Over Chardonnay in Bushwick, Brooklyn, I sat down with Nomi to talk about sex. “I think a lot of people, when they think of trans females, they think ‘a girl with a penis,’” she said. “And if you’re post-op, they think you just had your penis cut off. There’s still this shock factor to having a sex change. People think, ‘Eww, that’s so horrible’ or ‘That’s so crazy.’”

According to Nomi, these misconceptions are common even within her own, progressive social scene. “Sometimes, if I’m dating a guy but I don’t want to sleep with him right away, he’s like, ‘Oh, because it doesn’t work.’ Or people think you can’t orgasm. They don’t realize the reality. But if they knew how beautiful and how natural the vagina really is, and how it’s so in tune with your mind and your body, I think people would start seeing it as sexy rather than as a science experiment. I mean, even I didn’t know the possibilities.”

Nomi said that as she was preparing for SRS, she wished there were more women talking about their experiences of sex after surgery, because she felt sort of in the dark. “There was this myth that you could never have another orgasm, that there’s no sensitivity, and that you could never enjoy sex again,” Nomi said. “So there was always that fear and that risk. But eventually I got to the point where I was like, ‘I don’t care. I’d rather not enjoy sex than live this way.’”

Nomi had SRS five years ago, in her mid-20s. “The conversation with my doctor beforehand was hilarious, because it’s sort of customized,” Nomi said. “She asked me: What are you looking to achieve? Like, are you a lesbian, are you interested in being penetrated? Is it more important to focus on the nerve endings in your clit, or do you want a lot of depth? Or do you want both? I was like, ‘I want it all. Go for gold.’”

Like any major surgery, there is a lengthy recovery period. “I was in bed for a month, and after that, there’s a dilation process,” Nomi said. “They give you four dilators, with a ruler on them. You’re basically fucking yourself: You slowly increase the size, so that you keep the depth and width you’ve achieved.” This process takes six months. “And then you have to dilate once a week for the rest of your life, unless you’re having sex,” Nomi continued. “So now when I’m not having sex, it’s kinda sad, because you’re really reminded of it. You’re like, ‘Oh, God, I have to dilate now because I’m not getting laid. Fuck.’”