Lying on top of his sheets, his face between my thighs, I can’t help but wonder if I momentarily died and went to heaven. Even before I realized I am actually a man, rarely any men met my core with this much enthusiasm. I almost feel guilty for lazily enjoying the sensation, but he reassures me:

Clearly, this man’s stamina is no joke. His lips covering my entire body in kisses, exploring my taste, his hands wandering, keenly exploring every crease, every curve; I have a hard time believing that I was ever scared to be seen as not desirable because of my trans body.

Growing up, assumed to be a girl and assuming I was a girl, I had often wondered why I was especially intrigued by gay relationships between men. Why did it feel different to desire a man as a man than as a woman? What was it about the dynamic that felt so different? Why did the sameness offer a connection the otherness could not amount to?

Although feeling the best I had ever felt, three years and a month on testosterone, and had 16 months after top surgery, I was sceptical if my trans body would hold people back from enjoying my body as much as I do; would it forever other me? Would I ever be able to experience the sameness I longed for? While it kept some people from exploring a potential connection, I can’t say that I am mad about it because this makes it so worth it: Not only can I desire in the way that feels true to me as a gay man, I am being desired for being one, and by a man who does an exceptionally good job at displaying his desire.

He carefully traces my double incision scars, and asks me how that feels – do I have sensation in them? “Is it weird of me to say that I find them hot? They are just so… uniquely you, if that makes sense?” My heart melts a little. I cried upon learning I couldn’t have small scars on the morning of my surgery – I almost qualified but then had to opt for big ones. I was mortified over always being visibly trans because of them. But these days, they remind me of the love I had to give myself to become the person I am, and witnessing him adore them makes my entire body tingle.

Growing up perceived as first a girl, then a woman, I was terrified of giving up features that made me conventionally attractive for the sake of medically transitioning; turns out over twenty years of patriarchal indoctrination pay their dues no matter how much queer and feminist literature and philosophy one has read. But seeing him affectionately and curiously lose himself in touching me, almost determined to figure out what brings me pleasure while just thoroughly enjoying the experience of getting to be this intimate with me, gives me a confidence about my body I didn’t know I could have. I love my scars framing my chest, and the fuzz that grows on my tummy and is slowly starting to grow on my chest. I love wearing a stache and hearing him say that it suits me.

He calls me stunning and handsome; tells me his heart is so full; he is flustered over me calling him beautiful and pretty, and insists that he rarely felt so comfortable with anyone the first time he sleeps with them. He is not taken aback by my transness, although he primarily has been with cis men before; he embraces it and I can’t even remember why I thought I would be perceived as lacking in any way, shape, or form in the first place.

“I really like how you taste!”

“Fun fact, that actually changed when I started T!”

“Oh, that makes a lot of sense. You taste very manly!”

I chuckle. I pull him closer and taste me on his mouth and have to agree. I would lie if I said I didn’t have anxiety in the days leading up to this scene, but in the moment, I just feel so seen and appreciated; I don’t even have to think twice about whether or not this would be comfortable for me. At some point, his nerves almost get the best of him, and getting to be the person who pulls him in for an embrace to hold him and reassure him that everything is great and that I am literally having the time of my life, has to be one of the most affirming experiences I have ever had.

Naked and entangled in each other, while his cat demands to be let out of his room, I can’t help but be teary-eyed. “I just didn’t think I would have this”, I admit. I remember breaking down in my old room, my flatmate and good friend holding me while I sobbed for hours – the choice between being myself but potentially ‘undesirable’ and never feeling at home in body but being able to fit beauty standards, though those of a gender I don’t associate myself with, seemingly impossible. He pulls me in tighter and just holds me.

I told him about the accumulation of questionable comments people have made about my body over the years, from an ex-boyfriend’s comments about body hair and healthy weight to a random gay man telling me how he’d never sleep with a trans man because he finds vulvas repulsive.

He looks at me sincerely when he calls my body in all its trans glory perfect and stunning. Not just good, or even great – perfect. The first time I hear this word leave his mouth. And I hear it in relation to a body I had to fight for – fight to make it exist and fight to love it. And maybe he is right. And maybe having to actively become myself makes it all the more desirable because of all the love that went into it. Maybe the process of transition did make it more desirable after all – no matter what people want me to believe.