‘Going into placement, I went back into the closet’: Exploring the experience of being a queer trainee Educational Psychologist on placement

The experiences of educational psychologists from minority demographics can offer valuable insights to improve practice. This article aims to provoke thought and discussion on the systemic occurrence of hidden queer identities within education by drawing from the authors’ own experiences as insider researchers. Through informal peer supervision, the authors explored how their queer identities impacted their new roles as Trainee Educational Psychologists (TEPs). The authors endeavour to replicate these authentic discussions throughout the article by using extracts from their text history, as well as data generated from their discussions. Together, this data was used to craft a critically reflective narrative through which their lived experiences were analysed within the wider Scottish education context through identified discussion themes. The authors aimed to raise awareness about the impact of these identified factors on their professional development as TEPs and the importance of recognising and engaging with the diversity of positionalities that exist within the queer community. An argument for the role of Educational Psychologists (EPs) in supporting queer individuals is discussed, highlighting the impact of the current education system on both queer pupils and professionals.