New Jersey Society for Affectional, Intersex, and Gender Expansive Identities (NJ-SAIGE)
The New Jersey Society for Sexual, Affectional, Intersex, and Gender Expansive Identities (NJ-SAIGE), an Organizational Affiliate of NJCA, serves as the professional home for New Jersey’s LGBTQ+-identified and LGBTQ+-affirming counselors.
Mission
NJ-SAIGE is dedicated to advancing the counseling profession in New Jersey by building community, providing resources and professional development, and advocating for the equity and inclusion of LGBTQ+ counselors, counseling students, allies, and the communities we serve, so that all LGBTQ+ individuals receive ethical, affirming, and accessible care that honors their full identities.
Vision
A New Jersey where LGBTQ+ people experience belonging, affirming care is the professional standard, and the counselors who serve them are supported, represented, and equipped to lead.
How to Get Involved
NJCA members in good standing are able to join NJ-SAIGE free of charge.
Founding Officers, 2026-2027
Luke Thompson, LPC, NCC
Giana Simonelli, LAC
Melissa Tucker, LAC, NCC
Cherliz Cohen, MA, MHC-LP
Jackie Thomasson, LPC
Contact or Join NJ-SAIGE
Ongoing Programs
LGBTQ+-Affirming Counselors' Consultation Group
The New Jersey Counseling Association is proud to announce the LGBTQ+-Affirming Counselors’ Consultation Group. Based on member feedback and need, this monthly, peer-led consultation group helps queer-identified and queer-affirming counselors explore effective clinical work with LGBTQ+ clients.
Potential topics might include minority stress, countertransference around shared identity, decisions around self-disclosure, working with internalized stigma, the emotional labor of affirming clinical work, systemic oppression, queer joy, and more.
The LGBTQ+-Affirming Counselors’ Consultation Group will serve to provide a sense of community, shared understanding, and peer support, especially for counselors who work in solo practices. As a peer-led consultation group, it does not offer supervision or legal guidance.
To help keep this a safe space, applicants are asked to share:
- Your commitment to maintain an LGBTQ+-affirming and client-centered stance.
- A link to your public profile (such as your practice website or Psychology Today page) that reflects affirming work with LGBTQ+ clients.
The group will meet the second Monday of each month from 12-1 PM Eastern Time and is free for NJ-SAIGE members in good standing. Questions? Email us at [email protected].
Upcoming Events
Pride Month Webinar Series
Every June, Pride Month invites us to honor the LGBTQ+ elders who fought for their right to exist openly, to love, and to be safe from harm. It also reminds us that their work isn’t finished. Our profession has not always been a safe place for LGBTQ+ clients. As counselors, we have an obligation to meet them with knowledge, humility, and a commitment to ongoing learning.
As a collaboration between NJCA, NJ-SAIGE, and LGBTQIA+ Health NJ, we are proud to launch our Pride Month Webinar Series for counselors, counseling students, and allies nationwide who want to deepen their practice with LGBTQ+ communities.
To make these webinars more widely available, many are offered free of charge. All are welcome regardless of location or membership. See individual webinar details for more information on cost, continuing education information, and registration.
Accessibility
Every webinar runs on Zoom, so all of Zoom’s built-in accessibility functions will be available to you.
Live automatic captions will be turned on for all webinars. To see captions during a session, click the “CC” or “Show Captions” button in your Zoom toolbar. From there you can open the full transcript in a side panel and change the text size.
You can take part in whatever way works for you. If your connection is unreliable, you can join by phone for audio-only access using the dial-in number in your confirmation email. You don’t need to turn your camera on or speak out loud to be part of the conversation, since questions and discussion are welcome in the chat.
Download an ADA-compliant, screen reader-compatible calendar (.PDF, 1.1 mb).
Friday, June 5, 12:00-1:00 pm EDT
Affirmation as Intervention: Identity-Responsive Care for LGBTQIA+ Clients Across the Lifespan
Giana Simonelli, MA, LAC, APC (she/her)
Webinar Description
Designed to help clinicians move beyond “being accepting” toward actively affirming, clinically responsive care, this training explores how LGBTQIA+ clients’ mental health, identity development, relational safety, and help-seeking experiences are shaped by minority stress, systemic barriers, family and community responses, and lifespan-specific developmental needs.
Participants will examine affirmation as a clinical intervention, not simply a value or stance. The webinar will highlight practical strategies for creating safer therapeutic environments, using identity-responsive language, assessing risk and resilience through an affirming lens, and understanding client behaviors within the context of adaptation, survival, belonging, and safety.
Clinicians will leave with concrete tools for strengthening LGBTQIA+ affirming practice across work with youth, adults, older adults, families, and systems of care.
Learning Objectives
As a result of this webinar, participants will be able to:
- Describe how minority stress and affirming environments shape mental health outcomes for LGBTQIA+ clients.
- Identify at least four identity-responsive practices that can be integrated into assessment, documentation, and treatment planning.
- Apply lifespan-sensitive clinical considerations for LGBTQIA+ youth, adults, older adults, families, and caregivers.
- Recognize ethical and clinical risks when “neutrality” becomes avoidant, invalidating, or unsafe.
Speaker Biography
Giana Simonelli, MA, LAC, APC (she/her) is a dually licensed clinician practicing in New Jersey and Pennsylvania whose work centers on LGBTQIA+ mental health, identity-responsive care, reproductive justice, and systems-level change. She is the Founder of LGBTQIA+ Health NJ, a clinician-led initiative created to expand access to affirming healthcare and mental health resources across New Jersey. Through this work, Giana focuses on bridging the gap between community need, provider education, and meaningful access to affirming care.
Giana also proudly serves as President-Elect of NJ-SAIGE, the New Jersey Society for Sexual, Affective, Intersex, and Gender Expansive Identities, an Organizational Affiliate of the New Jersey Counseling Association. In this role, she helps support advocacy, professional education, and community-centered initiatives that advance affirming counseling practices for LGBTQIA+ individuals and communities. Across her clinical, educational, and advocacy roles, Giana is committed to ensuring that affirming care moves beyond inclusive language and is reflected in ethical, informed, and accessible practice.
Continuing Education: CE credits for counselors (NBCC) provided by NJCA.
Open To: All, regardless of location or membership
Cost: Free (donations gratefully accepted)
Monday, June 8, 12:00-1:00 pm EDT
Worthy as You Are: Body Image and Resilience in Gay and Bisexual Men
Matt Richardson, PhD (he/him)
Webinar Description
This webinar explores the cultural, psychological, and relational forces that drive body image distress in gay and bisexual men, including masculinity norms, community-based appearance pressures, and dating app culture. Drawing on Minority Stress Theory and Intraminority Gay Community Stress Theory, participants will learn to recognize body shame in clinical presentations where it often goes unnamed. The training also introduces strengths-based strategies for fostering positive body image and leveraging client resilience in affirming clinical work.
Learning Objectives
As a result of this webinar, participants will be able to:
- Identify at least three culturally specific predictors of body image distress in gay and bisexual men, including masculinity norms, intra-community appearance pressures, and dating app dynamics.
- Distinguish between body dissatisfaction and body shame, and describe how each may present in clinical work with sexual minority male clients.
- Apply the Minority Stress Model and Intraminority Gay Community Stress Theory to conceptualize body image distress in gay and bisexual men within a systemic and culturally informed framework.
- Recognize clinical presentations in which body shame may be an underlying, unnamed factor, including preoccupation with “clean eating”, compulsive exercise, and withdrawal from community, across diverse intersections of race, age, and gender expression.
- Describe at least two strengths-based strategies for fostering positive body image and leveraging client resilience in affirming clinical work with gay and bisexual men.
Speaker Biography
Matt Richardson (he/him) is a licensed psychologist and owner of Rough Waters Psychology, based in Boston. He specializes in supporting gay men navigating body shame and eating disorders, and works with clients in Massachusetts, New York, Maine, and Florida. His work is HAES-aligned and weight-inclusive, with close attention to the impact of weight stigma, diet culture, and systemic oppression on health and well-being.
Clinically, Matt works from an integrative psychodynamic perspective and draws increasingly from Internal Family Systems (IFS). He aims to create a warm, relaxed, and collaborative space where clients feel deeply understood and safe to show up as themselves. His work is strengths-based, attentive to the systems shaping clients’ lives, and grounded in close collaboration with allied professionals to support thoughtful, high-quality care.
As an openly gay man, Matt brings both personal and professional perspective to his work. His doctoral research examined how gay and bisexual men experience and cope with appearance-based discrimination on dating apps, including the ways that racial, body-based, and gender nonconformity-related rejection shape self-perception and body image. That research deepened his commitment to affirming, culturally responsive care for gay men navigating body shame, disordered eating, and identity-related distress.
Continuing Education: CE credits for counselors (NBCC) provided by NJCA.
Open To: All, regardless of location or membership
Cost: Free (donations gratefully accepted)
Friday, June 12, 12:00-1:00 pm EDT
Pride in Practice: Integrating Advocacy and Joy into Care for Trans and Queer Youth
Harvey Feldman, LCMHC (he/him)
Webinar Description
This webinar will focus on the critical nexus of advocacy, pride and joy within the queer community, particularly for transgender youth, who in 2026 are the focus of both state and national level criminalization of both their health care (specifically) and their existence (generally). This reality means that clinical work with this community has to be rooted in political and systems advocacy, and concurrently, a treatment and relational emphasis on trans pride and trans joy.
Learning Objectives
As a result of this webinar, participants will be able to:
- Name one concrete intervention clinicians can utilize in order to center advocacy in their practice.
- Identify at least one way that legislation has impacted mental health of transgender youth.
- Describe one way in which clinicians can utilize research and data to combat misinformation about the transgender community.
Speaker Biography
Harvey Feldman, LCMHC (he/him) is a licensed therapist in the state of New Jersey, New Hampshire and Vermont. He holds a Master’s degree in clinical mental health counseling from Goddard College (Plainfield, Vermont) with a focus on clinical issues of gender and sexuality, as well as a Master’s degree in Education from Teachers College, Columbia University, and an undergraduate degree from Smith College. He is a founding member of The Gender Diverse Care Coalition of New Hampshire, Granite Pride New Hampshire, and additionally works in consultation with Dartmouth Hitchcock’s Trauma Interventions Research Center. Harvey is the owner of Harvey Feldman Counseling, a private psychotherapy practice located in Montgomery, New Jersey for in person sessions, and offering virtual sessions for those in New Hampshire and Vermont. Harvey has a clinical speciality in working with LGBTQIA+ youth and their families.
Continuing Education: CE credits for counselors, social workers, psychologists, and more provided by TPN.health.
Open To: All, regardless of location or membership
Cost: Free for NJCA members; $10 for non-members
Monday, June 15, 12:00-1:00 pm EDT
You Don’t Have to Explain Yourself Here: Reducing Emotional Labor in LGBTQ+ Counseling Practice
Cherliz Cohen, MHC-LP (she/her)
Webinar Description
This webinar explores how LGBTQ+ clients often enter therapy fatigued from repeatedly explaining and justifying their identities across systems. Grounded in APA affirmative practice guidelines, it examines how well-intentioned clinicians may unintentionally place additional emotional labor on clients. The session emphasizes relational responsibility, humility, and the ethical importance of self-education outside the therapy room. Participants will learn how presence, attuned pacing, and repair can function as meaningful interventions.
Learning Objectives
As a result of this webinar, participants will be able to:
- Identify ways clinicians may unintentionally place additional emotional labor on LGBTQ+ clients within the therapeutic process.
- Explain the impact of microaggressions, provider knowledge gaps, and identity-based fatigue on client engagement and mental health outcomes.
- Apply strategies such as attuned pacing, deep listening, and repair to reduce narrative burden and strengthen the therapeutic alliance.
Speaker Biography
Cherliz Cohen (she/her) is a doctoral student in School-Community Psychology at Hofstra University and a practicing clinician in New York (MHC-LP). Her work centers on supporting LGBTQ+ individuals and those navigating anxiety, trauma, and identity-related concerns. Drawing from trauma-informed and affirming approaches, she focuses on creating space for clients to feel understood while building insight, resilience, and meaningful change.
Continuing Education: CE credits for counselors, social workers, psychologists, and more provided by TPN.health.
Open To: All, regardless of location or membership
Cost: Free for NJCA members; $10 for non-members
Friday, June 19, 12:00-1:00 pm EDT
From Emancipation to Affirmation: Building Affirming Systems of Care for Intersectional Clients
Juan Carlos Barrera, LCSW (they/them)
Webinar Description
From Emancipation to Affirmation: Building Affirming Systems of Care for Intersectional Clients explores how Juneteenth and Pride Month offer powerful clinical frameworks for understanding liberation, access, identity, and healing. This webinar examines how delayed freedom, delayed recognition, structural exclusion, institutional mistrust, and healthcare mistrust continue to shape the mental health experiences of intersectional clients.
Through a culturally responsive, trauma-informed, and affirming lens, Juan Carlos Barerra, LCSW, RYT, will guide participants in understanding how overlapping systems of oppression impact mental health outcomes, care engagement, and access to affirming services. Participants will explore how disparities are produced by systems, not individual failure, and how clinicians can reduce harm by building care environments rooted in dignity, safety, trust, and repair.
The presentation will also highlight practical strategies for strengthening affirming systems of care, including inclusive intake forms, accurate documentation, staff training, affirming referral pathways, group norms, and clinical repair. Participants will leave with a deeper understanding of affirmation as more than inclusion, and as an active clinical intervention that supports safety, disclosure, engagement, and healing.
Learning Objectives
As a result of this webinar, participants will be able to:
- Describe how Juneteenth and Pride Month inform current mental health disparities affecting intersectional clients.
- Identify structural barriers impacting access to affirming mental health care.
- Apply at least one strategy to strengthen affirming systems within clinical practice.
Speaker Biography
Juan Carlos (JC) Barrera (they/them) is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, educator, and clinical leader with extensive experience in adolescent behavioral health, school-based mental health services, child welfare, and community outreach. They provide affirming therapy for adolescents and adults, with a focus on supporting LGBTQIA2S+ individuals navigating identity exploration, life transitions, anxiety, depression, and relationship challenges. JC is skilled in program development, supervision, crisis intervention, diversity and inclusion initiatives, and public speaking, and is recognized for strong leadership, bilingual communication abilities, and effectiveness in high-pressure environments. Their gentle, collaborative, and mind-body approach creates a grounding space where clients can build self-awareness, reconnect with their authentic selves, and move toward healing and meaningful personal growth.
Continuing Education: CE credits for counselors (NBCC) provided by NJCA.
Open To: All, regardless of location or membership
Cost: Free (donations gratefully accepted)
Monday, June 22, 12:00-1:00 pm EDT
The Birds and the…Birds? Talking About Sex with LGBTQ+ Clients
Dr. AJ Freno, LSW (any pronoun)
Webinar Description
Talking about sex with clients is hard enough, but add in a client’s sexual and gender identities that aren’t covered in most sex ed curricula, and some clinicians might feel too overwhelmed to know where to begin. In this workshop, you will learn about how to talk to LGBTQ+ clients about sex in a way that is affirming, respectful, and reduces shame and stigma. Learn how to start conversations with clients that might feel uncomfortable at first, avoid common pitfalls, and where to find information about sexual health for LGBTQIA+ folks. This workshop will cover using inclusive language, destigmatizing sex, safer sex practices for people of all identities, disrupting cis-hetero sexual norms, and so much more!
Learning Objectives
As a result of this webinar, participants will be able to:
- Evaluate the role of a professional counselor in helping LGBTQ+ people meet their sexual health and pleasure needs.
- Identify education, resources, and affirming healthcare to help their LGBTQ+ clients engage in pleasurable, affirming, safer sex.
- Apply their new skills for having affirming conversations with LGBTQ+ clients about sex by role-playing with a small group.
Speaker Biography
Dr. AJ Freno, LSW (any pronoun) is a social worker, educator, and advocate for LGBTQIA+ liberation and justice. As an LGBTQ+ nonprofit leader, AJ has worked for local and national organizations, including HiTOPS, the National Transgender Leadership Council, and VentureOutNJ, where they designed and led social and educational programming. Additionally, AJ has collaborated with organizations like the ACLU, the Philadelphia Flyers, Undead Voice, and more to strengthen their programming with LGBTQ+ populations. Prior to moving into the nonprofit world, AJ has worked as a school social worker, a high school English teacher, and a clinician providing individual and relational therapy.
AJ earned their Doctor of Social Work and Master of Social Work degrees from Rutgers University, where they now continue to teach and design graduate courses in the School of Social Work. AJ is also an experienced researcher, conducting research focused on improving support for LGBTQ+ youth and their families, increasing education around LGBTQIA+ sexual health and gender-affirming care, and improving mental health support for non-monogamous people. They are a regular presenter at conferences including the National Sex Ed Conference, SOGIE-Con, and the National LGBTQ+ Research Symposium.
Continuing Education: CE credits for counselors (NBCC) provided by NJCA.
Open To: All, regardless of location or membership
Cost: Free (donations gratefully accepted)
Friday, June 26, 12:00-1:00 pm EDT
Beyond Survival: Trans and Queer Joy as Resistance in Affirmative Counseling Practice
Sam Mandara, MSW, LSW, CCGC, SSW (he/him)
Webinar Description
This webinar explores trans and queer joy as a form of resistance, moving beyond survival toward thriving. Participants will examine how centering joy in affirmative counseling strengthens resilience, challenges stigma, and fosters empowerment. Using case examples, interactive discussion, and evidence-based strategies, attendees will gain practical tools to integrate joy-centered approaches into clinical work with LGBTQ2IA+ clients. This session emphasizes resilience, strengths-based care, and the therapeutic power of celebrating identity.
Learning Objectives
As a result of this webinar, participants will be able to:
- Define trans and queer joy and explain its role as a form of resistance in therapeutic contexts.
- Identify systemic and interpersonal barriers that limit joy and thriving for LGBTQ2IA+ clients.
- Implement affirmative counseling strategies that center joy, resilience, and client strengths.
- Apply practical interventions to support empowerment, well-being, and celebration of identity in clinical practice.
Speaker Biography
Sam Mandara, MSW, LSW, CCGC, SSW (he/him) is a Licensed Social Worker with clinical, research, and policy-oriented experience across mental health, substance use, gambling disorders, and justice-involved systems. Sam earned his MSW from Rutgers University, where he completed the Alcohol Counselor Training (ACT) program, and is currently expanding expertise through Yale University’s Affirmative CBT for LGBTQ2IA+ course. Guided by the belief that “the comeback is greater than the setback,” his work centers resilience, recovery, and evidence-based practice.
Sam currently works as a therapist at Pax Health, providing trauma-informed, client-centered care to individuals navigating complex mental health challenges. His research experience includes serving as a Research Assistant at the Rutgers School of Social Work’s Center for Prevention Science, supporting behavioral health research, prevention initiatives, program evaluation, and national police diversion research, including Police Diversion: At Arrest—The National Landscape.
Sam’s professional engagement includes presenting at conferences such as NJCA 2026 on trauma-informed therapy with transgender and gender-diverse clients, SAIGE 2025 on resilience and joy in queer healing spaces, and the American Society of Criminology Conference on police diversion models. His background also includes community-based work with Full Service Community Schools and NewBridge Services Inc.
Sam brings strengths in interdisciplinary collaboration, qualitative research, and translating evidence into practice. His clinical and scholarly interests include LGBTQIA2S+ populations, prevention science, equity, and community mental health. He is pursuing advanced licensure (LCSW, LCADC, ICGC-1) and remains committed to advancing affirming, equity-driven care across systems.
Continuing Education: CE credits for counselors (NBCC) provided by NJCA.
Open To: All, regardless of location or membership
Cost: Free (donations gratefully accepted)
Monday, June 29, 12:00-1:00 pm EDT
Navigating the Intersection of Human Trafficking and the LGBTQIA+ Community
Ashante Taylorcox, MA-MHC, LPC (she/her)
Webinar Description
This webinar will explore the impacts of human trafficking on the LGBTQIA+ community and ways in which clinicians can better support survivors within the clinical setting. Clinicians will walk away with foundational knowledge of best practices for supporting LGBTQIA+ survivors, the barriers they face within the clinical setting, and ways providers can better serve those who have experienced severe sexual trauma with intersectional identities.
Learning Objectives
As a result of this webinar, participants will be able to:
- Recognize the compounding effects of discrimination and marginalization on the LGBTQIA+ community.
- Understand tactics used by traffickers to exploit victims who are LGBTQIA and barriers to accessing services.
- Develop short-term and long-term actions within your private practice to better support LGBTQIA+ individuals.
Speaker Biography
Ashante Taylorcox (she/her) is a queer dynamic speaker, survivor-leader, clinician, and Black changemaker from NJ creating safer environments and systems of care for BIPOC and LGBTQ+ survivors of trafficking. She is the Founder and Executive Director of You Are More Than Inc and an internationally recognized expert in racial and gender justice work.
As the Founder and Executive Director of You Are More Than Inc, she is a nationally recognized expert in racial and gender justice and, over the last eleven years, has worked diligently to improve the lives of marginalized survivors of domestic trafficking and sex workers nationally.
Ashante is a Licensed Professional Counselor with a master’s degree in counseling for mental health and wellness and a post-master’s advanced certificate in LGBT health, education, and social services from New York University.
Most recently, in 2025, she was awarded the Smith/Wellstone Award for Outstanding Efforts to Address Human Trafficking at Montclair State University’s Global Center on Human Trafficking. In 2024, she was awarded the Rising Visionary Prize from the Hostetler/Wrigley Foundation. In 2022, she was named the Visionary Voice Award by the National Sexual Violence Resource Center and became an Arbor Rising leader of color in 2021 and an Echoing Green Fellow.
Continuing Education: CE credits for counselors (NBCC) provided by NJCA.
Open To: All, regardless of location or membership
Cost: Free (donations gratefully accepted)
