Counselors should target discrimination and be advocates for transgender clients

O'Neil and Cerezo both are pursing doctorates in counseling psychology. O'Neil also is a statistician and works as a therapist with at-risk youth. Cerezo also studies issues related to college retention and career self-efficacy among Latino/Latina college students.

Borrowing from the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, the authors define "transgender" as an umbrella term that refers to individuals whose gender identity or gender expression falls outside of the stereotypical gender norms. Gender identity refers to "a person's innate deeply felt psychological identification as male or female, which may not correspond with the person's body or assigned sex" in a birth certificate. Variants on these terms are included as well, and can encompass individuals who may be gay or lesbian, considering sex-change procedures, or simply uncertain about their own sexual identity.

Transgender people often are victims of transphobia or homophobia and discriminated against in the workplace, either on the job or in the hiring process. Examples of such cases are included as vignettes of victims in the paper. One such vignette is by a transgender male whose birth-assigned sex was female. While taking hormones in preparation for a sex-change operation, he seeks counseling to discuss the timing of the surgery and career implications.

O'Neil and Cerezo noted that there is little in the way of professional guidance for psychologists, vocational counselors and workplace managers to help them deal with such issues. Counselors, O'Neil said, need to know the language of transgender people but not force it on their clients. "It is important for people who identify as transgender to decide their own gender pronouns," Cerezo said. "Psychologists should not decide the pronoun for the identity of their clients."

"When a gender-variant client presents for career counseling, it is important for the career counselor to assess whether she or he is competent to provide the services requested," the authors wrote. "In the case of personal aversion to gender-variant individuals, a referral should be made, followed by continued education, supervision and personal exploration of the topic in preparation for future clients."