| Welcome to the Association
for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Issues
in Counseling (ALGBTIC) website. As a division
of the American Counseling Association, ALGBTIC
is an organization that provides several functions,
including a place for both professional counselors
and those in adjunctive helping professions to
find community, common ground, support, and resources
for our work with others. Since we come from
a wide range of counseling and counseling-related
fields, it is important that we find ways to
connect with each other around issues that affect
the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgendered
communities.
On our website you will find a variety of resources
for members and nonmembers. Please begin by visiting
the link “About ALGBTIC” to see our
mission statement, read our history, and explore
who we are. If you resonate with our mission and
are interested in starting an ALGBTIC chapter in
your state, please visit the link under “Membership”
called “Chapter Guidelines”. There
you will find specific instructions about how
to start your own state chapter. You can also
find out which states have chapters under the
“Chapters” link. If you are interested,
we suggest you either contact the national or
state ALGBTIC boards who can help you begin the
process.
If you are not a member, then we hope that you
can find items of interest on here, including
access to our therapist referral page, back editions
of our newsletter, articles of interest related
to our work as counselors with LGBT clients and
their families, resources, and other items as
they are added. We welcome you to take a look
around, and if you find that we are a good fit
for you, especially if you are connected to the
counseling or human service arena, perhaps you
should consider becoming a member. It is easy
to do, and can be accessed by connecting through
our site to the ACA
site (in the “Membership” link).
If you are a member, you have access to our "Members
Only" section of the site, where there are
additional resources, discussion groups, and access
to the organizations on-going work. In addition,
you have direct access here to the current edition
of our on-line newsletter. Our hope is to continue
to add to this area, inclusive of articles and
other news worthy items that may be of interest
to you and your work. As our new journal begins
in fall of 2005, we hope to offer you access to
sneak peaks and an electronic archive of back
editions as they become available.
As ALGBTIC endeavors toward furthering its mission,
we invite you to become involved. You can do so
at the state and national levels, in your places
of employment and education. ALGBTIC can help you
do this work, so please feel free to contact the
state and/or national boards to find out how.
Highlights from ALGBTIC.org
At the Fall 2007 Board Meeting held in Columbus, Ohio during the recent ACES Convention, ALGBTIC President Phyllis Mogielski-Watson presented a donation to a local community organization, Stonewall Columbus.
Executive Director Karla Rothan accepted the $200 donation, earmarked for "Project Stefanie" which seeks to provide medical assistance to Transgender individuals while they are transitioning. The fund is named after a well known local woman, who, sadly, died because she could not afford her blood pressure medication. The ultimate injustice, according to Executive Director Karla Rothan, was the fact that Stefanie's family insisted on burying her as a male.
Stonewall Columbus was founded in 1981 as a grassroots organization dedicated to improving the lives of gay men and lesbians in Central, Ohio. At the time, its supporters marched with bags over their heads to hide their identities. Since then, the organization has undergone many changes, and it recently purchased a 4,000 square foot building in the LGBT district, where it operates a Community Center.
If you would like to check out this wonderful organization, and see the amazing work they do, please go to http://www.stonewallcolumbus.org.
Submitted by Edward Cannon, Board Trustee
ALGBTIC is proud to announce the birth of our
new journal, The Journal of LGBT Issues in Counseling,
to be published by Haworth Press. The first edition
will be out summer/fall of 2005, and will be published
quarterly.
To learn more, and/or for
submissions guidelines, please see our journal
page.
Other highlights:
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Statement
from ALGBTIC Division
on Conversion Therapy
The Association for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual,
and Transgender Issues in Counseling (ALGBTIC)
supports the American Counseling Association’s
statement on “conversion” therapy
(also called “reparative therapy”),
which deems this therapy unethical because it
has no sound scientific basis and does harm to
people who identify as LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual,
transgender, queer). We believe it is of
the utmost importance that the existing ACA Ethics
Committee statement opposing conversion therapy
NOT be overturned.
The purpose of ALGBTIC’s current statement
is to remind all counselors of the importance
of therapeutic interventions that affirm an individual’s
LGBTQ identity when she or he seeks treatment.
Recently, there has been a renewed effort to
overturn ACA’s position that conversion
therapy is unethical by the American Association
of Christian Counselors. We reject this organization’s
views as they are scientifically unfounded and
have no evidence that conversion therapy does
no harm to clients.
What You Can Do To Ensure LGBTQ Clients Receive
Ethical Treatment in Therapy Regarding Their
Sexual Orientation and/or Gender Identity:
- Write Brian Canfield (canfield@sandiego.edu)
to express your disagreement with the efforts
to legitimize reparative therapy.
- Contact your Governing Council representative
to ask that she or he does not support any
motions that would overturn the Ethics Committee
2006 Statement on Ethical Issues Regarding
Conversion Therapy. You can get the email of
your Governing Council representatives at the
link below: http://www.counseling.org/AboutUs
/GoverningCouncil/TP/Home/CT2.aspx
- Recommit to providing ethical, affirmative
treatment for LGBTQ clients.
- Read the ALGBTIC Competencies on working
with LGBTQ Clients at the link below: http://www.algbtic.org/
resources/competencies.html
- Forward this statement to your colleagues,
friends, and family who support ethical treatment
of LGBTQ people.
For More Information:
ACA Ethics Committee – 2006 Statement:
Ethical Issues Regarding Conversion Therapy:
http://www.counseling.org/PressRoom
/NewsReleases.aspx?AGuid=
b68aba97-2f08-40c2-a400-0630765f72f4
Read an article by Warren Besen (LGBTQ activist/author)
about the “ex-gay” movement:
http://www.waynebesen.com/2008/
02/ex-gay-quack-therapists-declare-war.html
Book Resource: What the Bible Really Says
about Homosexuality
http://www.visionsofdaniel.net/bookWBRS.htm
Read about the petition effort to legitimize
reparative therapy by the American Association
of Christian Counselors
http://aacc.net/2008/02/13/letter-to
-the-american-counseling-association/
Call for Special Edition Submissions
The Association of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender
Issues in Counseling (ALGBTIC), a division of
the American Counseling Association (ACA) is
inviting submissions for our second special
edition of "The
Journal of LGBT Issues in Counseling". This
edition will focus on addictions and substance
abuse among the LGBT community. The intent of
this special edition is to publish articles relevant
to working with sexual minorities around issues
pertinent to family and relationships, and that
will be of interest to counselors, counselor
educators, and other counseling related professionals
that work across a diversity of fields, including
in schools, mental health settings, family agency's,
and colleges and universities. Learn
more about the second special edition of "The
Journal of LGBT Issues in Counseling"
ACA Responds to Pentagon Document
ACA responds to the Pentagon's document that
classifies homosexuality as a mental disorder.
This document was recently released and includes
outdated information about sexual orientation.
From the Associated Press, "the document
outlines retirement or other discharge policies
for service members with physical disabilities,
and in a section on the defects lists homosexuality
alongside mental retardation and personality disorders."
In response, ACA President, Patricia Arredondo,
sent a letter requesting that the Department of
Defense updates this document. The
complete letter is included here... Please
feel free to thank President Arredondo for her
support of lgbt issues.
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