Enacting Cultural Humility With Latinx Parents of LGBTQ+ Youth: A Case Example

This manuscript details how a team of therapists enacted cultural humility in family therapy with Latinx immigrant parents of an LGBTQ+ adolescent living in the New York City metropolitan region. Initially, the parents' traditional, religious, and culturally embedded beliefs constrained their acceptance of their transgender and bisexual child. While research on Latinx LGBTQ+ families is expanding, there are few examples of real-time, process-oriented family therapy that address gender and sexuality, particularly when therapists share marginalized identities with clients. Grounded in liberation psychotherapy, intersectionality, and queer theory, the therapy emphasized safety, relational connection, and healing, while honoring cultural values such as familismo and respeto. Through self-reflection, engagement, and the use of Location of Self (LOS), the team fostered emotional awareness and authenticity, helping break the silence around sexual and gender identity and supporting the parents' shift from fear and silence to greater emotional openness and acceptance. We illustrate how enacting cultural humility can promote meaningful change for Latinx families with LGBTQ+ youth and offer recommendations for therapy, supervision, and training.