Summit Counselling Services — Specialty
Gender Identity & 2SLGBTQIA+ CareAffirming therapy for the 2SLGBTQIA+ community — you deserve care from a therapist who truly gets it.
At Summit, you will find compassionate, affirming care tailored to your unique experiences — whether you're navigating identity, relationships, community, or mental wellness. Every part of you is welcome here.
Our Commitment
Affirming care — not just tolerance.
At Summit, we are dedicated to providing a genuinely safe and inclusive environment for 2SLGBTQIA+ community members. This means more than simply not discriminating — it means actively affirming your identity, your relationships, and your experiences as valid and worthy of care.
A number of our therapists hold specialized training in 2SLGBTQIA+ concerns, including gender identity, sexual orientation, coming out, relationship structures, minority stress, and the intersection of queer identity with culture, faith, and family.
Seeking support is a vulnerable act. We strive to make it as safe as possible — from your first phone call to your ongoing sessions. You will never be asked to justify your identity or educate your therapist about what it means to be you.
"Affirming therapy doesn't just accept who you are — it starts from the premise that who you are is exactly right."
Our commitments to you
- Your identity is affirmed — completely and without condition
- You will not need to educate your therapist about who you are
- All relationship structures and family configurations are respected
- Your pronouns and chosen name will be used — always
- Healing is defined by you, for you — not for anyone else's comfort
- You are not a diagnosis. You are not a problem to be fixed.
- You can share as much or as little as you're ready to — at your pace
- Phone consultations are always free — no commitment required
- Virtual sessions available for clients who aren't yet out in their local area
Who We Work With
The full spectrum of identity & experience
Our affirming care extends across the full breadth of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community — whoever you are, wherever you are in your journey.
Two-Spirit Individuals
Honouring Indigenous understandings of gender and sexuality, and the unique experiences of Two-Spirit people navigating identity, culture, and community.
Lesbian, Gay & Bisexual Individuals
Support for the full spectrum of same-sex and bisexual experiences — including coming out, relationship challenges, family dynamics, and minority stress.
Trans & Non-Binary Individuals
Gender-affirming support at any stage — exploration, transition, social and medical decision-making, and navigating a world not always built for you.
Queer & Questioning Individuals
A non-judgmental space to explore identity without pressure toward any particular conclusion or label. You don't need to have answers to deserve support.
Intersex Individuals
Sensitive, informed support for the complex medical, identity, and relational experiences unique to intersex people — with genuine understanding of what that journey involves.
Asexual & Aromantic Individuals
Affirming care for ace and aro experiences — including navigating relationships, disclosure, and a culture that often assumes universal romantic and sexual attraction.
Understanding the Impact
Unique challenges faced by 2SLGBTQIA+ communities
Members of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community often face stressors that cisgender, heterosexual people simply don't encounter. These aren't personal failings — they are the predictable result of navigating a world that doesn't always make space for you.
Minority Stress
The chronic stress of navigating discrimination, stigma, and the need to conceal or defend your identity — accumulated over a lifetime. Research consistently links minority stress to higher rates of anxiety, depression, and substance use.
Family Rejection
Being rejected, distanced, or conditionally accepted by family members when coming out — one of the most significant predictors of mental health struggles in 2SLGBTQIA+ people. Therapy holds space for this grief.
Identity Exploration
The complex, non-linear process of understanding and articulating your gender and sexual identity — often without roadmaps, community, or people who have walked this path before you.
Internalized Homophobia & Transphobia
Absorbing society's negative messages about queer and trans identities — and the deep shame, self-doubt, and self-rejection that can follow. This is not your fault. And it can be healed.
Healthcare Barriers
Experiences of being misgendered, dismissed, or poorly treated by healthcare providers — leading many to avoid seeking the care they need. We are committed to being a different kind of experience.
Faith & Identity Conflict
The painful intersection of queer identity with religious communities, family beliefs, or personal faith that has been weaponized against you. Holding both is possible — and doesn't have to tear you apart.
Relationship & Community Complexity
Navigating chosen family, relationship structures, coming out repeatedly in new contexts, and building community in the absence of traditional support networks.
Intersectionality
The compounded experience of holding multiple marginalized identities — race, culture, disability, class — alongside queer and trans identity. Our therapists recognize and hold the full complexity of your experience.
Conversion Practices
The lasting harm of being subjected to efforts to change or suppress your sexual orientation or gender identity — whether formal or informal. This harm is real, it is recognized, and it can be healed.
What to Expect
What 2SLGBTQIA+ affirming therapy looks like
A Judgment-Free Space
Openly discuss your experiences, feelings, and concerns — without needing to educate your therapist or justify your existence. Your identity is the starting point, not the problem.
Tailored Approaches
Your therapist will use personalized strategies for your specific needs — coming out, navigating relationships, gender exploration, healing from discrimination, or managing anxiety and depression.
Focus on Empowerment
Building resilience and confidence in your identity — fostering a strong sense of self-worth and belonging, on your own terms and nobody else's.
Understanding Intersectionality
Our clinicians recognize the various intersecting identities that may impact your experience — race, culture, disability, faith — and how these shape your mental health.
Community Connections
Access to Edmonton-area 2SLGBTQIA+ community resources, support networks, and information that further supports your journey beyond the therapy room.
Therapeutic Approaches
Therapy that meets you where you are
Our therapists draw from a range of evidence-based modalities, applied through an affirming, identity-informed lens — matched to the person, never the other way around.
Emotion Focused Therapy (EFT)
Exploring the emotional patterns beneath relationship difficulties, self-worth challenges, and identity work — building more secure ways of relating to yourself and others.
EMDR
Processing trauma from discrimination, rejection, conversion practices, or harmful experiences — reducing their charge without requiring repeated reliving of what happened.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)
Identifying and reshaping internalized messages about your identity that show up as shame, anxiety, or self-doubt — building more accurate and compassionate beliefs about who you are.
Attachment Therapy
Healing the relational wounds that come from family rejection, chosen family complexity, or a history of not being fully seen — building a more secure sense of self in relationship.
Somatic Experiencing
Working with the body's held stress from years of navigating discrimination, concealment, and the physiological weight of chronic minority stress — at the level of the nervous system.
Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT)
Building distress tolerance, emotional regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness skills — particularly useful during acute periods of identity stress, family conflict, or transition.
Book a Session
Find us in Edmonton, St. Albert & Windermere
Affirming therapy is available in person at all three Summit locations, and virtually for clients anywhere in Alberta — including those who aren't yet out in their local area.
Wîhkwêntôwin ᐄᐧᐦᑫᐧᐣᑑᐃᐧᐣ (Oliver)
Grandin Plaza, 2nd Floor
Edmonton, AB
Common Questions
2SLGBTQIA+ therapy — your questions answered
Our Specialists
Therapists who specialize in 2SLGBTQIA+ concerns
The right therapist fit matters — especially for work this personal. The clinicians below all hold specializations in 2SLGBTQIA+ concerns and affirming care. Use the Find Your Fit tool to explore more, or book a free phone consultation before committing to a full session.
Related Support
Other areas we work with
Ready to find a therapist who gets it?
Your first phone consultation is free — and it's just a conversation. No commitment, no pressure. We'll talk about what you're looking for and whether we're a good fit.
We acknowledge that our practice is located in Treaty 6 territory, on the traditional lands of the Cree, Saulteaux, Niitsitapi (Blackfoot), Métis, and Nakota Sioux Peoples, including our Brewery District office in Wîhkwêntôwin ᐄᐧᐦᑫᐧᐣᑑᐃᐧᐣ (Oliver). We recognize that healing and reconciliation is a responsibility shared by all.