There Is a Lack of Trans Sex Ed
Alice Scarlet Death
I find it somewhat concerning how hard it is to find sex ed. in regards to trans women or otherwise nonbinary AMABs engaging in hormone replacement therapy of this nature.
You’ll post after post on facebook about how transwomen can still have periods. You’ll see a poor quality scan of ‘f*cking trans women* doing a terrible job explaining the technique known as ‘muffing.’
I don’t see a lot of resources available for transwomen ‘rediscovering their sexuality’ so to speak. In my 33 years, I have relentlessly endeavored to educate myself on topics and I’m starting to see how poor sex ed impacts trans lives.
Your chromosomes tell the brain to focus on creating corresponding hormones. Before your brain is flooded with those hormones, you’re kind of a sexless blob. For lack of a better term. Development just tells the tissue how grow.
Trans people are often pressured to dress or appear a certain way. As such, the motivation for taking hormones is to alter physical appearance. While, we all know this isn’t the only reason, there is enough evidence on transgender hashtags on social media to support that there is a heavy focus on appearance. Yes, your fat will redistribute. You’ll sweat differently, hair in certain places will thin out, your skin will get thinner. These things seem to be commonly known.
What we don’t talk about is the changes to the arousal and sexual responses cycle after spending time on hormones. Poor sex education often results in all sexes/genders having a poor or partial undersanding of this. We focus on reproduction, rarely on pleasure. Far less so on relationships, consent, and arousal response far less than we should.
To put it bluntly, being socialized as a man in the american education system. You probably don’t learn how orgasms work. When you start hormone therapy, you have to learn how they work all over again.
Remember when I said we’ were sexless lumps? Well, after a few years of hormone replacement therapy, it seems more evident that just because our chromosomes told our tissue to develop in a way that would maintain a corresponding hormone balance–sexual characteristics. After nearly 4 years of hormones, everything has changed for me. As I continue my research, I am finding roadblocks. Search results are hampered by the terms others have used to fetishize us and victimize us. Or they focus on appearance.
What I’m star
ting to find is that I see far too many posts about trans women with low libido or post-op transwomen failing to understand that ‘recovery’ means much much more than stitches healing and dilating.
I see all these problems, and it’s concerning that my search results offer few answers. That means other people won’t be able to find answers either.
As an asexual, I cannot rely on passion to make things work. So I’ve had to educate myself on how to perform the part, which means I’ve learned how to connect the dots. All of my sexual partners have been AFAB, so now that my body is responding in a similar way I’ve had to unlearn behaviours and practices innate to being socialized as an AMAB. (
