🌈 5 Powerful Tools for Working Through Queer Shame

Therapist-approved strategies for LGBTQIA+ mental health and healing

Struggling with queer shame or internalized queerphobia? Discover 5 therapist-approved tools to support your LGBTQIA+ mental health, including inner child work, body-based healing, and queer-affirming therapy.

Table of Contents

1. What Is Queer Shame?

2. 1. Inner Child Work for LGBTQIA+ Healing

3. 2. Self-Compassion as a Tool Against Internalized Queerphobia

4. 3. Body-Based Grounding for Queer Trauma Healing

5. 4. Rewriting the Queer Narrative

6. 5. Relational Healing Through Queer-Affirming Connection

7. Start Queer-Affirming Therapy Today

What Is Queer Shame?

Queer shame is the internalized belief that your identity as an LGBTQIA+ person is something to hide, suppress, or feel ashamed of. It’s not a personal failing—it’s a byproduct of systemic oppression, family rejection, religious trauma, and a lifetime of micro (and macro) aggressions.

At Expansive Therapy, we help LGBTQIA+ clients navigate queer shame and reclaim their sense of self-worth, identity, and belonging through queer-affirming therapy. Let’s look at five practical tools we use in therapy sessions to support this deep healing.

1. Inner Child Work for LGBTQIA+ Healing

Many queer people first experience shame during childhood or adolescence—when expressing authenticity was unsafe.

Inner child healing is a powerful tool in LGBTQ therapy. It involves revisiting younger versions of yourself with compassion and care. Through visualization, letter writing, and gentle dialogue, clients begin to repair early attachment wounds and create internal safety.

🔑 LGBTQIA+ mental health tip: Imagine telling your younger self, “You are not wrong. You are worthy. You are loved.” That’s where healing begins.

2. Self-Compassion as a Tool Against Internalized Queerphobia

Internalized queerphobia is what happens when cultural rejection becomes part of your self-talk. One of the best antidotes? Self-compassion.

In queer-affirming therapy, we teach clients how to recognize their inner critic and replace judgment with kindness.

✨ Self-compassion tools include:

• Loving-kindness meditations tailored to queer identities

• Compassionate self-talk scripts for moments of shame or fear

• Journaling from a place of affirmation

  
  

Practicing self-compassion is a radical act of resistance—especially in a world that asks queer people to prove their worth.

3. Body-Based Grounding for Queer Trauma Healing

Queer shame lives in the body. We've all experienced it. Tension in the shoulders. The urge to shrink or disappear, the hunching over and compressing inwards.

In queer trauma therapy, we integrate somatic grounding tools to help clients feel safe in their bodies again.

🌿 Therapist-approved grounding exercises:

• 5-4-3-2-1 sensory grounding

• Breathwork for emotional regulation (such as alternate nostril breathing or 4-7-8 breathing)

• Gentle movement, stretching, or queer embodiment practices

• Dance movement or expressive arts therapy

Reclaiming your body is essential in healing LGBTQIA+ trauma—and it’s absolutely possible.

4. Rewriting the Queer Narrative

Queer people are often handed stories of tragedy, rejection, or invisibility. Part of working through shame means rewriting your own story.

In therapy, we help clients shift from internalized narratives like:

“I’m too much.” → “I’m beautifully complex.”
“I’ll never belong.” → “I can create chosen family.”

This queer narrative rewriting process invites joy, creativity, and pride into your healing journey.

✍️ Try it: Write a new version of your coming-out story—one where you are the hero, not the burden.

5. Relational Healing Through Queer-Affirming Connection

Shame is relational—it forms through disconnection, and it heals through connection.

In queer therapy, we explore how to cultivate affirming relationships—with chosen family, partners, friends, and yourself.

🧡 Tools for relational healing:

• Practicing vulnerability with safe people

• Setting boundaries with unsupportive family

• Building connection rituals with queer community

  
  

Working with a queer therapist can be your first experience of unconditional affirmation—and a model for what safe connection can feel like.

Start Queer-Affirming Therapy Today

Healing queer shame is possible—and you don’t have to do it alone. At Expansive Therapy, we offer high quality, LGBTQIA+ therapy that’s affirming, inclusive, and trauma-informed. Whether you're processing identity-based trauma, coming out later in life, working through self-doubt or self-hatred, now is a great time to start healing. Get started with a free consultation here.