Invisible Man: My Experience as a Male Trainee Clinical Psychologist in a Female-Dominated System

Article here. Excerpt:

'From the very first day of training, I sensed that I was unwelcome. The discomfort was immediate. I recall walking into a room and being met with expressions of unease—subtle, yet unmistakable. Despite my efforts to introduce myself and initiate conversations, it took over twenty minutes for anyone to acknowledge me. It felt as though I had been relegated to the margins before I’d even had a chance to participate. I felt invisible—discarded onto the proverbial muck heap.

As time went on, I began to overhear fragments of conversations within the cohort. Many of my peers—predominantly women—shared histories of trauma, and tragically, many of those experiences had involved men. While I deeply respect the pain and resilience behind such disclosures, I began to sense a kind of projection: an unspoken association between myself, as a straight male, and the harm they had suffered. In contrast, the gay men in the cohort appeared to be more readily accepted—treated almost as extensions of the female group—while I and the other heterosexual men were subtly distanced.'