To the 2016 American Group Psychotherapy Association’s Annual Meeting, this time in NYC. Over the 6 days, there were nearly 1100 registrants so plenty of people to meet and a huge programme to choose from.
I was struck by the conversations about what achieving equality meant. The word ‘privilege’ was used a lot: in Britain our first association might be ‘class’ but in America it seems to be ‘race’. Behind both is the belief that ‘privilege’ is an unearned advantage, bestowing on the privileged a power over the less privileged. With the power can come prejudice. Whereas as one delegate put it: “I cannot be racist because I am a black woman”.
Another area of inequality that is receiving more attention is the prejudice against transgender people. As in the UK, gender fluidity is becoming more recognised and discussed, following US high-profile transitions such as Caitlyn Jenner and Lilly Wachowski (who prior to her transition created the Matrix trilogy with her sister Lana Wachowski). Caitlyn Jenner announced she was transgender in 2015: that year she was the second most searched person on Google.
So the pace of change in both societies is rapid. At the conference, one new aspect for me was to be invited not only to identify yourself by name but also to state which pronoun you would prefer to use: she/her/hers; he/him/his or they/them/theirs. It worked wonders for creating inclusivity for those who prefer not to be gender-identified or who wish to choose their gender identification.
