[Question #13960] Male/Trans Exposure

1 months ago

Hello, thank you for this incredibly helpful service. I (male) recently engaged in sexual activity with a transsexual male (penis) which involved mutual masturbation and very brief sex (I received, with a condom). The partner works professionally, in a clean environment.

Upon completion, their semen came into contact with the head of my penis and urethra.

They assured me that they are clean, medicated, and tested (all negative) 3 weeks prior.

Naturally I am a bit worried and wanted to reach out to the board to get a sense of my risk level and timeliness for any testing required before I can feel at ease as well as comfortable with any sexual contact with people I am interested in.

I am located in BC Canada, so not entirely sure which specific generation of tests are used relative to what you mention in other answers. Thank you very much.

H. Hunter Handsfield, MD

1 months ago

Welcome to the forum.

In general, people don't lie about HIV/STI status when asked directly, so it probably is unlikely your partner had an active, transmissible STI or HIV. This is especially true in regard to HIV if "medicated" means your partner takes post- or pre-exposure prophylaxis (PEP, PrEP) with anti-HIV drugs. Even in higher risk situations, most experts advise against testing after any single exposure: even if a partner is infected, most exposures don't result in transmission of the causative virus or bacteria. It's smarter to test after several rather than each exposure (unless the partner is known to be infected or otherwise at especially high risk).

In addition to all this, the exposure itself was very low risk since there was no unprotected penile insertive sex. Hand-genital contact is risk free, condoms that don't break are highly reliable in protecting during anal sex, and brief penis-penis (or semen-penis) contact undoubtedly is nearly so.

So I do not recommend testing and if you have a regular partner would advise there is no need to change your usual sexual activities with that person. That said, risk alone is not the only valid reason for testing: reassurance alone can make it worthwhile. If you're going to lose sleep or otherwise worry about this event, feel free to be tested. If you decide to do it, all you need would be a urine test for gonorrhea and chlamydia (valid 4-5 days after exposure); a syphilis blood tests at 6 weeks; and an HIV AgAb (4th generation) blood test 6 weeks after the event. But truly I wouldn't do any of these if somehow I were in your situation. If you proceed, you definitely can expect negative test results.

I hope these comments are helpful. Let me know if anything isn't clear.

HHH, MD

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1 months ago

Thank you Dr. Handsfield. As you correctly picked up on, I found this site during a bit of worry and certainly found the reassurance I require. As you suggested, testing for peace of mind may be the path I choose but at least I have a better understand of my situation now. Very much appreciate your help. Take care

H. Hunter Handsfield, MD

1 months ago

Thanks for the thanks. I'm glad to have helped. If you go ahead with testing, I'll be happy to comment one more time if you'd like to let me know the results.---

20 days ago

Hello,

Just following up to let you know that all tests came back as *negative*, as you advised that they would be. I appreciate your reassurance. This was for swabs (all), and blood work. Please feel free to close this thread. Thank you!

H. Hunter Handsfield, MD

20 days ago

Thanks for the thanks. I'm glad to have helped. Best wishes and stay safe.---