Why Him?
July 21, 2018
The Power Of The Tongue: Talking Dirty After Diagnosis
July 21, 2018Why Him?
July 21, 2018The Power Of The Tongue: Talking Dirty After Diagnosis
July 21, 2018
Often, my profile on dating sites will look like this:
“Single woman in her early fifties looking for connections, fun, laughter, and perhaps intimacy, not looking for anything too serious (certainly not looking for a full time live in partner or lover) but someone to be able to meet up with on a semi regular basis and enjoy dinner, art, walks, and sex (if the chemistry works).”
But if I’m honest, I wish I had the courage to write this:
“Bold trans HIV positive woman, thriving with HIV and loving my trans identity seeks a partner (not live in, I enjoy and need my solo space) who is excited by my identity and not terrified by labels. I’m tired of trying to fit into a heteronormative, binary model in which viruses like HIV don’t exist and proud trans folk are shamed into denial.
HIV and my trans identity have enriched my life, my sense of self and helped to crystallize my innate awareness of who I am and what I find attractive, sexy and fun. I’m a woman who feels incredibly present in her life and it would be great to share in the slipstream of another who feels the same.
Please don’t ask me to send you a photograph for you to check out how trans I may or may not look. I am happy to tell you now that naked, my body is beautifully trans, a body shaped by both hormonal intents, a body that has nuanced curves and shapes that I perceive as beautifully real. I have a neo vagina, bordered by two lines of stitching scars, like quilting, that indicate, to me, her history of upcycling and her brave and beautiful journey. Please don’t try to demean me in your response if I’m not for you. Please move on without spiteful, needless comments.”
It is, without a doubt, tough living at the intersection of trans and HIV.
It is, without a doubt, tough living at the intersection of trans and HIV, a tight space where the world feels entitled to judge my authenticity, my risk capacity and my right to have legal or moral protection. Trans women living with HIV often exist at the hard edge of risk, stigma and discrimination, nowhere more so than in the swirling vortex of sex and dating, especially online dating. Often if I proudly own being me (and I am proud) then I am rejected out of hand because of my labels, dehumanised because of my pride and made to feel that my identity is one of shame and discord.
It’s tiring, no it’s exhausting.
I was diagnosed over 25 years ago and although born trans, it took me into my thirties to summon the courage to transition into my transness. I then had to fight a system, which at the time wanted to block me from having so called ‘elective surgery,’ which wasn’t seen as an absolute right for people living with HIV. I fought hard against the system and won the right to have a vaginal space created, there between my thighs, reclaimed from the existing cock and ball combo into something new, useful, and beautiful. Unbeknownst to naïve-me, having my woman space created would not make my sex life any easier, apparently the shadow of a cock and balls often overrides in the minds of others any sense of my womanhood.
It’s tiring to be told that because I wasn’t born with my vaginal space that it is not worthy of love, of sexual exploration or respect.
It’s tiring, no it’s exhausting. Constantly being asked to prove I’m authentic. I’m real.
It’s tiring to be told that because I wasn’t born with my vaginal space that it is not worthy of love, sexual exploration, or respect. It’s tiring to be told by some, including a minority of very vocal feminists, my sisters, that my vaginal space isn’t real because it wasn’t present as I slipped from my mother’s womb. But it was, it was always there. I know and appreciate it might seem like a tough concept to grasp, but I was born with this body. I was never born male, always female. And somewhere hidden underneath—under layers of testosterone sculptured cells, ligaments, and capillaries—was always my vaginal space, waiting to emerge. Dormant, waiting for my strength of self to catch up. It’s far easier now for me to tackle that predjudice head on, to own my identity in full and to find truth and desirability in its every crevice.
I would like to explore intimacy—physical, sexual, and mental. But to do so meaningfully, the world needs to accept me as I truly am and not shame me into disowning any of my truth.
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