This post is all about my sex life. It's probably graphic.
If your a personal friend of mine, or family member, this post is quite possibly TMI. Feel free to read it, but don't blame me if you learn more than you wanted to.
For those of you currently having sex with me or hoping to in the future, i totally encourage you to read this.
With that out of the way, I shall crack on.
Firstly, why am I writing this?
Well for a number of reasons, but chiefly because trans women's sex lives seem to be tremendously misunderstood. For most people, the only concept of what sex with a trans woman is like, probably comes from porn. This is probably the worst possible sample of trans women from which to build ones assumptions.
Here's why.
Not only is porn nothing like reality in oh so many ways that I pray you are already aware of, but trans women in porn represent the very tiny number of us who are capable of and comfortable using our penises (if we still have them) in a male typical way.
You see, for most trans women, the testosterone blockers we take make it very difficult, if not impossible, to get and maintain an erection. Performing penetrative sex is simply not a possibility for many of us.
Secondly, I've had more than one person be utterly confused as to how they should approach me in bed. It's very interesting to see just how gendered many peoples sex lives really are, and just how much atypical anatomy throws them off
So how do we have sex?
Well I have no idea how "we" have sex, but I can tell you how I like to have sex.
Many trans women report a loss of libido after beginning hormone treatment.
This has not been the case for me I'm happy to say. I'm enjoying sex more than I ever did "as a man", but the character of my libido has certainly changed.
Basically, I get to be horny on my terms.
When i had a lot more testosterone in my system, arousal was something that happened to me, often against my will. Now, for the most part, getting aroused is something I chose to do.
It's kind of lovely actually!
Sex itself has changed so much that I'm still only just beginning to figure things out after 9 months.
These days when I'm turned on I tend to get half erections. If I really want to i can get and maintain a full erection long enough to do the old fashioned PIV intercourse or jerk off, but it doesn't get me off the way it used to. Lacking testosterone, simply stimulating my penis is almost never enough for me to reach orgasm. In fact, the sort of orgasms I can achieve that way are becoming generally weaker and less interesting.
So, if you're familiar with having sex with men, and were to attempt to have sex with me in that way, it would be deeply disappointing for both/all of us.
These days my erogenous zones seem to have been ever expanding to the point that now, depending on how aroused I am, they pretty much encompass my entire body.
Breasts, nipples, buttocks, nape of neck, ears, inner thighs, all of these areas feel amazing. Not just at the point of contact either, but increasingly as a powerfully warm surge that radiates from my core, right behind my belly button, all the way up to the top of my head and down to my perineum.
Sounds fabulous I hear you say, what a lucky bitch you are.
Well yes, but...
There's always a but.
As awesome as my body can feel these days, it's also very elusive.
It's as if the wiring of my pleasure centers is a faulty and prone to power surges.
While my body has become much more sensitive to touch, it almost over sensitive. If any given area gets too much stimulation it seems to flip the breaker and instantly the good feels are gone from that area. Like spinning plates, maintaining arousal for me has become about constantly tending to and switching between different areas, never allowing them to cool down completely and never causing them to overheat and turn off.
The best analogy I can make is one of an orchestra, all the different sections must be playing together in harmony. Yes, there are solos and the focus shifts from one area of the orchestra to another but everything must still work together as a composition.
When it's working though, oh my gawd does it ever feel good.
It's frustrating that I can't do this for myself.
Even knowing exactly what I want internally I can't seem to bring everything together to reach orgasm yet, although it does seem to be getting closer and feels like something far more profound than merely ejaculating.
Speaking of which,
My Penis!
I almost forgot, I still have that thing!
It still feels good to be touched, but I find I have this mental image of my future vagina and focusing on my penis distracts from. To much time spent there is confusing and brings me out of the moment.
These days i mostly treat it like a vagina sans convenient hole for putting fingers/other penises in.
Fortunately there's an asshole for that. Well, for other peoples penises anyway.
I've never been a fan of having peoples fingers in my ass, and dildos/strap-ons are generally so poorly wielded as to be painful, so unless you're some sort of strap-on wizard I am probably not going to enjoy that.
Emotionally I'm pretty submissive by nature although sometimes I do like to "fight and lose" so to speak.
I have learned that I can have sex with someone I'm not terribly attracted to and that it leads to pretty unsatisfying sex.
I've learned that what I am attracted to extends far beyond physical appearance.
Confidence and the ability to talk openly during sex is a huge turn on.
Being wanted is a huge turn on.
Someone who's good at having sex with their whole body, who knows how to fuck me as a whole person, not a sequence of anatomical buttons, someone with rhythm can bring me close to coming as as I ever get and often in totally unexpected ways which has made sex one of the most delightful things in my life.
So I guess, you should have sex with trans women like I hope you would with anyone else.
By treating us as individuals.
If you start from the position that trans women are in fact men, then that idea seems perfectly rational. It is, however, wrong for a number of reasons.
As you state, you are a heterosexual male, you are also cisgendered.
Cisgender is that opposite of transgender, and just means that your internal sense of self matches up with the way the rest of the world sees you and the opinion of the doctor present at your birth in terms of what gender you understand yourself to be.
Now some people will make the claim that your external genitalia and your chromosomes dictate whether you are male or female but in the real world it’s not actually that simple.
Some people are born intersexed, that is, their external genitals are indeterminate at birth and that can happen for a number of reasons. They might have XXY, XYY, XXX or a whole range of other chromosomal variations that mean they can not be assigned to either the male or the female category with any certainty.
Stranger still, depending on how genes are expressed during fetal development, it is perfectly possible for a child born with XY chromosomes to never develop ANY male physical characteristics. There has even been one recorded instance of an XY female carrying a pregnancy to term and giving birth to a healthy child.
In short, biology is simply more complicated than most people realize and there is no meaningful or clear boundary between the sexes at the level of the individual.
As to gender, another non-scientific word, we have to understand that we are talking about two different things here as well.
Gender as a social construct reflects the way in which a given culture expects men and women to behave, and how that culture enforces those behavioral norms. It’s also something that changes over time as a cultures values change. I.e. Women can wear trousers today and no one thinks it’s strange, but 60 years ago it would have seemed very odd to most people.
By contrast, Gender Identity refers to one’s internal sense of whether you are male or female.
As a cisgendered male, your experience of gender identity is basically zero, in the same way that if you have perfect eyesight you experience of being colorblind is zero. Gender identity is simply not something you have the capacity to be aware of unless, for some reason it doesn’t match up to your physical body. By contrast, those of us who are transgendered experience the very disconcerting sensation that we do not have the correct body.
For many of us, this sensation is so string, so overwhelming that the only way we can make our lives livable is to do everything possible to change our bodies to reflect who we know we are inside. That is why, as I’m typing this, I am in quite a lot of pain because yesterday i paid a doctor $3000 to make an incision in my throat, and carefully cut away as much cartilage as possible from my adams apple to remove the bump there.
Please take a second to feel you throat, put your fingers on that bump of cartilage and actually think about that. What would drive someone to do that if it was medically unnecessary? When, for them, $3000 is a small fortune?
Sadly the answer is “at risk”
That is, in a society where being gay or lesbian or especially being trans are considered to be sick, wrong, morally abhorrent behaviors, clearly associating with such people creates an avenue for others to question your hetero status.
I don’t need to go further into that because after all, that was the point of the post to which I am responding. You obviously understand that.
But you do still seem to think that trans women are men, and that is a problem.
I’m also pretty attractive. If a hetero guy is attracted to me, that doesn’t make him gay. If I wanted to have sex with gay guys, trust me, I could have stayed male bodied and had plenty of it. As it is now, gay guys are far less likely to be attracted to me than the straight ones are.
Which is good. Because I’m not a gay man and I gave no interest in having a relationship with a gay man.
Personally, I’m attracted to people who see me as I see myself, that is a bisexual transgender woman.
Of course, there are a lot of people who simply can’t or won’t believe that I’m a woman and honestly I don’t care to much so long as they keep that opinion to themselves and don’t try to murder me, assault me of lobby to have my human rights taken away.
I get that for some people, my medical history makes the idea of dating me a no go. That makes me sad, but I’m not going to tell them they should feel other than the way they do because, frankly, they can’t.
We don’t have control over our emotions in that way, and to expect you or anyone else to read this, and suddenly have some moment of epiphany is unrealistic, but the pervasive notion that I am really a man is a big problem because it creates the story that I’m out to trick people and that simply isn’t true.
I’m out to live my life, like everyone else I hope to meet nice people whom I can have meaningful relationships with.
Generally I disclose my trans status pretty quickly and openly because to not do so puts my life at risk, but just like any other girl I like to go out to the club , have a few drinks and dance with friends. If some guy decides he want’s to hit on me I’m not about to tell him right there and then that I’m trans because to do so puts me at risk. At the very least it can lead to a confrontation where my night is ruined, at worst it can result in physical violence.
As a trans person, if I choose not to disclose that fact, it isn’t because I’m trying to sneak into some guys pants.
I personally don’t like playing Russian roulette, and the idea of having sex with someone who might literally decide to murder me if they learn that I’m trans is terrifying.
Honestly it would be a whole lot better if those people who, for whatever reasons (I won’t judge, really), prefer not to date trans people would go around wearing a “no trans please” T-shirt or something. That would take a lot of stress out of my life.
Trans women are women. They are not “really men”
Same goes for trans men but in reverse.
My pronouns are “She” and “Her” on account of how I’m a woman, not a man.
----------------------------------------------------
How do you begin to explain a concept like what it means to be transgender to someone who thinks of you as a man?
I touched on a few different points but in the end left feeling my response was fragmented and inadequate.
I'd wanted to say more, but what was most pertinent? Where would I stop?
It seems strange to me, that while much of the feminist debate I follow addresses issues of human rights and how living n a patriarchal society negatively impacts various groups of people, there is little conversation concerning how or why it is that almost all human societies came to be patriarchal in the first place*.
*I'm not implying that nothing has been written on this topic, only that in all the blogs and conversations I have read, I have not encountered it.