Politeness norms seem to keep a lot of folks from discussing or asking their trans friends questions they have, I figured at the very least I could help try to fill the gap. Lemmy has a decent trans population who might be able to provide their perspectives, as well.
Mostly I’m interested in what people are holding back.
The questions I’ve been asked IRL:
- why / how did you pick your name?
- how long have you known?
- how long before you are done transitioning?
- how long do you have to be on HRT?
- is transgender like being transracial?
- what do the surgeries involve?
For the most part, though, I get silence - people don’t want to talk about it, or are afraid to. A lot of times the anxiety is in not knowing how to behave or what would be offensive or not. Some people have been relieved when they learned all they needed to do is see me as my gender, since that became very simple and easy for them.
If there are trans people you know IRL, do you feel you can talk to them about it? Not everyone is as open about it as I am, and questions can be feel rude, so I understand why people would feel hesitant to talk to me, but even when I open the door, people rarely take the opportunity.
No worries, these are personal questions but that’s what I’ve signed up for.
The answer is that it varies significantly. It’s not uncommon for trans women to experience a reduction of libido on estrogen, but I experienced increased arousal and libido (much to my dismay, I wanted libido to reduce). However, I think viewing libido as just “more” vs “less” does not portray the changes accurately. Testosterone libido felt different, more desperate and animal-like. It was like a simple biological urge, like hunger or the need to pass a bowel movement. It felt imposed on me, and like a hijacking of “me”.
Estrogen libido was deeper and more meaningful, more emotionally connected and harder to just stamp out. Testosterone libido was like performing a duty, estrogen libido was like yearning, pining, burning lust. Estrogen libido feels right, testosterone libido felt awful (to the point where I wondered if I was on the asexual spectrum).
The further into transition I got, the more my dissociation melted and the more dysphoria I experienced as a result - and in this case, the more I experienced bottom dysphoria. I started to wear underwear to bed to hide my genitals, and I started to recognize when I was dissociating during sex, and trying to avoid it by opting to not be touched. I couldn’t stand being the center of attention in sex, focusing on me and my orgasm was very upsetting and usually I disappeared when this happened.
All this varies significantly among trans women - many of them feel no bottom dysphoria at all, and enjoy topping. Many of us feel varying levels of dysphoria, and either cannot use their genitals at all, or very little.
I was a middle case - I could have sex, but it required accommodations and working around my issues, usually by hiding the genitals and treating them more like female genitals (treating the glans like a clit, and so on). I found using a vibrator much more pleasurable on estrogen than before transition, and I really did not like having erections so I did everything I could to promote penile atrophy (but ultimately I didn’t have much penile atrophy - I would have trouble being hard enough for penetrating, but still technically could sometimes). This was all pre-op, obviously post-op sex changed significantly - I am finding I am surprisingly more comfortable now being the center of sexual attention, though I still have dysphoria and there are struggles I have to work around (like feeling my new genitals are like the old ones).
I’m not sure my prostate changed much at all, to be honest. I didn’t notice any difference, but post-op, vaginal penetration is prostate stimulating and featured more heavily. (Anal took more prep and time to do and could be painful, so it was admittedly done less frequently. Also, it could introduce gender feelings in a way, which could increase my dysphoria - sometimes gender-affirming activities can emphasize how much I’m not a woman, and can ironically backfire and make things worse.)