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The Shoulders We Stand On: A Look at Deb-Ann Thomson’s Relentless Advocacy

The Shoulders We Stand On: A Look at Deb-Ann Thomson’s Relentless Advocacy

Not long ago, Deb-Ann Thomson was sitting in her office, shredding file after file after file, and stuffing the paper confetti into trash bags. As she purged the cabinets that held files on every patient who had ever came to see her, she flipped through a few and remembered some of the queers who inspired her to become one of our community’s most resilient advocates.

Thomson is a nationally-acclaimed therapist in the queer community who took the struggles that her clients faced and tirelessly fought to change the systemic social issues that restricted them from living healthy, full lives. Throughout her career, she has taken on the criminal justice system, sat beside AIDS patients during their final moments, travelled the world pushing for trans visibility, and guided queers through many exciting adventures.

For lack of a better term, Deb-Ann Thomson is a badass.

The bags full of thin slivers of paper are filled with stories. She had never thrown away a single file in her decades of working as a therapist. She kept them neatly tucked into her filing cabinets just in case an old patient called and wanted to catch up. But now, as she’s been telling her friends for nearly two years, Thomson is retiring. Although she decided to keep some files dating back 15 years, and that of her very first patient, still stored away, shredding decades of her life was emotional but necessary — there’s simply nowhere to move them.

“I really grew close to so many of my patients,” Thomson said. “That made it so easy for me to fight for them.”

Thomson started fighting before she was out of college, which was risky in 1981. Had she come out as a lesbian during her classes, she would have been kicked out of the university. But that didn’t stop her from pushing for queer visibility in her final dissertation. For months, Thomson dug through what data she could find and then delivered an in-depth paper on abuse in lesbian relationships.

When she tried to publish her work, she was laughed out of the biggest gay publishing house of the time.

“No one wanted to print something so negative about our community because we were longing for normality and social acceptance,” she said. “No one was having these conversations. So I did.”

Taking on the Justice System

In many of the bags filling her office on that emotional day were stories of relationship violence. Stories where many were afraid to go to the cops out of embarrassment and shame. When her clients were brave enough to contact authorities, the cases were often ignored or dismissed. Today, however, when LGBT victims of domestic violence call the police in Colorado, they are met with gender neutral language and well-trained officers—thanks in large part to Thomson.

In the late ‘80s, she took on the criminal justice system so queer people wouldn’t have to face what her clients went through. She won and pushed the system to educate and modify court-ordered programs that would involve different needs for the LGBTQ community. These programs are still in effect.

“I wasn’t going to back down, but I did it in a very professional way,” Thomson said. “I would stand up, refuse to play games, and demand change. I wasn’t pushy, but I was strong. A lot of people didn’t like that.”

From the start of her career, she has pushed for LGBTQ acceptance along with the visibility of the issues queer people face. But she still made time to help her community outside of the courts.

“She has donated thousands of hours of pro bono work to people in the LGBT community,” Christine Randolph, a clinical psychologist in Denver, said. “I have never met someone so dedicated that community. She was an extremely compassionate provider, and I couldn’t speak higher of any other provider that I’ve ever worked with.”

Randolph met Thomson as she was taking on the criminal justice system. Randolph, who had been a psychologist since 1971, was immediately struck by Thomson’s determination and dedication. The closer the two grew, the more Randolph realized just how brave her new friend was and admired how she challenged social norms in order to help the community she called her own.

“It’s really difficult for her to retire,” Randolph said. “She’s been trying for so many years, but she cares so deeply that she hasn’t been able to. It’s a small example but a strong testament to the woman that she is.”

AIDS, Beepers, and Holding Hands

As she made her way further into her files, she stumbled upon more and more of her clients who died of AIDS. Clients who often had no one other than Thomson during their final days. Clients who inspired her to purchase a beeper, which she often slept with, in case of emergencies. Clients who changed her life.

In June, 1981, as Thomson was slaving over her dissertation, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published a Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report describing cases of a rare lung infection, Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP), in five young, previously healthy gay men in Los Angeles. It was the first official reporting of what became known as the AIDS epidemic.

Eleven years later, AIDS was the number one cause of death in gay males ages 25 to 44. By that time, Thomson had already purchased her beeper and had sat with a few clients when no one else would.

“One time, I went to hospice to visit someone, and when I walked into the room, I was immediately greeted by a small staff of people huddled near the door wearing gloves and masks,” she recalled. “I stormed past them, walked across the room to my friend, grabbed his hand, and rubbed his back. I could see on their faces that they thought I was going to get sick.”

Thomson didn’t back away or unclench her hand from his. She sat there for hours comforting him and telling him that it was okay to “let go” as he fought to stay alive.

“That’s all he needed to hear,” she said. “I was the only one to get close enough to tell him.”

A Soldier for Trans Rights

As the bags slowly started to surround the couch that filled her office, she began to encounter the stories of more and more transgender clients who had walked through her door asking for help. Clients who forced her to push her knowledge of the LGBTQ community. Clients who had very little information about being trans. Clients who catapulted her into the the world of education and into the limelight.

Back in the late ‘80s, a trans woman came out on Thomson’s couch. It was the first time, to her knowledge, that she had met a trans person. After her new client’s session ended, she immediately called the Gender Identity Center of Colorado, the only organization in Colorado that focused on the needs of the state’s trans community during that time.

Her phone call was not received well. The woman on the other end of the line refused to help her because she thought Thomson, not being trans herself, was not qualified to help the trans community.

“But this person came to me for help, and that’s exactly what I intended to do,” Thomson said. “So, I immersed myself in that community. I talked to advocates. I talked to trans people from all different parts of the nation. I did my research when there were barely any books or information on this community.”

Before the ‘90s, trans visibility was low; very few trans-specific organizations had formed, and the only books released were a handful of memoirs, which started with the 1974 releases of Jan Morris’s Conundrum and Canary Conn’s Canary. The only full-length narrative by a trans man published in the United States prior to the ‘90s was Mario Martino’s 1977 book Emergence: A Transsexual Autobiography.

During the same time that Paris is Burning, Jennie Livingston’s documentary focusing on New York City’s queer ball scene, and Brandon Teena’s violent murder in Nebraska were bringing trans stories into the national spotlight, Thomson was immersing herself in that same community, becoming one of the only people to specialize in trans therapy.

Nearly 10 years after she was denied help from the Gender Identity Center, she was actively helping its staff—as well as educating numerous conferences, universities, employment agencies, and talk and radio shows, not to mention fighting for our trans community in court.

When Karen Scarpella, current executive and clinical director of the Gender Identity Center, came to town in 1998, Thomson was still only one of three trans therapists in Colorado.

“She’s a mentor, and a wonderful, passionate, beautiful woman,” Scarpella said. “She has been out there fighting for trans people and helping them even as she faced backlash. She’s a hero to so many people.”

The initial skepticism she received for not being trans followed her throughout her career. As she made her way across the country, meeting with activists and sharing her knowledge with the masses, she faced backlash from within the community, forcing her to travel with security—and even they couldn’t protect her from getting choked out at one convention.

“But she never stopped,” Scarpella said. “People forget about the mandates that she was forced to follow in her early years. She was doing what she could to help people, and she was good at it.”

But it never stopped her from advocating into the 2000s, as the trans community was becoming more and more visible. In 2002, both the Transgender Law Center and the Sylvia Rivera Law Project were founded. The following year, The National Center for Transgender Equality were founded.

Thomson kept up with the times.

“By that time, I was already nationally recognized as a trans therapist and advocate, so I was getting all sorts of different calls to sit in on conferences or talk to some major employers,” she said. “I also had my hand in so many different organizations across the nation. I was a busy woman.”

During her career, Thomson has worked with the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, Gender Identity Center of Colorado, Anti-Violence Programs, PFLAG, Cross-Dressers and Friends, Mid-America Gender Group Information Exchange, International Foundation for Gender Education, Trans-Youth Education and Support, River City Gender Alliance, St. Louis Gender Foundation, Society for the Second Self, and Rainbow Alley.

“That’s in no particular order. I get my decades messed up,” she confessed. “But I’ve yet to forget a patient. Sometimes, people whom I haven’t seen in over a decade will call, and I will still remember the name of their dog.”

Thomson has stopped taking clients. She’s thrown away the bags of shredded paper, moved out of her old office, and works one day a week for the handful of clients who still come and see her. By the end of the year, she will no longer be renting out the shared office space. She is officially retiring as a therapist.

“For the longest time, I was one of the most popular people in the room,” Thomson said. “Now, no one knows who I am. It’s my turn to sit back, look at where we are at, know that I helped us get here, and smile.

“But I’ll never stop helping. We’ve still got a long way to go.”

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