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Queer therapist · San Francisco · Video across CaliforniaA Queer therapist in San Francisco who doesn't need the basics explained
Finding a therapist can feel like dating. Finding one whose identity matches yours can feel like a one-in-a-million shot. You want someone you don't have to educate about polyamory, the apps, or why coming out to your family was complicated, so you can spend the hour on what's actually going on.
I'm Aaron, a Queer, mixed-race LMFT in San Francisco. I work with gay men, and with the trans, queer, and nonbinary folks who make up about a third of my practice, on video anywhere in California.
Aaron Martin, LMFT · Video sessions · California
What you won't have to explain
Open relationships, poly, ENM. I'll ask the tough questions without judgment: What are the rules? How were they made? Has there been a time they were broken, and what happened? I check my own assumptions about structure and hierarchy and ask when I'm not sure, without relying on you to educate me or manage my anxiety about getting it right.
Hook-up culture and the apps. It's normal to hook up, and it's normal to have anonymous sex. If it's relevant, I'll ask how it felt. Exciting? Disappointing? Everything you hoped? What were you looking for from that connection?
Being bi in a straight-looking relationship. Bisexual clients have told me what a relief it is to not have their identity erased just because their partner is a different gender.
Gender and sexuality are different things. Sometimes they're connected, sometimes they aren't. With teen clients we sometimes try on a new name for a session and talk about what it was like to be called that instead of your birth name.
Sex, generally. I ask about people's sex lives openly, and then we talk about what it was like to say that out loud without getting shame or judgment back. For some people, that alone is new.
Nuance. Being Queer, to me, is about understanding that more than one thing can be true at once. Therapy with me means we'll explore what being Queer looks like for you.
Why a Queer therapist changes the work
I have an internal alarm for shame. I've spent years honing it. Being Queer is so much more than what we've been made to feel ashamed of, but most of us learned early to compartmentalize our lives, and that habit follows us into the therapy room. When I catch even a sliver of shame in a session, I slow down and we look at it.
I see pieces of myself in the people I work with. Showing them some tenderness lets me feel it for myself too.
The harsh critic in a lot of Queer people's heads has a history. Sometimes that voice kept us safe, maybe when we were in the closet. Now it mostly holds us back. A lot of what we do together is connecting the dots between your identities, the stories you've told yourself, and the stories you inherited from your family or from the culture, and figuring out which ones are actually driving the anxiety.
What San Francisco does to us
There's a grief that happens when people move here. You come expecting a gay haven, and it is one, and there are also a lot of straight people, sometimes in the spaces you least expect. Then there's the loneliness. We can hook up before we know someone's name. That's not a judgment, just an observation that physical vulnerability can come easier than the emotional kind. People show up to session anxious about going to a social event, or convinced it's impossible to make friends here, or worn out from trying. It makes us lonelier and more anxious about ourselves.
I worked at Strut in the Castro right out of grad school, at the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, with gay men who wanted to look at their relationship with alcohol. It was my first workplace where being Queer was the norm. I use a harm reduction approach, and one thing from that training stuck: if someone shows up to session high and chose to be here, that's progress. I'd rather help you understand your relationship with a substance than tell you what to do.
Who I work with
Who you'll find in my practice
Gay men make up a little over half my practice. Trans, queer, and nonbinary folks make up about a third. I see individuals only, from ninth grade up. Most people come to me for anxiety.
Not the right fit if…
You're in crisis or have recently been hospitalized, you're drinking every day, or you're looking for couples therapy.
About me
I grew up in the San Fernando Valley and moved to San Francisco at 18 for SF State, where I studied psychology and race and resistance studies before getting my master's in counseling. I've worked in public schools, at a university clinic, at Strut, and at Lyra Health.
When I finally found my own therapist years ago, we didn't click; I felt like I couldn't talk about being biracial or being Queer without wondering if they'd understand. I do this work so you don't have to wonder.
Aaron C. Martin, LMFT #133857 · Formerly Lyra Health, Strut (San Francisco AIDS Foundation), SF Unified School District · Taught couples and family therapy at SF State
Questions people ask before booking
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Ready when you are
Book a free 20-minute call. I'll tell you why I built this practice, ask you why now, and ask what you'd want to be different eight months from today.