Trans+/gender diversity training

Example courses:

Courses are tailored to suit your organisation’s needs.

Why choose Sam Hope as a trainer?

  • Culturally competent training based on more than mere personal experience
  • Substantial experience working with/alongside trans people across the gender spectrum in a variety of professional and voluntary contexts
  • Up to date knowledge of research, terminology and issues, including substantial involvement in a major trans healthcare project
  • Understanding of the impact of other differences alongside being trans – e.g. age, race, disability and neurodivergence
  • Cross-cultural understanding of gender diversity and the context of colonialism
  • Trainer is trans and non-binary
  • Flexible to the unique requirements of individual organisations, with broad experience delivering training to therapists, third sector, NHS, private companies and in education (schools and HE/FE)
  • Session length and group size flexible to your needs
  • Interactive, with the opportunity to ask questions and engage in discussion

Working therapeutically with trans+ people


Depending on length, the training can cover:

  • Gaining an understanding of issues that affect trans and gender diverse communities
  • Culturally competent language and approaches to working with gender diversity
  • Working more knowledgably and sensitively with trans and gender diverse people
  • Etiquette and best practice in facilitating access, safety and inclusion
  • Debunking some of society’s myths and assumptions
  • Understanding the diversity of trans experiences – moving away from inaccurate stereotypes
  • Cultural competence in working with and supporting trans and gender diverse people
  • Gaining an understanding of trans people’s legal rights and civil rights barriers
  • Exploring the specific issues and needs of service users and workers in your organisation
  • Trans mental health and the context of minority stress and neurodivergence
  • What trans people feed back about helpful and unhelpful interventions

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Working therapeutically with trans+ youth

Sessions can cover the whole LGBTQA+ umbrella or focus on trans youth experiences. From a former school counsellor who still works therapeutically with LGBTQA+ young people, all my other trainings can be adapted to have a youth focus that concentrates on specific issues relevant to this work.  

Depending on length, the training can cover:

  • The specific issues facing LGBTQA+ youth today
  • The social contagion myth debunked
  • Too young to know? What we know about identity and development
  • Safeguarding and child protection issues specific to LGBTQA+ youth
  • Mental health and the context of harm, minority stress and neurodivergence
  • How we can respect, care for and safeguard autistic LGBTQA+ youth
  • The benefits of affirmative practice – including for facilitating exploration, uncertainty and allowing doubt
  • What the research tells us about trans youth and access to healthcare

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Exploring gender and gender diversity (for therapists)


An explorative session designed to help us explore what we know and think we know about gender and gender diversity, as in those people who do not fit the “gender binary”. The day looks critically at both male/female gender difference and the experiences of trans people, which may challenge what we think we know about gender. It is person-centred in approach and does not seek to be prescriptive or absolute in its conclusions, rather to engage participants’ critical thinking on the issues involved.

Depending on length, the training can cover:

  • How we define, and sometimes struggle to define, sex and gender
  • What is known and disputed about gender difference
  • Our own relationship with, and understanding of, gender
  • Examining our biases and assumptions around gender and gender diversity
  • Gender diversity throughout history and how colonialism shaped the story
  • Exploring the origins and limitations of the gender and sex binary
  • Gender-based oppressions and the enforcement of gender

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Understanding non-binary genders

According to government statistics, non-binary people outnumber trans men and women, and yet they still do not have comparable rights and acceptance. Although the word is new, we can see gender diversity that goes beyond a binary throughout history and across most cultures. Yet we may struggle to accommodate and understand non-binary people due to our current cultural context. This training, from a non-binary trainer, develops delegates awareness of the needs and identities of non-binary people in all their diversity. It explores how we can ensure we don’t marginalise non-binary people in our conversations and structures, why they need to be included under the LGBTQA+ and trans umbrella, and the challenges non-binary people we work with or alongside might face.

  • Awareness of the issues affecting non-binary people in the UK today
  • Unlearning unhelpful myths and stereotypes
  • Why pronouns matter: how to get on board with they/them
  • A new word for an old thing: the cross-cultural history of the gender binary
  • Understanding the diversity of non-binary experiences
  • How we can support and accommodate non-binary people
  • The barriers that face non-binary people and the impact of these
  • Non-binary mental health and the context of harm, minority stress and neurodivergence

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Neurodivergence and trans+ identities


The overlap between trans and autistic people is more commonly known about, however it is less widely discussed that there are a range of neurodivergent overlaps with the whole LGBTQA+ community. This session can cover the whole LGBTQA+ umbrella or focus on trans experiences.

This session explores the impacts of living at the intersections of neurodivergent and queer/trans identities and gives delegates a framework for thinking about individuals and their experiences holistically rather than breaking them down into separate silos of identity.

Depending on length, the training can cover:

  • Pathology or identity? The lens through which we view experiences
  • What we know and don’t yet know about this overlap
  • Hypermobility and other physical quirks: some co-occurring physical conditions
  • The misuse of autism diagnosis, past and present, to undermine LGBTQA+ identity
  • How neurodivergence might complicate LGBTQA+ experiences and vice versa
  • Diagnoses: benefits, barriers, and other ways of thinking about neurodivergence
  • Mental health impacts and vulnerabilities

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