not be adding to that.

I hope that in the role itself I will be free to do my own thing. We will see...

Such a difficult situation op. You sound really thoughtful and I hope you manage to chart a path through this. The students are lucky to have you. Good luck.

I am going to discuss this with Social Work England as well.

That sounds like a really good idea, and maybe prompt them to think that as you say no set of beliefs should be part of offering support.

Good luck!