ABSTRACT
Sexual body image worry is an important sexual health concern affecting people from all gender spectrums; however, available measures of this construct assume the existence of certain body parts, which is often problematic for transgender (trans) people (Bauer & Hammond, 2015). Moreover, trans persons may have specific concerns, such as not being perceived as their identified gender, being fetishized by sexual partners, or discomfort with sexed anatomy (Kosenko, 2011; Bauer & Hammond, 2015). Therefore, the Trans PULSE Project research team created a brief 5-item Trans-Specific Sexual Body Image Worries (T-Worries) scale to be utilized with trans participants in survey research. The T-Worries scale is a unique measure of sexual body image worries specifically tailored to the trans population, which is not available elsewhere. This construct may be associated with sexual behaviors and health in the trans population, as sexual body image is known to be related to sexual avoidance, lower self-assertiveness during sex, and lower condom negotiation self-efficacy among cisgender persons.
