EDITOR’S NOTE

I Want to Start a Transgender (A)Sexuality Pub

I want to gather sexual and asexual perspectives from within trans and gender expansive communities

I’m calling on all writers, potential co-editors, and readers to gauge interest in developing a Trans (A)Sexuality publication! It feels like I’m far too often asked about what goes on in our transgender bedrooms, so I thought perhaps our people could offer a more realistic tour on our own terms. Maybe we can help each other to figure some stuff out, too.

What would we be writing and reading about in this pub?

I want to gather as many sexual and asexual perspectives from within trans and other gender expansive communities as possible to share in this space. Maybe together, we can help answer each other’s questions and collectively feel less alone, while taking back our (a)sexual narratives from the people outside of our communities that too often tell our stories of sexuality for us with some horrific inaccuracies. I’m hoping we can give each other the sex education we deserve and have usually been utterly deprived of. Maybe some onlookers with questions can benefit, too!

Ideally, this would be a space where we could share personal essays about trans sexuality/asexuality, gender affirming and respectful trans erotica/sexual or asexual gender affirming fiction/romance, and authentic personal sexual/asexual/romantic/aromantic experiences that trans people would share in the form of creative non-fiction. I’d love to welcome essays addressing alternative (a)sexual expressions, as well, while honoring all of Medium’s guidelines. I’m envisioning the sort of work that you might easily see available in a standard bookstore, if you were cis and heterosexual, allowing the privilege to be able to easily read explicit sexual content to learn about sexuality through stories.

Who would read this publication and why?

I would envision a primary audience of trans and gender diverse people reading our writings in this publication. We would be primarily writing this for ourselves and our people as a service. This would be a place where we can gather our collective sexual knowledge, hopes, and dreams and offer them to each other as a resource to build upon.

As a secondary audience, I’m happy to welcome and serve readers who are interested in respectfully educating themselves about trans sexuality by reading our stories. Other readers may be any other flavor of queer or supportive cis-heterosexual friends/allies and/or lovers/partners/ spouses who just want to better understand us. Reading our stories could help the people who care about us to avoid saying/doing things that cause us dysphoria in a sexual context, whether simply in discussions or in sexual situations. For example, I once had an otherwise kind, supportive coworker mistakenly think it was okay to ask about transgender genitals on the job. I’m hoping that allies reading some of our essays might prevent this sort of awkwardness by getting to know us better.

I would imagine that some of what we have to say could also substantially benefit gender-affirming medical professionals, therapists, and advocates who need to better understand how we have sex (or don’t) to know what questions to ask to help us more effectively. For example, a medical professional, like one of my previous doctors, who wrongly believes that all trans men have sex via penetration of their genitals would likely have dangerous misconceptions about our ability to recognize some early signs of genital atrophy that could affect other completely non-sexual aspects of our health and wellness. Listening to a variety of our stories could prevent this sort of misconception.

How will we accommodate the needs of our readers?

Of course we want everyone to be able to clearly determine what they are comfortable reading. To accomplish this, we will clearly label anything that is erotica, romance, or memoirs of personal sexual experiences in the titles of writings, so that our audience can make informed decisions about what they are clicking on. We will always do our very best to provide clear and concise Content Warnings to help prepare readers who may experience sex repulsion or romance repulsion or who may have a history of trauma requiring accommodation. Not every story is meant for every reader, and that’s okay.

That said, depending on your workplace culture, we cannot guarantee that all titles in this publication will be safe for your workplace, so please use discretion to protect yourself based on your own environment and needs.

How would this publication encourage writing?

I would offer monthly writing prompts with multiple ideas to produce writings and would regularly gather and share posts in a way that is similar to how I promote posts published in Queerly Trans. See below for examples of my style for doing this.

You may already have some fantastic writings that fit the themes of this publication. I don’t want them to get buried or be algorithmically disfavored because of having an earlier date, so for these, I’d encourage you to write a short form post linking to that earlier writing, so that we can draw attention to your relevant work.

Until we finish moving, I won’t have enough time to really do this idea justice, so this is probably not going to begin for another month. At this stage, what I want to focus on are gathering perspectives from potential writers, editors, and readers. Would you be interested in reading work from such a publication? If so, what direction would you like to see us go in? What sorts of writings would you like to see and produce?

Has this writing made you decide it’s worth $5/month to binge-read my work because it’s cheaper than Netflix? If so, click on the link below to join Medium in my name at no additional cost to you: