ABSTRACT
Despite the public gaze on transsexual bodies and the clinical pathologization of the transgender identities, there has been little attention paid to the actual sex lives of transgender, transsexual, and other gender-nonconforming people. Transgender eroticism is unexamined and poorly documented within the scholarly literature despite the unique experiences transgender people have of their embodiment (Lev, in press). Indeed, even in discussing transgender identity and sexuality, communication is muddied by the changing use of language for a community at the beginning of identity development. Transgender is generally used as an umbrella term to include all gender-nonconforming people. However, many transsexuals-people who have fully transitioned their sex through surgery, hormones, and legal documents-do not identify with the larger transgender umbrella. Gender-variant behavior can include a wide spectrum of human expression and behavior; hence, here we will use the term trans to include as many people as possible and thus, we hope, avoid oending anyone.
