My PrEP story: Tyler (part 1)

Tyler appeared in PrEPster’s Street Talk video, where they talked about how using PrEP put them in control of their sex life.

In their new My PrEP Story blog, Brighton based Tyler talks about perceptions towards disabled people having sex, and how PrEP offers Tyler protection against HIV.

If you’d like to add your voice to My PrEP Story email hello@prepster.info

So my name’s Tyler, I’m 30 years old, possibly Brighton’s only ordained minister for Satanism (a long story!) despite also being Jewish. I’m Agender but both masculine aligned and attracted primarily to masculine folk, and I’m now also on PrEP.

Oh I forgot – I’m also disabled. I’m not talking about short term, ‘not-that-disabled’ type, but actually visibly ‘I’m-in-a-wheelchair-I-can’t-actually-move-that-well’ type. Trust me, the sudden and audible gasp of why someone like me would not only be part of the PrEPster campaign video but actively take PrEP too happens all the time. The thing is – disabled people have sex too!

Yeap, I have sex. There is this clinical idea that disabled people choose not to or can’t have sex. I even get asked “how?” I can do it. This leads to the embarrassment of explaining that I go to saunas quite frequently and I hook up with strangers, as well as my partner almost every day. I am a self confessed pillow princess and there is nothing I like more than being plowed. So, I need to protect myself also from HIV too, just like everyone else, right?!

I also suffer from psychotic episodes and a part of this means I can be hypersexual as a symptom of this. In addition, I can also have no recollection of who I have slept with. So, again, I’m looking out not only for myself but also my lovers along the way.

Having made the decision to start using PrEP, I enrolled on the IMPACT Trial in December 2017 and I started PrEP on Christmas day. I am working with Clinic T in Brighton as well as the Lawson Unit (the local sexual health centre), who are actually an amazing bunch of people to work with. They get that you can be trans, and disabled, and still have an active sex life!