Finalist, 2022 Lambda Literary Awards (Trans-Non-fiction Category)

Winner, of the 2022 AASECT Book Awards (Book for Sexuality Professionals)

Winner of the 2023 SSTAR Consumer Book Award!

Despite the increasing visibility of trans and non-binary folx in media, political representation, and popular culture, their sexual lives and erotic embodiments are woefully under-attended-to in both scholarship and clinical practice. The aim of this book is to equip providers with both conceptual frameworks and concrete tools for better engaging their trans, non-binary, and gender expansive clients in pleasure-centered discussions of sexual health.

Challenging the dominant images of trans sexualities that appear in the existing literature, such as an emphasis on avoiding gender dysphoria, the preservation of sexual function, or on sexual losses that may arise as a result of transition pathways, Trans Sex offers a pleasure-positive approach to working with trans clients. Providing concrete clinical practices and practical activities that utilize social justice, intersectional trans feminism, and radical queer theory as key conceptual frameworks, this groundbreaking text is designed to be accessible to a wide range of providers. This book draws on Fielding's experiences as both a trans client/patient and as a therapist to shift and expand the conversation and includes contributions from other trans and non-binary providers working at the intersection of gender-affirmative care and sexuality.

Trans Sex seeks to move trans sexualities from the margins of gender-affirmative clinical practice, to center pleasure, and to spark creativity and empathic attunement within the client-provider relationship. Whether they be mental health or medical providers, trainees, or seasoned practitioners in gender-affirmative work or sexualities, readers will be able harness creative strategies to enhance their practice and become more imaginative providers.

About the Author

Lucie Fielding (she/they) is a sexuality educator and resident in counseling in Charlottesville, Virginia. They have an MA in Counseling Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute as well as a PhD in French from Northwestern University. Their background in literature attunes them to ways narrative and image impact our embodied sexualities.

Reviews

"As a psychotherapist and trainer, I am so excited that this book exists! Lucie Fielding has created a wonderful resource for trans communities in a way that is grounded in context and the many dimensions of experience that might affect trans sex and sexualities. What a refreshingly thoughtful yet humble take on topics that are so often misunderstood, neglected, or oversimplified! Fielding does an excellent job of providing an overview of interesting and relevant concepts related to trans sexualities, and pieces by invited contributors did an excellent job of bridging theory and practice. Well written and thoughtfully laid out for the reader, as well as grounded in social justice and intersectional frameworks, I recommend this book to anyone who wants to deepen their understanding and practice in a more nuanced, complex way when working with concerns related to trans experiences and sexuality." - Sand Chang, PhD, author of A Clinician's Guide to Gender-Affirming Care.

"This is an essential guidebook for every medical provider, therapist, social worker, teacher, and helping professional, whether their work focuses on sexuality and gender or not. For those whose work centers these topics, this book is an invaluable resource they'll return to again and again. For those for whom these topics have been peripheral, it will provide a foundational bedrock on which to build a practice where all dimensions of a client or patient's identity and body are fully welcomed and supported. Written by an author with rare insight, garnered through transitioning while training as a sex therapist, it speaks to providers in language that demonstrates, as well as explains, how to be present with trans and nonbinary clients. Ongoing training in sexuality and gender is necessary for ethical practice. This book will be a vital part of promoting comprehensive literacy in these areas for years to come." - Emily Nagoski, PhD, author of Come As You Are: The Surprising Science that Will Transform Your Sex Life.

"Trans Sex: Clinical Approaches to Trans Sexualities and Erotic Embodiments is the book I want every clinician, educator and medical health provider who works with trans and/or nonbinary people to read. Lucie Fielding has created an essential resource that was long overdue in the field of sex therapy and that will be essential reading for many providers outside of our field as well. As well as sharing her own knowledge and wisdom, the author has included activities and practical applications by an incredible range of practitioners. This book is a treasure trove of information and I urge you to read it." - Alex Iantaffi, PhD, MS, SEP, CST, LMFT, author of How To Understand Your Gender; Life Isn't Binary; and Gender Trauma: healing cultural, social and historical gendered trauma.

"Too much of the literature on gender transness falls off the balance beam, either ignoring trans sexuality or sexually objectifying trans people. Lucie Fielding's Trans Sex hits a sweet spot. It offers psychotherapists, medical care providers, sex educators and other professionals a compassionate and deeply grounded guide to working with trans folx and our sexualities. It is simultaneously erudite and approachable, practical and theoretical, permission-granting and boundary-setting, and encourages the kind of respectful, ethical curiosity about our lives on which successful therapies depend." - Susan Stryker, executive editor of TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly.

"As a psychotherapist and trainer, I am so excited that this book exists! Lucie Fielding has created a wonderful resource for trans communities in a way that is grounded in context and the many dimensions of experience that might affect trans sex and sexualities. What a refreshingly thoughtful yet humble take on topics that are so often misunderstood, neglected, or oversimplified! Fielding does an excellent job of providing an overview of interesting and relevant concepts related to trans sexualities, and pieces by invited contributors did an excellent job of bridging theory and practice. Well written and thoughtfully laid out for the reader, as well as grounded in social justice and intersectional frameworks, I recommend this book to anyone who wants to deepen their understanding and practice in a more nuanced, complex way when working with concerns related to trans experiences and sexuality." - Sand Chang, PhD, author of A Clinician's Guide to Gender-Affirming Care

"This is an essential guidebook for every medical provider, therapist, social worker, teacher, and helping professional, whether their work focuses on sexuality and gender or not. For those whose work centers these topics, this book is an invaluable resource they'll return to again and again. For those for whom these topics have been peripheral, it will provide a foundational bedrock on which to build a practice where all dimensions of a client or patient's identity and body are fully welcomed and supported. Written by an author with rare insight, garnered through transitioning while training as a sex therapist, it speaks to providers in language that demonstrates, as well as explains, how to be present with trans and non-binary clients. Ongoing training in sexuality and gender is necessary for ethical practice. This book will be a vital part of promoting comprehensive literacy in these areas for years to come." - Emily Nagoski, PhD, author of Come As You Are: The Surprising Science that Will Transform Your Sex Life

"Trans Sex: Clinical Approaches to Trans Sexualities and Erotic Embodiments is the book I want every clinician, educator and medical health provider who works with trans and/or nonbinary people to read. Lucie Fielding has created an essential resource that was long overdue in the field of sex therapy and that will be essential reading for many providers outside of our field as well. As well as sharing her own knowledge and wisdom, the author has included activities and practical applications by an incredible range of practitioners. This book is a treasure trove of information and I urge you to read it." - Alex Iantaffi, PhD, MS, SEP, CST, LMFT, author of How To Understand Your Gender; Life Isn't Binary; and Gender Trauma: healing cultural, social and historical gendered trauma

"Too much of the literature on gender transness falls off the balance beam, either ignoring trans sexuality or sexually objectifying trans people. Lucie Fielding's Trans Sex hits a sweet spot. It offers psychotherapists, medical care providers, sex educators and other professionals a compassionate and deeply grounded guide to working with trans folx and our sexualities. It is simultaneously erudite and approachable, practical and theoretical, permission-granting and boundary-setting, and encourages the kind of respectful, ethical curiosity about our lives on which successful therapies depend." - Susan Stryker, executive editor of TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly

Book Information
ISBN 9780367331764
Author Lucie Fielding
Format Paperback
Page Count 250
Imprint Routledge
Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd
Weight(grams) 1680g