Queer, Seen, and Supported: What Therapy in India Still Gets Wrong
Share
A Personal and Professional Perspective
I am Sarah Chriscyl Fernandes, a counselling psychologist at Feel Fuzzy. I am also a cisgender bisexual woman.
That second part matters here. Because when I talk about Pride, I am not talking about it from a distance. June is not just a month of celebration for me. It is also a month of holding space. For the community I belong to, and for the very real, ongoing challenges that being queer in India still brings.
Mental health support for LGBTQIA+ individuals is not just helpful. It is essential. And yet, for too many queer people in India, accessing the right kind of support remains harder than it should be.
India Is Still Learning. And That Has a Cost.
Queer affirmative therapy is not a new idea. But our country's understanding of it is still growing, and that gap has consequences.
A 2023 paper in the Indian Journal of Social Psychiatry found that mental health training and practice in India are often inadequate to meet the needs of queer individuals. Many therapists work from unconscious hetero and cisnormative assumptions, the unexamined belief that every client is heterosexual and cisgender. This is rarely intentional. But it is harmful all the same.
A 2026 investigation by IDR Online confirmed what many queer Indians already know from experience: that most mental health curricula in the country offer little to no formal training on LGBTQIA+ identities, minority stress, or affirmative practice. The result is that queer clients sit across from therapists who are simply not equipped to meet them, and the experience is discouraging at best, and retraumatising at worst.
Over 45% of LGBTQIA+ individuals in India experience mental health challenges. Not because of who they are, but because of what they are asked to navigate every day. The pain is real. The need is real. And too often, the therapy available does not match it.
What It Feels Like to Walk Into Non-Affirmative Therapy Spaces
For a queer or trans person, an uninformed therapy experience can mean spending the session educating your therapist about your identity rather than actually working through what brought you there. It can mean having your orientation treated as something to be examined rather than simply accepted. It can mean leaving the session feeling less seen than when you arrived.
When you are already carrying the weight of stigma, family pressure, and the daily work of navigating spaces that were not built with you in mind, a dismissive therapy experience does not just feel disappointing. It can put you off seeking help entirely.
Research on LGBTQIA+ individuals in India shows that conflicts arising from inadequate, non-inclusive care lead queer people to avoid seeking mental health support, with long-lasting consequences. That is the cost of the gap.
What Queer Affirmative Therapy Is Actually Supposed to Be
Queer affirmative therapy is not a niche specialty. It is an approach: a set of values a therapist brings into every session, regardless of what you come in to talk about.
It means your identity is recognised and validated from the moment you walk in. It means the therapist understands that the challenges you face are shaped not just by your inner world but by the social and systemic realities of being queer in a country that is still reckoning with what that means. It means the room is a space where you can stop managing how you are perceived, and actually begin to heal.
An affirmative therapist actively examines their own biases and does not treat heterosexuality or cisgender identity as the default standard. They do not ask you to prove the validity of your experience. They begin from the position that your identity is not the problem, and that their job is to help you navigate a world that sometimes treats it as though it is.
Why This Matters Especially in India
The Indian context is specific, and queer affirmative care here has to account for that specificity.
Being queer in India often means navigating layered pressures. Family expectations around marriage, the weight of community reputation, workplaces and housing that can be hostile or unsafe, and a legal and social landscape that has changed in some ways but not nearly enough. LGBTQIA+ individuals in India face structural discrimination across housing, employment, healthcare, and public spaces, and many carry the additional burden of having to keep core parts of their identity hidden simply to function safely.
A queer person in India who gathers the courage to seek therapy should not have to spend that courage on educating their therapist. They should be able to arrive and simply begin.
Where Feel Fuzzy Comes In
This is exactly what Feel Fuzzy is built for.
Feel Fuzzy began 8 years ago as a list of queer-affirmative therapists. It is not PR for us but a core part of our DNA. We have a wide panel of queer affirmative therapists who come to every session with the training, sensitivity, and understanding that queer and trans individuals deserve. You do not have to explain yourself before being accepted. You do not have to wonder whether your therapist will treat your identity as something to be fixed. You can show up, and the space will meet you.
If you are not sure where to start, our Chemistry sessions offer a 25-minute, low-commitment way to explore what support might look like for you, and to find a therapist who feels right. Explore our full panel, read about the therapists, and take your time.
Because everyone deserves to be heard, seen, and respected. Not despite who they are, but because of who they are.
- Sarah Chriscyl Fernandes, Counselling Psychologist, Feel Fuzzy
Looking for a queer affirmative therapist?
This piece was written, in part, by Sarah Chriscyl Fernandes, a queer-affirmative psychologist at Feel Fuzzy. As a bisexual woman and mental health professional, Sarah brings both lived understanding and clinical training to her work with LGBTQIA+ individuals. She works across a range of concerns including anxiety, depression, trauma, identity, and relationships, and is passionate about making therapy genuinely accessible to the queer community.
Not sure where to start? Try a Chemistry session with Sarah here or explore Feel Fuzzy's full panel of queer affirmative therapists here.
References
Joseph, J.T. (2023). Queer affirmative approach in mental health: A need of the hour in Indian mental health care. Indian Journal of Social Psychiatry.
Sahgal, K.N. (2026). Therapist training in India overlooks queer experiences. IDR Online.
Wandrekar, J.R., & Nigudkar, A.S. (2020). What do we know about LGBTQIA+ mental health in India? A review of research from 2009 to 2019. Journal of Psychosexual Health.
Family Acceptance and Mental Health in LGBTQIA+ Individuals: An Urgent Call for Culturally Sensitive Research in the Indian Context. Indian Journal of Psychological Medicine, 2024.