Sexism and cisgenderism in music therapy spaces: An exploration of gender microaggressions experienced by music therapists

Abstract

Gender microaggressions are everyday assaults, insults, or invalidations that occur towards persons with marginalized gender identities (including trans/cis women, trans men, and nonbinary persons). As music therapy spaces are microcosms for larger sociopolitical contexts, music therapists are prone to enacting microaggressions verbally, non-verbally, and musically. In this narrative inquiry, semi-structured interviews occurred with eight participant music therapists to examine their experiences of gender microaggressions in music therapy. Results demonstrated that gender microaggressions manifest in a variety of ways and enactors include music therapy colleagues, presenters, internship directors, educators, and clients. Five themes were found: qualities of microaggressions, impact of incident, survival tactics, interpersonal dynamics, and gender in music therapy, with a total of 33 sub-themes. From these findings, it is clear that there is a need for music therapists to develop greater awareness of ways in which they enact gender microaggressions and to create more spaces for music therapists with marginalized gender identities to process these incidents.