Let's (Not) Talk About (Transgender) Sex

RIKI WILCHINS is a founder of modern transgender rights. She is the author of 15 books including The Second Coming: Trans Women Talk About Sex After Surgery (forthcoming, 2026), BAD INK: How the NYTimes SOLD OUT Transgender Teens (2023), and Burn the Binary! (2017). Wilchins' work has been profiled in the New York Times, and TIME Magazine selected her among “100 Civic Leaders for the 21st Century”.

• DedicationAcknowledgementsA Word About LanguagePart One — How to (Not) Talk about (Trans) Sex“What We’re Rollin’ Around in Bed With”An Under-privileged Site of InquiryA Language of Erotic AestheticsPhantasmagorical PleasuresDown the Rabbit Hole“Our Right to Mainstream”“The Only Thing That Makes You Interesting Is Me”A Geography of the AbsentUndoing Exclusion“A Very Neat System:” De-Gendering Gayness & De-Sexing TransnessFlattening IdentitiesStay in Your Own YardNew Under the SunA Language of Gender NeologismsThe Power of MeaningOf Crossdressing ElephantsErotic PrivilegeAsexual Identity—Just Not A Sexual identityThe Promise of Ecstasy?Part Two — Bodies Do Things/Things Done to BodiesWelcome to “Caveat Hell”Sex & the Transsexed BodyWhat Are Emergent Identities Citing?Weighing AnchorsBorn this Way?Oppression or Enlightenment?An Intricate & Little-Studied DanceErotic Structuralism“Sweaty Concepts”Surviving (Re)EmbodimentFear & Loathing at 5amInternalized GazesAesthetic ImperialismInternal Reality Enforcement Clinging Like VaporNo OriginalThe Un/Reality of BodiesI’ll See It When I Get Hot Over ItToxic Shame and TransnormativityAn Obligation of AbnormalitySurviving SexSensation & AccomplishmentA Field in Exile?Endnotes

The ever-iconoclastic Riki Wilchins has stirred the pot of received wisdom on all things trans for decades. It's great to see that she hasn't lost her touch in this provocative account of the death of attention to sexuality in contemporary trans discourse.