Sorin L. Thomas, MA, LPC, LAC, CGP, Founding and Executive Director of Queer Asterisk Therapeutic Services
Hello and Happy (early or belated) Birthday to all of our Monthly Massage Members! We are excited to share that in 2024 we will be continuing our birthday donation tradition. For each of our members, we will make a donation on your behalf as a celebration of your birthday! These donations are always made to local organizations who are striving to support the health and wellness of our local community.
This year, we are partnering with Queer Asterisk. Queer Asterisk provides accessible counseling, education, and community programs that uplift queer, trans, and gender expansive lives.
We first began our community partnership with Queer Asterisk in 2019, when they guided our team through a transgender inclusivity training tailored to medical professionals. The following year, Queer Asterisk helped us again with their consulting services. This time, they reviewed our medical intake forms to ensure the language used is supportive and welcoming to folks of all genders and sexual orientations. Queer Asterisk has continued to be of great support to our team over the years and we are an annual sponsor for their Engender Gala.
To celebrate this year’s expanded partnership, we sat down with Sorin Thomas, MA, LPC, LAC, CGP, Founding and Executive Director of Queer Asterisk, to introduce our community to this wonderful organization and the services they offer.
Which of Queer Asterisk’s offerings are most utilized by our local community?
By far, the answer is counseling. The majority of staff at Queer Asterisk are clinicians, and clinical services make up roughly 70% of their annual earnings, the rest being supported by grants and donations.
“It’s absolutely what the community wants from us the most,” Sorin explains. “When we started Queer Asterisk, we wanted to be responsive to several different needs that we thought would make up a more holistic approach.” However, it was immediately clear that queer and trans folks were most seeking clinical services from queer and trans clinicians. “We are lucky to have many wonderful queer and trans-affirming clinicians here in Colorado, but it can be a challenge to navigate the system in order to find them. Additionally, a lot of professionals have an intention to be open and affirming, but it’s not always clear to clients which clinicians actually have expertise.”
Queer Asterisk has been able to create a centralized hub – a robust clinic with lots of LGBTQ counselors available who are also holding connections to other queer and trans professionals in the community and can offer referrals.
“But we recognize that not everybody wants or needs therapy,” Sorin says, “and that’s what the community programs were born out of.” Queer Asterisk also offers education and training services to ensure that as many community organizations are as affirming as possible because no one lives in isolation, we all live in community.
Tell me about a service Queer Asterisk offers that you wish more people knew about.
The Wellness Center team with Sorin of Queer Asterisk at our 2019 training.
“It would be really great for folks to know about these educational opportunities,” Sorin says while referring to Queer Asterisk’s educational trainings and consulting services.
Queer Asterisk’s trainings are designed for mental health organizations/providers, social services agencies, schools and universities, hospitals and health clinics, addiction recovery centers, and similar organizations/individuals. With a specially tailored curriculum for clinical and administrative staff, these trainings aim to create truly inclusive spaces for queer and trans people in health and education.
“This can look like anything,” Sorin shares with excitement. “I do consulting with private practice clinicians…for organizations it’s looked like a one-off training, an annual training, a series of trainings, train the trainer, and then a combination of training and consulting where I’ve worked with an executive team or steering committee about how to shift the culture of the whole organization to be more inclusive – and I love all of that work!” Queer Asterisk’s longest partnership to date is with Cherry Creek School District and their most robust partnership was with Boulder Community Health.
Another service worth flagging is Queer Asterisk’s Peer Mentorship program. This donation-based program pairs queer and trans individuals with an LGBTQ volunteer mentor. The two connect weekly and the program is meant as either a complement to therapy or in lieu of therapy.
How are donations used at Queer Asterisk?
Donations allow Queer Asterisk to offer low-cost counseling.
Sorin explains, “we are very much a low-cost mental health center, and that is what we set out to be…we don’t turn anyone away due to cost or financial reasons.” Queer Asterisk accepts insurance but also recognizes that many individuals are uninsured and underinsured. When someone with these circumstances comes to Queer Asterisk, they are immediately put on a sliding scale. The sliding scale starts at $0 and goes up to full fee ($150). The amount paid is however much the client indicates they can afford – no financial applications or proof of spending habits required.
However, in order to offer stability to its staff and clinicians (compensation, benefits, etc), the organization still has a budget to meet. Money from donations goes directly to the gap between what is received as earned income (revenue from clinical services) and the remaining costs of managing the non-profit.
What is on the horizon for Queer Asterisk in 2024?
Queer Asterisk’s team meets for their annual board + directors retreat. Credit: Queer Asterisk’s Instagram @queerasterisk
In-person and hybrid appointments.
Sorin says, “the biggest thing that we’re preparing for is, honestly, to go back in-person.” Before the pandemic, Queer Asterisk had offices in Boulder, Denver, Longmont, and Fort Collins. All of that went away in 2020 and the organization has not gone back to in-person appointments. This is largely because the organization tripled in size! The need for mental health services grew significantly during the pandemic and Queer Asterisk grew in response to meet these needs.
Now seeking a larger office space for their staff and clinicians to meet and be together, Queer Asterisk’s other goal is simply to hold steady. “We grew so much that we don’t want the quality of what we do to decrease at all so we’re trying to implement infrastructure and processes to sustain how we grow…hopefully what people will feel is just consistency. Like they know what Queer Asterisk offers and they can rely on that – no big changes. We just want to be available, reliable, and honestly, we don’t want to ever close. That happens all too often as beautiful resources show up; something happens and then they go away and we never would want to do that to the community so we’re trying to just be as sustainable as possible.”
How can folks get involved with Queer Asterisk or show their support?
Apply to work with Queer Asterisk:
Queer Asterisk is currently hiring for counselors and LCSW and LMFT supervision.
Volunteer with Queer Asterisk:
Queer Asterisk is actively seeking board members and volunteers for the peer mentorship program.
Queer Asterisk welcomes specialty skills such as administrative work and help writing grant applications.
Donate to Queer Asterisk:
Queer Asterisk is welcoming in-kind donations for meeting, retreat, and office spaces.
Every contribution helps!
Click here to learn more about Queer Asterisk and the services they offer.
Some additional local resources and information:
- The Center on Colfax
- Out Boulder
- Queer Asterisk can only see folks for clinical services who are in the state of Colorado because of the parameters of their licenseship. If you are out of state and looking for an LGBTQ clinician near you, Queer Asterisk recommends checking out your local LGBTQ community center for local resources.
The Wellness Center in Glendale, Colorado is a holistic health center offering massage, acupuncture, chiropractic care, and naturopathic medicine.