ABSTRACT
My true sex is in my head, yes, I have said this again and again: in a book first, then in a film. And my gender today coincides so much with what I have chosen that it matters little that my sex is given different connotations. Female, one says. But is it that simple? Surely, sex cannot fall into such binaries. Let us then start from scratch. I was a girl who wanted to be a boy. So I adopted the gender of a boy. I wanted to change sex, too. Too complicated! My sex is in my head, I said to myself. But not only so, I would be tempted to add today. The gender of one’s sex also lies in movement: in the movement of the pelvis and the loins; in that “moving forward” of the whole genital area. Testosterone helps, of course, but what about before taking it? As far as I can remember, it is masturbation that set me on the path. I did not masturbate as a girl would. What was therefore this pleasure that was so direct that it differed from the so-called female pleasure? Between the ages of 14 and 17, the movements of my hand over my genitals changed. I had read or heard that one needed just to stroke oneself with one finger, to search for, to rub ever so gently this little knob that is called the clitoris. Yet, I was not satisfied. I quickly came to realize that it was the whole genital area that I needed to grab vigorously while engaging in an upward movement, from bottom to top, and getting hold of as much flesh as possible. If my penis is indeed in my head, it also lies between my legs; I am thoroughly convinced of that today. And I, Ludwig Trovato, an FTM trans man, feel it incumbent upon myself to describe from the inside that pleasure which is mine.
