Psychosexual Assessment of Transgender Individuals during the Sex Reassignment Process: Sexual Desire, Activity, and Satisfaction

A group of 39 Transgender subjects, 17 Female to Male (FtM) and 22 Male to Female (MtF), have been evaluated about their sexual desire, activity, and satisfaction during the period before and after Sex Reassignment by Surgery (SRS). Visual Analogue Scale from 0 to 10 has been used to as-sess sexual desire and satisfaction, number of sexual partners and number of sexual intercourses/month have been evaluated to assess sexual activity. Moreover, after the surgery, the Sexual De-sire Inventory-2 (SDI-2) was administered to patients and related to testosterone (total or free) levels. In FtM, after hysterectomy and bilateral ovariectomy, mean value of sexual desire (VAS 0 - 10) was 7.5 before beginning testosterone therapy, this value increased after six months of thera-py and after one year. Just before SRS the value decreased, but increased to 8.42 after SRS. In the same patients the values (VAS 0 - 10) on sexual satisfaction were respectively 6.5, 6.9, 7.1, 6.5 and 7. Mean number of partners was 4, with 7.07 mean frequency of sexual intercourse/month, before starting therapy (after hysterectomy). During hormonal therapy (testosterone), No. of partners was 2.46 and 8.96 intercourses/month, while after SRS the partners were 1.25 and intercous-es/month 7.91. MtF patients reported a sexual desire (VAS 0 - 10) before therapy of 7, this re-mained almost constant after 6 months, decreases after 12 months and just before surgery, and finally increased to 7.76 after SRS. For sexual satisfaction mean values of VAS were respectively: 6.1, 6.2, 6.3, 6, and 6.8. Regarding sexual activity, MtF report 3.81 mean No. of partners and 9.27 intercouses/month before the beginning of hormonal therapy, 1.36 partners and 4.36 intercourses after therapy, and 1.3 partners and 4.54 intercourses after SRS.