Transition fears, lack of sexuality, body issues

[goldensomething]

I am 20 and consider myself aromantic/asexual, and I'm nonbinary transgender, and want to eventually have surgeries to transition, but there are some things that I'm afraid/unsure about.

The first thing is that I want to have a hysterectomy as I don't want to become pregnant or have uterine issues and the idea of being capable of those bothers me. But when I tried to research about how a hysterectomy affects people (I don't want to do anything unless I'm fully ready and informed.) I found a lot of things that said that it was a disaster for people. Calling it "female castration" and saying that it ruined their lives, they lost their sexuality and confidence, and made them less able to enjoy life. I'm already not a sexual or confident person, but that still scares me. I know some hysterectomies remove the ovaries as well, and I don't know what kind of effect the absence of hormones from them would have on me. I don't think I have a lot of estrogen (my body is not very developed looking, and I am not very sexual) but I still don't know what not having it would do to my physical health. I have heard that lack of sex hormones can cause osteoporosis, and that women who have ovaries removed have to take estrogen supplements. I really don't want to have to take estrogen supplements as that would somewhat defeat the point of having the surgery. (I also am unsure about going on testosterone - see below.)

The second thing is my sexuality. Or rather, lack of. I consider myself aromantic/asexual as I don't experience sexual attraction. (The romantic side is more confusing but I know I'm somewhere on the aromantic spectrum so I just say aromantic.) But the thing is, I do masturbate, but I don't really like it? I'm honestly not sure about it, and that's the problem. Sometimes, a few times a week on average, my body just gets aroused and I start thinking about sex things a bit and so I go look at some porn and touch myself. I don't finger myself because that's hard to do (It is hard to fit my finger in.) and isn't pleasurable. I just touch the clitoris through clothes. It feels... nice, I guess? I wouldn't say it feels good, though. I don't think I orgasm. Sometimes it takes me just a few minutes before I do it enough that my body stops wanting it, and sometimes more like an hour. Afterwards I feel neutral usually, or annoyed that I now have to change my pants or underwear if they are damp, or annoyed that I still keep thinking about the porn I looked at while I'm trying to do other things, or sometimes bad if I looked at some weird porn. (I don't use porn websites so I just use google images, and sometimes it shows some very weird things. I have seen "loli" porn drawings, and it disturbs me because the women are intended to look like children and they look similar to how I look.)

Generally I wouldn't mind not having that need to masturbate, but sometimes I wonder if in the future when I am living with a partner (I have been in a committed long-distance relationship for several years, and plan to eventually live together with my partner, who is on the asexual spectrum but sometimes is sexual.) if it would be nice to have some kind of sex or touching with them occasionally. And sometimes, because of gender dysphoria, I feel very uncomfortable with the fact that my body becomes aroused and I look at porn, and those times I wish I did not have that. If I had a hysterectomy, would it reduce the need to masturbate? Would it affect the amount of pleasure I can have? (Which is currently very little.)

The third thing is my issues with my body. I am short and thin and not very developed looking. My chest is small or average for my size, but because of the way my ribcage is shaped (I have pectus excavatum so my chest goes inward) when I am wearing clothes it looks quite small. (But still looks like breasts.) And I have little body hair and my hips are somewhat--but not very–-curvy. I feel like my body looks like that of a pubescent girl. This makes me uncomfortable because I am a nonbinary adult (I don't have a feeling of gender and wish I could opt out of having to have a gender.) and I would like my body to reflect that. I am somewhat afraid of creepy people being interested in me because I look and sometimes act (I have autism) like a child, but that is not a big issue because I am not very outgoing. My dysphoria is sometimes about how I am perceived but mostly it is not about meeting other people's standards of gender, it is about wanting to have a body that looks like what I am. I plan to eventually get top surgery and not keep the nipples. (If I someday decide I want nipples after all, I could get them tattooed on, so I'm not worried about that.) And as I previously said, I want a hysterectomy but have those fears about it. I also plan to get some specific tattoos that will make my body feel more like it is me.

I have heard of micro-dosing testosterone for nonbinary transition, and I like the idea of some of the effects of T, like voice deepening and body fat redistribution, but I am unsure about others, like increased acne (which I already have, and am badly scarred on my back from) and bottom growth. My dysphoria sometimes makes me uncomfortable about the fact that I have genitals at all. I don't know if T would be right for me, as I don't want to become masculine, I want to become less feminine. Ideally I would not look masculine or feminine or childish, without being in-between any of those things, but I don't know if that's possible. I don't want to have a gendered form, I just want to look like myself.

[Sam W]

Hi goldensomething

It sounds like you're taking a lot of time to think about what changes to your body would and would not help you feel more at home in it, which is awesome! With the hysterectomy, if it's something of interest to you I would start out by talking with a healthcare provider. That would give you a sense of the risks and benefits, and how it might fit in with other elements of transition. For instance, if your ovaries are removed as part of the process, you may want to be on T ahead of time so your body doesn't go into menopause.

As far as T itself goes, if low-dose testosterone sounds like an appealing option, you can read more on it (including how to navigate feelings around whether to do it) here: https://www.scarleteen.com/article/bodi ... stosterone. With the other feelings about how your body looks, how much room have you had to experiment with gender presentation, whether that's hair, make-up, clothes, or something else entirely? Have you found ways of presenting that feel like they remove some of the discomfort with your body?

With arousal and masturbation, since it sounds like you're masturbating but not really wanting to in the first place, have you had a chance to look at this article? https://www.scarleteen.com/article/advi ... _the_first. Does any of the advice in it feel like something you could try?

[goldensomething]

Hi (and sorry for taking so long to reply to this thread, I hope it is still ok),
Thank you for the advice.
To answer your question about gender presentation, I have had a lot of room to experiment with gender presentation. Since I was young I have been allowed to dress and do my hair however I wanted, because my sensory issues meant that I was the only one who could pick out my clothing without risking it being uncomfortable. I think I am presenting how I want to for the most part, though there are some things I dislike about my appearance that are not so easily changed (my height, and that my face is roundish and "baby-faced" looking, and that I have full lips) and while I can use makeup for some of those, I'm not a big fan of it, as it takes a lot of effort and (at least to me, though it could be that I'm just not very good at applying makeup) doesn't really have the desired effect. I recently stopped wearing bras (thankfully my chest isn't so big that I can't hide it with a loose shirt and a jacket) and that has done a lot to make me less uncomfortable with my chest, though I do still dislike having breasts and plan to have top surgery. My current plan is to have top surgery and get the tattoos I want, and then if I still have dysphoria about some aspects of my appearance I might start considering low-dose testosterone and looking into the pros and cons of that.
I have read that article about arousal and masturbation and some parts of it are applicable to my situation, but not all. I think my issue isn't so much that my body gets uncomfortably aroused as it is that when my body gets aroused I often go and look at porn images and masturbate to those, and then I feel disgusted about the images I have seen. This is partly because I mainly stick to drawn images (rather than photos of people) which can go from very softcore to extreme kink pretty quickly, and it's hard to avoid seeing the latter. It's also because, since I'm asexual and also just not a sexual person, I don't personally have any kinks, so the types of porn images I often end up looking at are things that I would be interested in a non-sexual way if they were not sexual. And, because I am a writer and I like to write things that use horror elements as metaphors for various other things, some of my interests include those horror elements. As a result I end up viewing porn images that contain those interests but in a fetishized context (often ones that show characters that look similar to me being hurt), and this leaves me feeling weird about those things for a while. From reading that article, I think that just choosing not to masturbate is something that would help me with this issue, however it is difficult to do so. I am very impulse driven, (I have severe ADHD, and while I am on medication for it that lets me function in life and in school, it does not "cure" it, and in addition this issue usually occurs late at night when my medication has slightly worn off and I should be going to sleep.) and when my body gets on the track of "hey masturbating would be nice right about now", my brain quickly follows suit, and then it is difficult to get my mind off of it and to resist the urge to masturbate. I am not sure what I could do to get my mind away from it, as the strategies that I use to avoid anxiety spirals (reading a book, listening to an audiobook, listening to music, doing something that occupies my brain so that I can't think about the anxiety topic) aren't as useful for avoiding this, as they help me steer my thoughts but not my impulses/urges, and they don't reduce the bodily feeling that causes it.

[Lu C]

Hi goldensomething,
You are always welcome to keep in touch, and I am glad you did!

I understand that there are certain parts of our bodies that might trigger unpleasant feelings for us, and even more when we know that they make us look so different than how we feel. I think it's awesome that you are thinking about the changes that would make you feel more at home. At the same time I think most of us can relate to feeling self-conscious about certain things in our looks, how if they could just be different we would be completely happy in our skin. We are constantly bombarded with ideals, feminine, masculine, beautiful, etc. Whether we are trying to be them or we are trying to steer away from them. And when the traits are hard to change, that can lead to a whole lot of frustration.
Maybe trying to adopt a body-neutral stance towards those traits could help. That could look like putting some effort into connecting with your value as a human being, outside of our physical expectations, understanding that our bodies are an integral part of who we are, but they are NOT who we are altogether; it can be hard to do, but it could at least help take some pressure off the topic. I personally feel that body positivity can work wonders on some, but some of us don't resonate with that. Have you heard about body neutrality?

About the masturbation issues, I can relate myself to some of the things you mention about visual porn making you feel uncomfortable. Although I agree that not masturbating should be an alternative to consider, maybe for the time being you could take steps in order to see if you can avoid the weird feelings. For example, you could do a selection of the pictures you feel comfortable with and save them for the times you need them; or (and I would recommend this one better) you could try masturbating over other types of sensorial stimulation, like music you find sexy and your imagination (arousal is in our brains, after all). Do you think this could be viable?