Trans 101: Dating While Trans (with Julia Serano)

Every notification is a gamble: Is this a genuine connection or another person who swiped right just to tell you you’re disgusting? Welcome to dating while trans. In this episode, we’re exploring the disclosure dilemmas, infrastructure failures, and stigma that make dating “super hell” for trans people—featuring author and theorist Julia Serano (Whipping Girl). You’ll hear why the design of dating apps fails trans people, how anti-trans stigma poisons relationships even when the attraction is real, what “chasers” are and why the fetish mindset is so harmful, and why trans women face wildly different (and more dangerous) dating experiences than trans men. Not attracted to trans people? Nobody’s gonna force you to change that—but we are going to help you examine whether your feelings come from you, or from the stigma society planted in your head.

More from Oliver Haimson:

Citations and further reading:

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:04] Ashley: Hey, taboo Science listeners, if you’re looking for another great podcast that Decodes Women’s Health, I am so excited to introduce you to Sex Ed with DB your new go-to podcast for smart science-backed sex education, delivering trusted insights from top experts on sex, sexuality, and pleasure.

[00:00:23] Ashley: Empowering, inclusive and grounded in real science, it’s the sex ed you’ve always wanted. Each episode, sex educator DB tackles some of the biggest questions in sex, intimacy, and pleasure. And I have an episode to share that I think you’re really gonna love. This episode with guest Jamie Joy dives into trans sex,

[00:00:43] Ashley: sex with and between trans people. But as Jamie Joy says, it’s also about sex that transcends. Stick around to the end of this episode for a preview and subscribe on your podcast app of choice by searching Sex Ed with DB or find the link in the show notes.

[00:01:03] Ashley: if you are cisgender, there’s a question you’ve probably never had to ask yourself. When should I tell someone I’m interested in that I’m cis?

[00:01:15] Ashley: The answer is obvious. You don’t. Your gender identity is just assumed, and that assumption is almost always accurate. You don’t have to worry that revealing this basic fact about yourself might result in rejection, humiliation, or violence. You can focus on the normal dating anxieties. Do they like me?

[00:01:36] Ashley: Should I text first? Was the fact they talked about their mom for 15 minutes sweet or concerning?

[00:01:55] Ashley: All without an additional layer of risk assessment happening underneath.

[00:02:02] Ashley: But if you’re trans, the question of when to disclose that has no easy answer. Do you put it in your dating app profile? Then you’re opening yourself up to a flood of messages, invalidating your identity, saying you don’t belong in that category, telling you you’re disgusting. Every notification becomes a gamble. Is this a genuine connection or another person who swiped right just to say you’re doing something wrong by existing.

[00:02:19] Ashley: Or do you wait to disclose in person? Then you’re weighing a different risk. What happens when you tell them? Will they feel deceived? Will they react with anger? Could this become dangerous?

[00:02:41] Ashley: And even if they react well, there are more questions. Are they actually attracted to you or are you just a fetish they want to try out? If they say they’re fine with you being trans, will their actions match their words?

[00:03:02] Ashley: Will they be comfortable being seen with you in public, introducing you to their family? Or will there always be this undercurrent of shame? This sense that they’re attracted to you despite what you are not because of who you are.

[00:03:17] Ashley: These aren’t theoretical concerns. For trans people, these are the actual calculations required before every swipe, every date, every moment of potential connection, and many cisgender people have no idea any of this is happening.

[00:03:31] Ashley: Today we’re talking about dating while trans: the disclosure dilemmas, the safety concerns, the chasers, and the moments of genuine connection, despite it all. Because what trans people face in dating reveals the stigma they navigate in every part of their lives, and what everyone needs to understand about their own desires and assumptions.

[00:03:54] Ashley: I’m Ashley Hamer Pritchard, and this is Taboo Science, the podcast that answers the questions you are not allowed to ask.

[00:04:05] Julia Serano: If I was out at a bar or whatever, men would strike up a conversation in a way that you could tell that they were like, you know, they were putting feelers out there, seeing if you’re interested. And it was always awkward for me because I don’t know if that person is potentially a trans phobe or not. I don’t know how they would react even if I was interested to the fact that I’m trans.

[00:04:27] Ashley: That is Julia Serano, an author and theorist who writes about gender, sexuality, and social justice. She’s written many books, but she’s best known for her 2007 masterpiece Whipping Girl, which is a foundational text in trans studies and trans feminism.

[00:04:50] Ashley: She’s a legend in this space, and I’m absolutely giddy that she agreed to talk to me for this episode.

[00:05:00] Ashley: In addition to her theoretical work, she also has lived experience as a trans woman. She’s written a lot about the careful calculations it takes to be a trans person in the dating world.

[00:05:11] Julia Serano: And then if you are upfront about it, there’s a chance that you can get people sending you transphobic messages. So there’s unfortunately in a world where a lot of people are transphobic, it’s just a really difficult thing to navigate.

[00:05:17] Hibby Thach: Dating as a trans person, um, is hell I would say, um, like it’s already hell for everybody and then, you know,

[00:05:32] Hibby Thach: it’s, it’s, it’s super hell, um, yeah.

[00:05:41] Ashley: That is Hibby Thach, who’s a PhD student at the University of Michigan’s School of Information where she studies trans people’s online experiences.

[00:05:50] Hibby Thach: I remember when I first started going on dating apps, I remember making my profile being like, oh my God, I look so pretty. I look so cutesy. Like, yes. And I remember getting messages instantly. It’s really jarring to get a Hinge notification that says this person liked you, and then you check it and like, it’s a like message that says you’re not a woman. Why are you on the woman’s side of this app? You’re a man. Get off this app. That’s been an experience that I’ve had multiple times on those apps. So, whenever I see a like, I’m like, well, this could be bad, this could be good. We will see.

[00:06:23] Ashley: Hibby also has a mustache, which you can hear about more in episode one of this season. That tends to bring out the jerks too.

[00:06:30] Hibby Thach: I will get messages from guys who are like, shave the mustache or they’re like, I would hit it if you shaved. So. That sucks, obviously.

[00:06:42] Ashley: So being upfront about your transness opens you up to harassment before you ever have a conversation. But disclosing later, especially in person, opens you up to the risk of violence. Trans people are over four times more likely than cis people to be victims of violent crimes. That violence disproportionately targets transgender women of color.

[00:07:02] Ashley: And when black transgender women are murdered, 65% of the time it’s by a romantic partner.

[00:07:09] Hibby Thach: Not only as a woman, you still have to like worry about like oh, is this man a murderer? Is this person I’m seeing gonna like do anything to me? I also have to worry, like if they see my genitals and they don’t realize, or anything like that, what is going to happen to me? Like, will I be safe?

[00:07:18] Ashley: So between disclosing upfront and waiting until later, there’s no good option. And the apps just worsen the problem. Part of this comes down to the way dating apps are designed.

[00:07:29] Oliver Haimson: A lot of the challenges are that any type of system like this requires categories, and so it has to know what category do you fall into in terms of how you identify yourself, what category people are you attracted to, that you want to be matched with those categories, and then which categories of people are actually going to see you on that dating app?

[00:08:00] Ashley: That is Oliver Haimson an associate professor at the University of Michigan’s School of Information. He also happens to be Hibby Thach’s PhD advisor.

[00:08:10] Ashley: The categories he’s talking about might appear inclusive on the surface — like, there are tons of options to choose from when defining your gender and sexuality, what’s wrong with that?

[00:08:29] Ashley: But when you look under the hood at the way these apps function, as a team from the University of Colorado Boulder did for a 2025 research article, things start to look a lot less inclusive.

[00:08:39] Ashley: No matter what gender you choose. The app forces you to be grouped with men or women for matching, and the sexuality you select is mostly cosmetic, just for your profile. You have to choose whether you’re interested in men, women, or both. And then it shows you matches from other oversimplified gender identities.

[00:09:00] Ashley: This system might be fine for a cisgender dating pool with straightforward types of attraction, but when someone’s gender and sexuality start to blur the binary, the app can’t give them what they need, and by putting them in categories that don’t fit, it opens them up to harassment from other users.

[00:09:23] Oliver Haimson: It’s a really good example of people having complex identities and the databases and the technological infrastructure being relatively rigid. And there have been some newer platforms. So there’s a platform called Lex, which is not specifically a dating app, but it’s a way for people to meet each other.

[00:09:44] Oliver Haimson: And there are some functions to connect people for dating purposes, and that is specifically targeted for queer and trans people. So that is actually working a lot better because they’re actually not trying to meet the needs of cisgender straight people. And so they, are able to do a lot better with avoiding categories that kind of minimalize people’s identities in a lot of ways.

[00:10:00] Ashley: Trans people aren’t the only ones who have to grapple with when to disclose to a potential new partner or deal with harassment on dating apps. Fat people, people with disabilities or mental health diagnoses, people with STIs like herpes or HIV, these characteristics all carry stigma that complicates dating.

[00:10:08] Ashley: But there are some distinctions. Trans people face particular risks of violence when they disclose, they experience not only rejection, but a fundamental denial that their identity is even real. And unlike other stigmatized characteristics, gender is baked into the very infrastructure of dating apps. So trans people start out on the wrong foot the moment they sign up.

[00:10:32] Ashley: That word, stigma. It keeps coming up. And Julia Serano has spent years studying how stigma actually works, particularly when it comes to attraction and desire.

[00:10:43] Julia Serano: Psychologists who study it have found that generally people who are stigmatized, people tend to view them as both contagious, that the stigma can contaminate them.

[00:11:00] Julia Serano: So if you, you’re too close or too intimate with the person who’s stigmatized, that sort of rubs off on you. And then also, this idea of stigma and contagion is very closely associated with feelings of disgust, which is why some people will maybe be disgusted by the fact that some people are attracted to trans people or be disgusted themselves if they find themselves attracted to a trans person.

[00:11:19] Ashley: That means that even when someone is attracted to a trans person, they might still be carrying a lot of baggage that can harm the person they’re attracted to.

[00:11:27] Julia Serano: Maybe they feel a little bit, self-conscious about it or worried about what, what their coworkers might think or what would it mean if I brought this person home to my parents.

[00:11:41] Ashley: And this anti-trans stigma lurking in the background, it can be there even if you consciously believe that trans people are awesome and hot and full humans with rich internal lives. It can be there even if you yourself are trans. Julia Serano wrote about a moment early in her transition when she saw a film about two trans women in a relationship, and she said that initially it kind of made her uncomfortable.

[00:12:11] Julia Serano: And I knew it as soon as it happened. It struck me that that’s very like, hypocritical, right?

[00:12:21] Julia Serano: Um, or that that’s something that involves a lot of self-examination on my part. ‘Cause it’s like, well, how can I expect people to be in a relationship with me if I’m not open to like the reverse, right?

[00:12:37] Julia Serano: And so it helped me unpack further some of the anti-trans stigma that I had. And I feel that that is generally useful, um, in a world where trans people exist.

[00:12:41] Hibby Thach: I’ve dated multiple people who told me, for example, that I was the first trans woman that they had been with, or that they were like, oh, I, I haven’t been with a trans woman, but I am attracted, don’t worry, I’m like bisexual, I’m pansexual. Stuff like that. But, It was either a lie or they were figuring out things with themselves.

[00:13:02] Hibby Thach: it seemed like the relationship was going well, like we liked each other or we loved each other, but like sex was an issue because they were not comfortable with a woman with a penis. And even if they told me, yes, I’m attracted to you, the actions said differently. And I, I feel like that’s an experience that a lot of trans people can relate to, where maybe you will have this like, fun relationship with someone, but because you don’t fit their idea of womanhood, because of how you present or because of what genitals you have, it doesn’t work out. And that sucks because dating is already hard, as we just said. But like dating and trying to find someone who affirms your transness, who is okay with your trans body, with your trans expression, makes it even harder and more niche and rare to find.

[00:14:01] Ashley: And then there’s the flip side of the problem. People who are interested in your trans body, like a little too much.

[00:14:09] Hibby Thach: There are chasers or people who are. Into trans people in like a fetishizing way. And um, that’s not great either. So like I do have to figure out like, is this person into me because they’re actually into me or because they’re into the idea of me being trans.

[00:14:26] Ashley: But the idea that there’s something wrong with someone who’s attracted to trans people because they’re trans is a really problematic one, as Julia Serano told me. She calls this the fetish mindset.

[00:14:37] Julia Serano: This is the idea that some traits and human beings who possess those traits are illegitimate objects of desire.

[00:14:46] Julia Serano: An analogy that I use that I think is kind of useful to think about this: I used to be, when I was younger, I was very freckly and I would sometimes have partners who would say, oh, I find your freckles cute or sexy. And I didn’t think that was a big deal because attraction to freckles are not pathologized, but it’s also known that not everyone’s attracted to them. Uh, so sometimes with some partners I’d bring it up and they’d be like, oh, well that’s just a part of who you are. They didn’t think it was necessarily particularly attractive or cute, but that was part of who I was. I’m a whole person and that’s just part of me.

[00:15:22] Julia Serano: And that’s how we think about most traits except for those that we imagine are illegitimate objects of desires. And anyone who has any attraction to people who possess these traits are assumed to have a fetish, and it’s often presumed that they are singularly obsessed by that particular trait. Which is totally backwards once you kind of unfold that.

[00:15:49] Julia Serano: Like if someone’s attracted to trans people or fat people or people with disabilities we’ll say that those are fetishes. But there are a lot of people exclusively date cisgender, thin and or able bodied people, and nobody calls that a fetish. As soon as you lay it out like that, it’s really clear that this is a very broken way of thinking that both pathologizes anyone who has interest in anybody who possesses those traits. And, for the trans woman in this case, I cannot be seen as a legitimate object of desire. I can only be a fetish object.

[00:16:16] Ashley: That belief that anyone who’s interested in you must be a chaser with a fetish, that poisons relationships too. It’s another form of internalized anti-trans stigma.

[00:16:26] Julia Serano: And so I think unpacking and overcoming stigma is the key to all of this. So I can overcome my own anti-trans stigma. So I don’t necessarily pathologize people attracted to me, but also it’s important for me in my partners. I don’t want to date someone who’s feeling a lot of anti-trans stigma because if they are, they will view their attraction to me as like potentially stigmatizing in such a way that they might not want anyone that they know to know that they’re dating a trans person.

[00:17:04] Ashley: Now, the challenges we’ve been talking about, the disclosure anxiety, the harassment, the stigma. These aren’t experienced equally by all trans people. Trans women and particularly trans women of color bear the brunt of violence and harassment in the dating world in specific ways that trans men generally don’t.

[00:17:21] Julia Serano: I think society by and large is more freaked out by the existence of trans female and trans-feminine people, which makes us sort of absorb a lot of their attention. Um, and that also leads to like trans male and trans masculine invisibility.

[00:17:40] Ashley: Julia calls this trans misogyny, the intersection of transphobia and sexism. Here’s how it works. In a misogynistic society, femininity is devalued. So when someone assigned male at birth transitions to female, it’s seen as suspicious. Even threatening. Why would anyone give up the privileges of maleness? As a result, trans women are targeted for violence, harassment, and ridicule in ways trans men aren’t. Meanwhile, when someone assigned female at birth transitions to male, it makes more sense to that same misogynistic worldview.

[00:18:15] Ashley: Of course, you’d want to be a man. Who wouldn’t? Trans men can fly more under the radar. They might get messages from the same kinds of people who haven’t done the work, but they get nowhere near the same level of harassment.

[00:18:28] Ashley: Charlie James, a comedian and trans man had that experience.

[00:18:32] Charlie James: A true dating app, I feel like it was. Not a big deal. It was very easy. But being bisexual and using like gay hookup sites, no fun, didn’t like it. You get a lot of attention, I think from people who are like, fetishizing or like interested in it, but maybe don’t. They’re, they’re really excited to talk to trans people, but not excited to like, talk to a trans person.

[00:19:00] Charlie James: So it’s interesting. Or you just get dms that are like questions, but I’m like, but are you down? Like, what’s, what’s going on?

[00:19:10] Ashley: So with how hard it is to find someone who’s truly attracted to you as a person, who doesn’t need an entire college course to understand what’s going on with you, it’s no wonder that sometimes trans people find relationships with other trans people really appealing.

[00:19:23] Hibby Thach: There is sort of this like trend or movement in trans spaces called T for T, where trans people only date trans people sort of thing.

[00:19:32] Hibby Thach: And it’s very appealing to me. Um, I, unfortunately I’m also very attracted to cis people, but, but if I wasn’t T for T would be great. Um, yeah. And. I think it’s just great because trans people understand trans people. Like we might not have the same exact experience, but we understand that we all go through transphobia and we all like play with gender in different ways. So being able to like talk to each other and be open about like, well this is how sex works for me. This is how gender works for me, and like how is that compatible with you is something that I don’t see often talking to cis people. I feel like often on dating apps or like dating cis people, there won’t be that discussion of like, what are you into?

[00:20:15] Hibby Thach: How does this work for you? What feels good for you? And like I feel like I see that more in kink spaces, specifically, but obviously not all people are in those spaces.

[00:20:26] Ashley: These kinds of open conversations about bodies and pleasure aren’t just useful for trans people. They’re conversations everyone could benefit from having. We all have different bodies and you can’t assume that what worked for one partner will work for the next. But also every relationship is different too.

[00:21:02] Ashley: Let’s not assume that there’s something magical about T for T relationships. Trans people are just people, and two people who are trans might have a lot in common, but they’ll also have all the other habits, drives, and desires that can make or break a relationship. I mean, trans people leave their dirty socks on the floor too.

[00:21:29] Ashley: Something I was really curious about for this episode is about how attractions can shift after someone transitions. Why is it that someone assigned male at birth, for example, might originally date women, but then after transitioning start to date men?

[00:21:50] Ashley: The answer which I’m learning is a theme to this season and maybe this entire podcast is this. Everything about humans is a gray area. Even when you’ve learned it’s black and white. That includes sexuality. Even if someone is outwardly attracted to one kind of person, they can have the seed of attraction to someone different.

[00:22:07] Ashley: Julia calls this a predisposition.

[00:22:13] Julia Serano: If you have a predisposition for say a type of, you know, medical condition, doesn’t mean you will get it. It means that it’s possibly there and it may manifest at some point. And I think it’s very clear that with gender identity and gender expression and sexual orientation, that there are some predispositions.

[00:22:26] Ashley: Some people grow up knowing 100% that they’re gay or trans or whatever, and it never changes. But for other people,

[00:22:40] Julia Serano: Maybe different possibilities manifest and maybe there’s a little bit more flexibility there. So it is very common for people when they transition, to experience changes in sexual orientation. I was generally attracted to girls when I was a kid growing up. And I experienced a little bit later some like latent attraction to men. But I didn’t want to be a man with other men. And so like the idea of being a gay man, it kind of went counter to like everything I experienced. But after transitioning, and that can be multiple things.

[00:23:06] Julia Serano: I mean, hormones change you physiologically, your body changes. I think it’s really important to think of ourselves as we’re like embodied in the world. And people were perceiving me in different ways and just different sets of possibilities opened up to make the possibility of me dating men something that I was not just open to, but interested in, in, in certain situations.

[00:23:36] Ashley: Jamie, the trans woman you heard on the last episode also ended up dating a different gender than before her transition. She had identified as a gay man previously and dated men. The way she describes it, her attractions were always there. She just never felt comfortable acting on them.

[00:23:53] Jamie Walkenhauer: I’m not sure so much that they changed totally. Cause I always used to say that I was like physically attracted to men and emotionally attracted to women.

[00:24:05] Jamie Walkenhauer: During this transition process, like a female friend of mine that I’ve known for probably a decade, we were just at a bar and she was being a little bit flirty and I was being a little bit flirty back ’cause why not?

[00:24:18] Jamie Walkenhauer: And then we both kind of did a like, wait, what? Really?

[00:24:25] Jamie Walkenhauer: And I was like. Yeah, I’m into it. If you’re into it. And she’s like, I thought you only like guys. I was like, well, it’s easier to say that I’m gay for years and to not have to explain everything all the time. Honestly for me, like I don’t even know if gender really even matters that much anymore in the other person.

[00:24:42] Jamie Walkenhauer: The first person I started dating is a cis woman. My girlfriend that just moved in is a trans woman and, I mean, I would still date a guy. Gay guys tend to find me pretty off putting and the things that straight men say to me are so incredibly gross.

[00:25:02] Jamie Walkenhauer: I don’t know that I would want to go there.

[00:25:04] Ashley: but if there was a guy that wasn’t either of those things, then maybe?

[00:25:06] Jamie Walkenhauer: Yeah. If there was a straight guy that like, isn’t holding a fish in his profile picture, I might think about it.

[00:25:12] Ashley: So clearly it is complicated to date as a trans person and cis people are not making it any easier. But I hear some of you cis listeners saying, what am I supposed to do about it? I’m just not attracted to trans people. I can’t help that. I pose that question to Julia Serano.

[00:25:31] Julia Serano: That’s the thing. ’cause if you meet a lot of trans people, like we come in all different shapes and sizes and I think that if you like saw all the trans people, you would find some of them attractive. I would describe as self-examining desire. Not necessarily to like, change your sexuality. There’s not like an end result that you’re supposed to get, but. I think it’s very useful for us to examine, well, why am I attracted to this person? If you’re attracted to someone who’s conventionally attractive for one reason or another, maybe you’re attracted to them because like you’re just naturally attracted to that trait. Or maybe it’s that society’s told you that that’s an attractive trait and you’ve sort of bought into it. And I think that all of us to varying degrees can think through some of these issues and try to get to the bottom of, what are we interested in? And, kind of bouncing that with what the world expects of us. And sometimes they don’t match up.

[00:26:33] Ashley: So dating while trans is, as Hibby put it, super hell. The disclosure dilemma has no good answer. The apps don’t work right. Partners might claim they’re fine, but their actions say otherwise. Violence is a real possibility and even when you find someone great, stigma can poison the relationship from the outside.

[00:26:56] Ashley: But things are changing.

[00:27:00] Julia Serano: I think that it’s something that is surely getting better, even if it’s not getting better fast enough. Especially for younger generations, ’cause more people are coming out as trans, and so more people are growing up knowing trans kids. They’re just trans people who are part of their social circles.

[00:27:13] Julia Serano: And so that can, I think, really help to minimize the possibility that people will like freak out about the fact that you’re trans and they’re potentially interested in you.

[00:27:22] Ashley: The thing about dating while trans is that it reveals something fundamental about how we treat trans people everywhere. Dating is where attraction, desire, intimacy, and vulnerability all collide. It’s where stigma becomes personal in a way it doesn’t when you’re debating bathroom bills or sports policies.

[00:28:00] Ashley: When someone has to calculate whether disclosing their gender identity might get them killed, when someone’s very existence on a dating app is treated as a violation, when attraction itself is stigmatized, that tells you everything you need to know about how we view trans people’s fundamental humanity.

[00:28:18] Ashley: None of that is inevitable. Trans people are already doing their part. They’re showing up, having the hard conversations, taking the risks. The question is whether cis people are willing to do the same.

[00:28:37] Ashley: Thanks for listening. If you’re a paid Patreon member, stick around to the end of the credits for some bonus content. If you’re not, head to patreon.com/taboo science to join for as little as $5 a month. You’ll get ad free episodes and bonus clips that you won’t find in the main feed.

[00:28:55] Ashley: A million thanks to Julia Serano when I sent the email asking her to be on the show, it was a true what have I got to lose moment and I completely flipped out when she said yes. Read all of her books, starting with Whipping Girl and moving on to Sexed Up How Society Sexualizes Us And How We Can Fight Back along with many, many others.

[00:29:24] Ashley: She even has a novel called 99 Erics about a writer writing a book about dating 99 people named Eric. Her website is Julia Serano dot com.

[00:29:42] Ashley: Thank you also to Oliver Haimson. You can check out his book, Trans Technologies, along with all of his other work at his website, oliver haimson.com. And last but not least, thanks to those community voices, Hibby Thach, Charlie James, and Jamie. Hibby is at HibbyThach.com, that’s H-I-B-B-Y-T-H-A-C-H.com.

[00:30:05] Ashley: Charlie James is at charliejamescomedy.com, and Jamie is on my own personal Facebook feed sharing the latest gourmet meal she’s made from scratch.

[00:30:15] Ashley: Taboo Science is written and produced by me, Ashley Hamer Pritchard. Our sensitivity reader is Newton Schottelkotte. The theme was by Danny Lipka of DLC Music. Episode music is From Epidemic Sound.

[00:30:28] Ashley: On the next episode, we’re talking about the wedge issue of all wedge issues, the Trojan horse of the trans bans, the thing that makes even your most progressive friends say, I think they have a point. We’re talking about trans athletes. I hope you tune in. I won’t tell anyone.

[00:30:50] DB: Welcome to Sex Ed with db. I’m your host db. Let’s get into it.

[00:31:11] DB: What is. Transex, like, can you just give us a broad definition Yes. Of what is transex, what makes it different or similar from how we’ve historically been taught to think about sex in general.

[00:31:23] DB: Yes. And this question takes us to my number one tagline about transex, which is, I’ll repeat it for folks who need to have their mind blown a second time.

[00:31:35] Jamie Joy: Um, that trans sex isn’t just about sex between trans people. It’s also sex that is trans. That transcends. And people ask me, what does that mean? What is sex that is trans? And I tell them, it’s about choosing pleasure over prescription. It’s about decentering genitals. It’s about approaching the body with a open, curious mind.

[00:32:01] Jamie Joy: These are what I call the transex principles, and this is how I describe Transex to people. When I. I’m teaching all over the country. Um, and I particularly use the word describe, but not define. So I’m never trying to define what trans sex is. I’m only trying to describe it, which I think is another, uh, kind of framework, right?

[00:32:26] Jamie Joy: That we’re not trying to define sex, we can’t define it. We can just describe how it is and how it makes us feel and what it looks like. So. In, in, in a, in a simple words, anyone can engage with trans sex, which is a little bit of a hot take. Um, and it’s because I don’t want this kind of transcendent sex to be gate kept from all the people of all genders who could really benefit from having sex.

[00:32:56] Jamie Joy: Where they get to be more embodied and more affirmed and and more honest with themselves.

[00:33:04] DB: Hmm. So it’s less about the body and more about the feeling and the connection, and especially with this principle of decentering genitals, which we’ll get back. We’ll get back to that in a second. You’re talking about describing something and not gatekeeping, so that other people can feel like they have access to this language and these experiences?

[00:33:25] Jamie Joy: Yes. I want the, the tips and techniques and tricks that I. Teach during my Transex workshop to benefit everyone.

[00:33:35] DB: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Let’s, let’s talk about some of those, some of those tips and techniques. Yes. Because you talk about building a language treasure chest, right? Yes. Let’s there as part of your, yes. As part of your teaching.

[00:33:47] DB: Like, what does this mean? Why is it crucial for good sex? Sex in general?

[00:33:52] Jamie Joy: Hmm. So I think in order to answer that question, um, I have to share some pers a personal anecdote. Please. Great. Okay. Because, you know, I I, I love to get a little personal with, when I talk about sex ed, um, I think about the first time that a lover was going down on me and they said, oh my God, your cock is so hard right now.

[00:34:20] Jamie Joy: And I had never had anyone call my body parts a cock before. And all of this, like neurological rewiring happened in that moment where I was like, yeah, why, why can’t my lover call this a cock? Who said who, who made the rules? Right? Right. And so this, this was such a turning point in my life. Um, and this was so many years ago, and it made me so empowered to throw out any language that I had been.

[00:34:57] Jamie Joy: Forced to use or language that had been prescribed onto me. And when folks have to unlearn the words that have been put onto them, you kind of get thrusted into the unknown, and that can be very scary for people to be in the unknown. I find this space that we get thrusted into this unknown to be actually very potent.

[00:35:24] Jamie Joy: Because then we can ask ourselves these questions, which is, how do I really see myself, what actually turns me on? And if words had no meaning, what words do I truly want to be called during sex?

[00:35:42] DB: Mm-hmm.

[00:35:43] Jamie Joy: And those questions, or questions that I ask folks to work through, um, as they’re beginning to take some more agency and ownership over their pleasure.

[00:35:55] Jamie Joy: Right. So we start there and, and for a lot of people, they’re like still struggling with finding the right language to, to fill their language, treasure chest. So I give people, um, prompts and I can share a prompt with you if you wanna try it. Please. Yes. And you can even, you can even practice it yourself right now if you want.

[00:36:18] Jamie Joy: Um, so here’s, here’s the prompt. I invite folks in my workshop to close their eyes. And to get attuned with their body. And they can do this during the workshop or they can take this home for later for homework. And I am seriously

[00:36:33] Jamie Joy: close your eyes. DB: I’m also closing my eyes.

[00:36:36] Jamie Joy: No, I see you. I see you. So we’re closing our eyes and I invite folks to just place their hands on different parts of their body, like their chest, their ass, their genitals, and to speak out loud.

[00:36:51] Jamie Joy: Words for those body parts. And like what I might do is I might hold my chest and I might say boobs. And then I just let that word sit in my body for a little bit and I feel what comes up. And right now what I feel is like I feel tension in my body and I feel like it’s like something is not fitting right.

[00:37:16] Jamie Joy: And then I say chest and my body relaxes. And I feel more harmonious within myself and maybe even a little turned on.

[00:37:29] Jamie Joy: And then I’ll do

[00:37:30] Jamie Joy: that on my genitals, right? I’ll put my hands down in my genitals. And you can do this while you are masturbating. You can do this in the shower. You can do this in all types of scenarios when you feel most attuned to your body.

[00:37:42] Jamie Joy: So I’ll put my hands on my genitals and I’ll say vagina. And I’ll just see how does that sit in my body? And then I’ll say a word like whole and everything will just click. And I’ll be like, ah, I’ll just feel this. Ah, moment. Wow. Yeah. And I’m like, that’s the word unlock. Yes. It’s an unlocking moment and it’s so powerful and every time I find a word that I have either a positive or a neutral response to, I put those in my treasure chest.

[00:38:19] Jamie Joy: ’cause neutral I say to folks isn’t necessarily bad. Right. You know, especially for trans folks, like if we can find a word that we just feel neutral about and it doesn’t necessarily make us feel bad or turned off or dysphoric. That’s still useful. We can still use that word. Um, not every word is gonna make us feel like fireworks inside us, you know?

[00:38:42] DB: Yeah, yeah. Wow, that’s so helpful. And it seems like it would be such a simple exercise, but it has a lot of power because. We don’t really usually describe our bodies out loud. Yeah. First of all.

[00:38:54] Jamie Joy: Yeah.

[00:38:55] DB: And second of all, we don’t quite realize like the power that these certain words have. And to your point, words are made up like we are fully capable of leaving what doesn’t work and taking the rest.

[00:39:06] Jamie Joy: Exactly. Exactly. And so I like this idea of testing how your bo it’s almost like a somatic experience of like, how is your body reacting?

[00:39:15] DB: Yes.

[00:39:16] Jamie Joy: Are you tight, are you relaxed? Are you kind of feeling like. Hopeful. Are you feeling disappointed? Like what, yes. Descriptor words come up and that’s a great guide for you to figure out what words belong in that treasure chest.

[00:39:29] Jamie Joy: Yes. And really what it’s doing is it’s, it’s helping us choose pleasure over prescription, which is one of my transex principles is like we don’t have to choose what has been prescribed. We can choose pleasure. It comes back to that first question around, um, what actually turns you on and what words do you really wanna hear?

[00:39:52] Jamie Joy: Because you get to decide. And that can be so life changing for me to say to people like, oh, you get to decide what you call your body parts. No one else has that power. And, and so then once you kind of start filling your treasure chest, then we kind of talk about how to then communicate that to people.

[00:40:13] Jamie Joy: You’re about to. To hook up with or play with or your partner. Um, and that’s where things get extra, extra fun once you bring more people in.

[00:40:31] DB: Hello, DB here. Thank you so much for listening. If you liked what you heard in this clip, you can find the rest of this episode and more by searching sex ed with DB on your podcast app of choice or by heading to SexEdwithDB.com.