I’m solo poly bisexual. I’ve been reflecting on changes to my sex life during and since my lower surgeries. Essentially, I have an easier time having sex if I don’t disclose to intimate partners or if I do, but they don’t know much beyond the basics (e.g. respectful language.) This has translated to sleeping with proportionally a lot more cis men than prior to lower surgeries. I sleep with roughly the same proportion of trans and non-binary people as before.

When it comes to cis women, I’m pretty exclusively attracted to queer/bisexual ones. There’s nothing wrong with dating cishet women, never say never again, but my past experience was… eventful in the not-so-great way. I have no desire to search for an exception to this trend. The cis queer women I’ve hooked up with since my lower surgeries knew my medical history before hand but hadn’t hooked up with a trans guy before and/or didn’t know the 1st thing about our lower surgeries.

But I get ridiculously anxious around those who have numerous trans men friends, have a (few) significant trans ex(es) and/or current trans male partners, and could hold their own in in-depth conversations re: trans men, including around horizontal hostility towards our lower surgeries.

I’m too anxious to have sex with them, even though the one’s I’m into have only ever been respectful about my right to choose what I do with my body, and not bothered in the least about my being post-op. Every time, I get overwhelmed and back out of sex. I’ve managed everything up to cuddling with me wearing underwear even though I’m as horny as they are and really want to go there. It’s getting quite frustrating.

It’s especially bizarre to me because prior to phalloplasty, they constituted the largest proportion of my sexual intimacy. I’m not interested in re-establishing the medical history and gender ratio of my intimate partners from prior to phalloplasty but given there’s a few cis queer women I’d really like to hook up with, who would really like to hook up with me, I’d appreciate getting past this mental roadblock.

I presume a lot of my anxiety stems from cis queer women constituting the lion’s share of who stigmatised trans men lower surgeries to my face, who said they’d end things with me if I pursued phalloplasty (their loss; I broke up with them because my body, my choice.) I’ve come to associate cis queer women well versed and acquainted with trans men with “will probably run for the hills upon seeing my dick.” But I have no reason to believe this would happen with the women I’m currently hoping to hook up with in the near future. It’s in no small part because of this fear of rejection at the sight of my genitals, that I disclose to cis women, whereas I seldom do with cis men (who IME are less likely to deduct I’m probably trans because fewer of them have as much knowledge about trans men.)

I’m not interested in educating someone through their transphobia/stigma towards genitals like mine. Many cis queer women (of my age or a little younger) from urban centres know enough about trans men to sort out what my scars are about, and of those, a fair proportion are of the “I only sleep with people with frontal holes/no bigger flesh penises” variety. I know painfully too well that some may not think they’re of this variety, until my pants come off. During the years I was between stage 1 and 3, more than half the cis queer women who thought they’d be okay with my body bailed at the sight of my junk, or inquired in mood-killing ways about the similarities and differences between my dick and other dicks. This line of inquiry, prior to my penile implant, often became a sour spot, esp the lack of erection tidbit.

sidebar\ I couldn’t care less than I don’t shoot sperm, and I’ve never had a queer women give a shit about that either./

But on some level, prior to my penile implant, I could kinda of negotiate with my anxiety when the lack of erection was raised because I thought “I won’t have to deal with this (as much) when I’m post-penile implant.” Only instead, I’ve become adverse to finding out if that’s the case or if again, cis women in the know about my medical history, the group who’s historically been the biggest critic of my junk, can find ongoing/new reasons to tear into me.

There’s also the fear that my junk will trigger sexual history past/trauma for some cis queer women and that be a source of rejection. Rejection happens to everyone obviously, but post-lower-op it stings differently because these are the genitals I needed to resolve my dysphoria, feel at home in my body, and I had hope that this would translate to greater ease in hooking up. I don’t have fear of my junk triggering such a reaction with the specific woman I’m hoping to hook up with soonest (it helps to I know one of her partners is a cis guy.) But maybe it’s still there is in the subconscious background, compounding other stuff identified.

Something that’s been a problem exclusively with cis queer women, is the significant proportion (not all of them!) who infantalise trans men. It’s so commonplace, nerve grating, and insulting. Those who treat me as though I recently started transition and they’re aware of the high prevalence of depression among trans men early in transition so, out of good-if-ill-thought intentions, they try to bubble-wrap me from life’s potential realities. They’re the most likely to worry about hurting me during sex. I’m frequently assuring them I’ll be fine, and I’m quite capable of letting them know if something hurts in a way I don’t want. But I’m seldom trusted to have that capacity. I tried communicating more around impacts surgeries had on my body (e.g. numb and semi-numb areas around my donor sites) to demonstrate awareness with my body, so they know more of what’s going on but it only resulted in greater efforts to “protect” me so I’ve stopped and developed a few habits to ensure I mask when having passing discomfort or a jarring feeling that isn’t their fault.

In fairness, I think many of the cis queer women who default to some degree of parental behaviour towards trans men have had it reinforced by guys who play into such a dynamic. This enables them to have zero accountability for their shitty behaviour when they struggle with dysphoria and/or depression. This is frequently compounded by every stat and narrative that insists trans people are a misgender away from suicidal ideation. I’m not kicking down guys who are struggling, but we aren’t all struggling with that, and some of us have learnt resilience and coping strategies over the years. As I was doing my best to remain accountable for my behaviour when I was struggling, it was infuriating to be disempowered with condescending offers to spare me adulting; reminders I was seen as a boi (lite), not an adult man expected to be accountable for his behaviour.

I’d like to thank the guys who echoed similar feelings and nuances as I reflected on this. I’m feeling less anxious about my upcoming date. And to my date’s amazing credit, she’s been patient as I work through and disarm my anxiety. Here’s hoping I’m able to share vulnerabilities I’ve been struggling to embrace.