ABSTRACT
Several provocative questions need to be asked in order to position this chapter in a way that I hope is not inherently self-evident. That is, to wonder aloud why space would be made in this book to approach relational ethics with regard to a client group that can broadly be described as being sexually nonconventional. We can start by asking whether it is even necessary to have a separate chapter investigating relational ethics when working with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered (LGBT) individuals. Are the issues not the same with heterosexuals as they are with LGBT individuals? Is hiving off another section to address these issues simply another representation of the way in which matters such as gender and sexual identity, sexual behaviours and sexual orientation are continually set aside as something ‘other’? Is the process of asking these questions itself making the task more complicated than it needs to be? After all, people are different, and difference matters. Identities that exist outside the dominant paradigm do come with their own sets of dynamics: dynamics that affect those both inside and outside that paradigm. While working with marginal sexual identity individuals may throw this paradigm into sharp relief, I would argue that it is also present, limiting and marginalising within individuals of ‘conventional’ identities too.
