The Future is Queer Representation
So I said in my last post that I had a bit of a quarter-life crisis over what I want to do with my life. And I know that this title doesn’t immediately relate to that, but please allow me to explain.
For the past five and a bit years, I’ve been dead set on being a clinical psychologist. I want to help people, and at the time that was the most appealing route for doing that. Since then, I’ve had two years of Psychology A-level and almost finished three years of a BSc in Psychology. I’m also a student member of the British Psychological Society, so my dedication to it has been pretty clear. But, like many before me, I’ve hit my final year and thought “is this really what I want to do?”
I took a Forensic and Investigative Psychology module last semester, and I absolutely loved it (and seemed to excel in it too). One of my lecturers used to work with people who were incarcerated in high security mental facilities, and she was brilliant. A career working with inmates is something that I’ve considered in the past, because I am a firm believer that the vast majority of offenders can be rehabilitated with the right support and care, and that those who can’t be rehabilitated still have a right to the same support and care. Plus, the so-called “criminally insane”, and “psychopaths” have always fascinated me, so to work with them would be awesome. And so began the first stage of the crisis: do I want to go into clinical psychology, or forensic psychology?
Fast forward to November-ish, and the second stage starts: do I even want to be a psychologist? I’d come across a graduate scheme to become a mental health social worker in a lecture, and thought that it sounded like something I wanted to do. It was still helping people, and still working in the mental health sector, which was very appealing. But it didn’t seem to have the masses and masses of red tape that an NHS psychologist would have, allowed me to really get a reltionship going with the clients and have a (hopefully positive) impact on their lives beyond just being a therapist. And then I failed to get a place on the graduate scheme. So there goes that dream.
But it had planted the seed. I’m still not 100% sure I want to be a psychologist, although I’ve at least come to the conclusion that if I want to go down the psychology route, I want to get a masters in Forensic Psychology and a masters in Clinical Psychology if I can, and go from there. I’m going to be kind of pissed off with myself if I put in all this work to get a Psychology degree and then don’t do anything with it, but what I’ve learned in the past three years can be very well applied to the other career path that is beckoning.
Even if only in a part-time fashion for now, I want to go into politics. I’ve been keeping tabs on what’s going on in Westminster for the past eight months or so, and frankly the Conservatives are enfuriating. I already do my best to engage in online activism, maybe going to the occasional protest when I can. But I want to go further than that now. I want to be a local MP, and help improve the community here in Liverpool. I want to be involved in a major political party and try to influence policy to make lives better for everyone. But most of all, I want to sit in the House of Commons and ask the idiots to their smug upwards-of-eighty-grand-a-year faces exactly what it is they’re doing to help working people, exactly how they think they’ve made things better for this country, and point out every reason why they’re wrong.
I realize that obviously one person isn’t going to be able to do much on their own. But it’s not for me that it’s important. As far as I’m aware, there has never been a trans masculine MP in Britain, and there are very few trans feminine MPs. As far as I’m aware, there are very few queer MPs who will gladly shout their queerness from the rooftops, even if it’s detrimental to their career. In short, there is very little queer representation in Parliament. Which means that queer issues are often shunted aside, because MPs would rather focus on policies that directly affect them and their families (which of course is only natural, I don’t blame them for that). There’s depressingly few young faces in Parliament too.
If I’m honest, there’s very little queer representation in the clinical/forensic psychology sectors too. There’s definitely almost no trans representation that I’m aware of. So when I titled this ‘The Future is Queer Representation”, I meant specifically my future is queer representation. I’m still not sure exactly what I want to do with my future. But I know for definite that whatever I do — whether it’s as a psychologist, an MP, or some other career I haven’t properly considered yet — I am going to be the queer representation that I’m so sorely missing right now, in the hopes that it might be a signal to even just one trans and/or queer young person that everything can work out okay and that they can make it as a success.
