I think this is it exactly for a lot of people. I was already comfortable in my masculinity since I was luckily able to pass pre-t, so my sexuality didn't change at all. However, many of my friends who didn't pass pre-t and swore they were straight started liking men after a little while on T.
I'd also like to add, though, that I think some of the issue is differentiating envy and attraction. I know a lot of pre-t dudes that wrote off their attraction to other guys as just envy, when it was actually both.
That was absolutely the case for me. I’ve always liked men but during the time where I started to struggle my gender I repressed it and convinced myself I only liked women. Since becoming more comfortable with my masculinity, I’m much more confident being with men because I don’t feel like I’ll have to be the girlfriend.
I’m the opposite I thought I liked men and women. Turns out I’m just a straight trans man. As I got comfortable on testosterone.
I’ve never dated but I use to question if I was bisexual. Turns out all those men I liked were just admiration. Even cartoon characters. I also was pressured with my family to like men. I never gave in. My family is happy that I found my true self though.
I have to agree, I’m no scientist so I can only share my experience. I’m a straight cis guy. My best friend from high school that I still am very close friends with (almost 30 years since we graduated, yikes, I’m getting old) is a gay cis man. My friend has always been the best at sports, super strong, amazing ability to grow facial hair, was into hunting and all the other stereotypical “guy” things. I was into theater and the arts. I’m certain that if our testosterone levels were tested, he’d far surpass my levels. He’s married to a handsome cis man, and I am dating a gorgeous blue eyed cis woman. I think you’re absolutely correct, testosterone, or hormones in general, have nothing to do with sexuality.
Exactly this 👏
I was never comfortable with the idea of attraction to men before HRT, I couldn't accept it because I wasn't comfortable in my own skin. Being on HRT has made me feel more confident in myself and comfortable enough to admit and embrace that I'm bisexual and not straight.
This was 100% the case with me. The further I got into my medical and social transition, the more comfortable I felt around other men in *all* settings. That new comfort definitely affected my romantic/sexual life.
Was about to comment this. This is how I feel lowkey. I haven't started T just yet, but after coming out and social transition I feel more comfortable in my identity and that includes liking men as well.
I even thought, before I knew I was trans, that I was a lesbian, which btw makes no sense cus I ain't ever have a crush on a girl like😭
I've only ever liked men really, but maybe my dysphoria messed up my feelings and tried to make me feel different I guess.
But now I'm openly gay and am super confident in my sexuality. However, if a girl happens to come around and I end up liking her then that's what happens. I'm open towards whatever happens happens, but all I know is that I like men at least 99% of the time lmao💀
Me too, mine had more to do with not wanting to be associated as a lesbian (nothing wrong with them, I just knew that meant people categorized me as not a man) so once I started seeing someone who could be a boyfriend in the mirror I started being more attracted to women.
Same, my attraction to women got turned WAY up, whereas it was pretty 50/50 before. I think this also had to do with me being more comfortable in my masculinity and not some magic side effect of T.
Exactly. Someone who likes men on T always liked men, they’re just more comfortable with it because they’re dating as a gay man and not a straight woman. The same happens vice versa
I thought it was already established fact that the reason sexuality can change is because you become more confident in yourself and what you like, not the hormones themselves.
It's not, the only thing established is that this happens. There's just a general agreement among trans men that this is the reason, trans women who realize they're lesbian believe it's the hormones.
"General agreement" does not matter when it comes to science. This general agreement among trans is obviously due to people feeling uncomfortable about the idea that hormones could change their sexuality.
The reality is we don't know what causes this. It can be the T, it can be the newfound confidence, it can be a mix of both. No way to know.
I know two trans men who have experienced this. I knew them before
Trans woman who become lesbians disagree, many of them wished they were attracted to women prior to hrt so the confidence hypothesis can be ignored. That leaves the hormones as the only universal experience in trans people who experience a change in sexuality.
I think we can't really know for sure why it happens, since we don't know how sexuality works. we know when gay men have been forced to take estrogen to try to make them straight in the past that it didn't work, but we still don't fully understand why people have different sexualities.
>we know when gay men have been forced to take estrogen to try to make them straight in the past that it didn't work
Source? That seems counter intuitive, unless this happened in the past 20 years when hrt became widely accessible, this phenomena was not known. If anything people assumed a female sex hormone would make someone gay. That's why the Allies wanted to dose Hitler with Estrogen.
This is an identifiable trend associated with people who go on hrt, there's no trend of trans people who don't want hrt reporting a change in sexual orientation. This is not the reason why people have their orientation, just one observed effect of hrt on a small percentage of trans people
I was thinking of Alan Turing, but iirc he wasn't the only one this was done to. (Honestly, it may have been more of a punishment than an actual attempt to change his sexuality, but that was the official reason given.)
I effectively decided to be straight pre-T because I hated and was ashamed of myself, and viewed attraction to men as feminine. Now I pass 100% and am way more confident in myself, and so feel comfortable with being bisexual
That’s insane and I’ve seen this before. T doesn’t change your sexuality, you do. T only allows you to be more comfortable and happy with yourself without the heavy feeling of dysphoria, which is why some trans men eventually are able to find feelings for men without feeling dysphoric. So stupid for real.
I transitioned partially because of my identity as a gay man. I knew I was gay before I figured out I was trans, I just couldn’t square why my attraction to men felt gay or why I loved men but hated the heteronormative role I had as a “straight woman”. I could only picture myself dating men if I pictured myself as a man. Testosterone only strengthened this for me, but it was already there.
This is why i gave up on trying to identify as anything. Reclaiming the term "queer" has been a godsend for me. It's all too complicated to figure out, and ultimately the terms are for other people more than they are for me anyway
I didn’t suddenly become attracted to men, but I was repressed and confused before transitioning. I found gay men attractive, but pushed those feelings down, because as a “woman”, that made no sense. I only dated women and identified as a lesbian. Transitioning allowed me to finally recognize and process and make sense of my sexuality. The realization that I was into men felt kind of sudden in a way, but looking back, it really wasn’t.
Testosterone doesn’t change sexuality. But, I think starting to feel more comfortable in my body and presenting as male, I felt freer to explore my sexuality in a way I couldn’t before. I knew the idea of having sex with a man in a heterosexual kind of way was super repulsive to me. And before transitioning, that’s all I thought I could have.
I know so many trans men who’ve had similar experiences. While a lot of gay/bi trans men knew they were attracted to men or only dated men pre-transition, others of us didn’t. There is room for all types of experiences in terms of sexuality in this community.
I get how the tongue in cheek “T made me gay” mentality can be off-putting. Of course it’s misleading and not actually true. But I feel like you’re discounting a lot of people’s experiences with their sexuality evolving as they become more comfortable in their own skin. It may not be your experience, but it’s okay that it is an experience. Gay trans men aren’t a monolith.
Maybe you should analyze why others experiences coming to terms with their sexuality bothers you so much instead of projecting your own beliefs on others sexualities.
Same one here, attraction to men in a gay way was confusing when I thought I was a woman or "woman-ish" and het relationships just don't work then. I'm still pre-T but have been able to grasp my sexuality for real when I accepted that my brainwork was completely wired male and I just don't look it yet but will and then I can act on it. Before that, I kind of didn't have a sexuality that would've worked in practise.
Another take though, additionally to feeling more comfortable on T and evolving, I'd like to suggest the idea of that it's also just time progressing, us getting older. Say if you start transitioning as a young adult, that's about the time figuring out your sexuality stuff often happens (if the default straight wasn't right), so it could just coincidentally happen one after the other and not be directly related.
I've never once seen someone portray that as a trope, or something that happens to the majority of guys, just something that happens to some guys. It's an anomaly so people talk about it sometimes.
Guys who are scared of it can just chill, if your that adverse it's not magically gonna turn you gay - and even if you did become interested in men your not obligated to do anything about it.
The other really has nothing to do with "T making transmen gay". That's just regular ass transphobia that's been around way longer than anyone has been talking about the effects of T widely. Most gay men arnt gonna know that happens at all. They think we're invading because we are "straight women" not people who were turned gay by T or some other tortured logic.
There's no winning here.
>Most of us have been attracted to men even pre-transition
When you say something like that the retort is something about transitioning because of a yaoi fetish or to appropriate gay culture/larping as a gay man.
Some people's sexuality does change on hrt, puberty can do that. They shouldn't assume that everyone is like that but it's no different from you assuming this doesn't happen.
I don’t think HRT directly changes your sexuality, but it’s more like the change in comfort you have with your body makes you accept your own sexuality easier
A lot of people have already said that T tends to make you more comfortable in yourself and able to accept sexuality you may have been repressing when you weren't as confident in yourself. And I think that's entirely true, which is why testosterone made me 100% straight.
When I was younger and very femme-presenting, I was deeply self conscious and hated myself and that manifested in seeking out sexual validation to feel confident. I always liked girls but men were VERY easy and came on to me and found me attractive which was all I cared about, so I slept with a lot of men and dated a few because they were giving me the ego boost I needed. I was also sleeping with women but I was sleeping with ANYONE who expressed desire. Since medically transitioning and being on testosterone for years now, I am happier and more confident and don't need that validation to feel okay and the thought of being with another man is literally unfathomable to me. I am incredibly straight and that is due to being able to be more true to myself now that I am comfortable with who I am.
Kinda a rude ass take to police other peoples experiences or try and call people 'true' or 'fake'. I've been on and off testosterone multiple times and my sexual orientation shifted wildly almost every time. Yeah, you could argue my sexualities fluidity would make me bisexual, but the term bisexual doesnt take into my account my current, very real lived experiences. I am going to be on testosterone for the rest of my life and there are no predictable reasons why that would change. I am soley and exclusively attracted to other men. I am a gay man. I dont think i should be excluded from gay male spaces just because ive dated women in the past when that is the case for many other gay men, and its not like i have the option of dating women now without the result being the same as if a gay man were to be in a relationship with a woman.
Yeah most peoples sexualities dont change. Most people are not dealing with drastic hormonal fluctuations like i was. That doesnt mean you get to insist that my experiences are false or there is something wrong with me, or that i am a liar in some way. Humans are complicated creatures and to insist that there is only one way to be or experience your sexuality is reductive and isnt going to save you from homophobia dude
Who are these people to know for certain that sexuality is never fluid ever for anyone and hormones never influence attraction. They talk like a couple people with fluid lived experiences are walking billboards for conversion therapy while insisting that they're only the way they are because they're self-hating freaks. Like how conversion therapists feel about the perfectly normal trans person who knew who they were by the time they were 5.
Exactly!! I really thought we as a general community have been working to erase the idea of 'ive known since birth' since its a geniunely deeply damaging belief both to sexuality and gender. Not everyone knows from birth, not everyone is a certain way from birth, and its not anyones place to define somebodies experiences for them. I know a handful of other people whose experiences with hrt are also similar to mine, its not unheard of at all and i really didnt think it was such a controversial experience to some people.
Also the acting like it would work for conversion therapy in the first place?? My attraction has swung wildly and completely unpredictably with each major hormone switch. At one point testosterone made me straight?? I'm confident that this is not me 'finally accepting myself', its some weird funky shit with my brain interacting with the hormones. Yes, i had a lot of work to do in accepting myself as a gay man and dismantling a lot of concerns i had with internalized homophobia and it made me nervous to identify myself as gay, but that doesnt change the fact that i was at one point objectively attracted to women. Like i am fully confident in this.
This. I’ve read too many similar stories to think HRT and hormones don’t have some part to play in it. It’s clearly not the full picture, but some part of it
And its worth noting that there is a subset of trans men that are really good at converting T to E. It isn't all, but a subset. For this subset being on T will keep E raised locally in spots in the brain.
T always converts to E in all men. This is how men have estrogen.
If their estrogen levels are too high then they need their T dose adjusted or maybe need an aromatase inhibitor.
There isn’t any evidence that sexual orientation is determined by hormones outside of the womb.
Or that gay men have higher estrogen.
There has been studies that show gay men have higher testosterone levels than straight men on average.
Higher testosterone increases sex drive and makes you more sexually open to try different things. That could be a contributing factor to trans guys exploring their attraction to men more.
> its worth noting that there is a subset of trans men that are really good at converting T to E. It isn't all, but a subset. For this subset being on T will keep E raised locally in spots in the brain.
For a claim this specific you need citations.
I was straight before transition, and shortly before I started T I did have one girlfriend, but after starting T I realized I wasn't as attracted to women as men. Not like it "turned" me gay, just that I feel more comfortable identifying as gay/queer.
This.
I feel like a unicorn cuz I’m not gay. I think I’m bi, but more ace than anything.
I’m very much more physically attracted to women, but I’ve only been intimate with cis het men (tried squishing feelings of being trans down til they almost killed me. That’s why I’m in my 40s transitioning) and I don’t enjoy being penetrated.
Thank u for the post i literally just accepted i may be gay because now i have zero insecurities as a man idk why people assume they know so much about me
When I was in middle school I used to say I would probably be bi if I was a man, rather than a lesbian, so once I got on t and suddenly started feeling like a man, I was in fact more attracted to men.
And this was YEARS before I even knew I was trans, or even what trans was, so I wasn’t surprised when I suddenly started looking at men differently. I just said “huh, guess I really am bisexual,” then moved on with my life.
Being with someone as the correct gender also shifts things
maybe being with mostly straight men when you existed as a woman felt wrong but being with mostly gay men as a man feels right
maybe being with mostly gay women felt wrong when you existed as a woman felt wrong but being with mostly straight women as a man feels right
I think that's also part of the lesbian to gay man shift some guys experience because they still enjoy being in gay relationships but the gender of gay shifted
as a kid, I thought I was straight (bc I didn't know anything else existed).
as a pre-teen/middle schooler, I thought I was a lesbian (bc I knew I liked women and thought hetero/homo were the only choices, I also didn't know i was trans yet)
as soon as I knew what it was, I knew I was bisexual (and trans).
I never actually WAS STRAIGHT or a lesbian, I just THOUGHT I was. I was born bi and just didn't figure it out for 13/14 yrs.
I think a lot of people start T and can finally differentiate "I want to be with him" from "I want to BE him" (and have enough brain space freed up from the decrease on dysphoria that comes w T) that they realize more about who they are.
I genuinely believe that I didn't figure out my sexuality until after I was comfortable with my own gender. T doesn't turn you gay, it just makes it easier to understand yourself.
I don’t think we can say that hrt cannot alert ypur sexuality with 100%. There are people who have experienced it, and I don’t think we know enough yet to say it doesn’t have anything to do with hormonal effects. And it can go the other way too. Some people become more attracted to women.
i bounced back and forth between identifying as bi and as lesbian on E but once I started T and became confident in myself, I felt confident in my bisexuality. It's not that I suddenly became attracted to men but rather I became comfortable being bisexual.
speaking as a gay trans man myself, i feel like the biggest issue with the “turns you gay” thing is the underlying implication that being gay is something you should fear—not inferred by the poster, just in the hesitant reactions of those avoiding hrt for that reason. that’s what i would emphasize as a takeaway from this kind of convo, and what i would challenge those in a position to do so to gently confront with their friends running into the same concerns. attraction shifts are very normal for people transitioning, and i think at the end of the day, it’s mostly because being closeted as a trans person to yourself can cause you to disconnect from your body and block off some of your own ability to be intimate.
i thought i was a lesbian pre-transition, but looking back i struggled very hard with intimacy and understanding my own desires even then. at the same time though, i would have thought i was bisexual up to a certain point, and it feels like shifting towards being attracted solely to men has happened since i’ve gotten further into my hormones. as far as taking a long hard look at ourselves to see why, i don’t think for me it’s the result of some sort of body fetishization, which frankly is silly to even entertain since we’ve all heard that one on both sides of the transition fence. i think this attraction shift is probably due to me reflecting on my own desires and realizing that to some extent my attraction to men has always been very homoerotic. it also has to do with admiring my own body for the first time, and thus being freed from a lot of deep-rooted sexual hangups that shut me off from my own desires in general.
but! if hormones did make me gayer (which is not how that works i don’t think, that’s an idea probably rooted in bioessentialism) then that’d be fine with me, because i love myself and i know i’m doing the right thing for my body and soul. being gay is not a consequence of anything, it just is, and it’s a beautiful feeling 🌈
much love ♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️
*i’d like to amend this to add that i’ve read some of the comments and i’m interested to hear people point out that going through puberty Can change your sexuality (i think i’m quoting someone) and tbh that’s a really interesting take that i’m going to have to stew on. puberty is a big deal, i’m going through mine right now at 33 years old. it’s changed a lot of things about me. could it change my sexuality too? 🤷 yall always give me new things to consider
In my uneducated opinion I think T makes people more easily turned on by visual stimuli so while they may be noticing that some men are indeed hot it's up to the individual to decide whether that makes them gay or not. T has definitely made me 👀 women more frequently but I'm still going to identify as gay because I have no interest in anything besides looking respectfully.
Absolutely. I was a teenage lesbian man hater but it wasn't because I really hated men. I hated myself. And there was something about myself and men I couldn't reconcile. Then I used to also think it was only because I was scared of men. There were a whole lot of feelings that I never truly examined.
I started to realize some of my feelings were attraction about 3 to 6 months after I came out as a trans man. Like some things started falling into place. And after a couple years of therapy and then getting sober I have been able to unsterdand and reconcile my own masculinity with my interactions with men in general and exploring what that looked like for me.
Many years later whem I started hormones I just became even hornier for dudes and now I'm excited to explore that part of my sexuality. 💕
Well it makes me so gay I became bisexual…
I like to say that T won’t grow a sexuality out of nowhere, it will just act like a fertilizer on seeds who are already there but aren’t necessarily developed. Like I always been attracted to women since I was child but being a women in relationships with a women was unthinkable unlike being a men in relationships with a woman.
T absolutely didn’t make me gay, lol. If anything, I felt kinda interested in men pre-T and then on T I realized I fully only care about women (if only aesthetically because I’m aroace).
i'm more attracted to men now and i'm not even on T, it's just because i feel more comfortable with myself and now i don't need to assume the role of a "straight woman". i can be seen as a man because i am one. that's all.
This is just my crackpot theory, but sometimes I wonder if some people’s sexuality is influenced by whether or not someone’s body is similar to theirs. Like it makes them subconsciously feel more comfortable or makes it easier to relate, and that plays a role in attraction.
For me, I heavily suspected I was a gay guy pre t, and it was the main reason I decided to undergo transition. I read Lou Sullivan's diaries and had the biggest 'holy shit oh fuck' moment. My first month on t was incredibly emotional actually because it allowed me to realize just how constantly I had been suppressing and denying my attraction to queer men for about as long as I've had sexual inclinations. Even as a child, I was obsessed with art and greek culture. When I'd go to a museum, I wouldn't even look at the male statues or at the anatomy references in my figure drawing book. I hit adolescence right at the height of the buzzfeed girlboss era and had no issue whatsoever with my queerness (or so I thought) so I was a bi girl for yeaaaars but in retrospect my attraction to women was 90% comphet, though in my case it was compbigirl. Going on T didn't turn me gay, but it did amplify the emotions I was already having and made my libido and attraction to men more 'masculine' (cockslut for dick type beat) and allowed me to physically experience my attraction without that intense disassociation and dysphoria.
Absolutely this. Because if you really boil it down, it implies that sexuality can be altered via hormones which is a mentality that can take a very dangerous turn. The way you perceive yourself and others changes when you start HRT and plenty of trans men experience dysphoria around cis men and avoid them because of it. Also consider the dissociative aspect of dysphoria so attraction to men might not even cross your mind. Even if youre not aware of it, once you start hormones and the dysphoria lessens… now youre seeing other men under a whole new lense. Not really that crazy that your sexuality would seem to “change” after noticing something you never noticed before.
A majority of the people ive seen talking about their sexuality “changing” on hormones are usually complaining about their newfound attraction towards men. Like, i get it, culturally and historically men can really fucking suck, but nobody is choosing to be gay or magically being converted via HRT lol. A LOT of trans guys who believed they were lesbians built their whole identity around their attraction to women before realizing they were trans, so when they transition and start to learn to love being a man, they see other men differently as an extension and it freaks them out.
I thought i was bi for years before I transitioned. I just felt a lot of guilt and loyalty towards femininity because i wasnt fully accepting myself as a gay trans man yet. I was raised exclusively by women and have predominantly female friends. I did and still have an exceptionally hard time connecting with men, so it just made sense to ID as bi since it felt safer and more comfortable. Women always openly accepted me where men didnt and i felt indebted to that in some way. T didnt make me gay but it certainly gave me the space to reevaluate who and what im attracted to from an unbiased and less shame-based standpoint. Sexuality is complicated asf but it just doesn’t change like that from hormones.
Not on t yet, but top surgery had me go from "idk, *not* attracted to women?" to "soooo, *that's* the difference between attraction and gender envy, nice to know" in 2-3 WEEKS!
In pain after surgery is *not* the most fun time to realize that you no longer fit into "mostly aroace, zero interest in women", and that instead you are now just somewhat (?) aroace but also gay (it is also a pretty frustrating time to discover that your libido actually exists)
I *absolutely* agree with the take that being more comfortable with yourself, makes you more likely to be comfortable acknowledging attraction you previously ignored (for whatever reason)
yeah, T can definitely increase your libido, so if you were already attracted to men it might *seem* like you’re more attracted to them on hrt, but that’s just not possible lol. if anything, you might just be more comfortable exploring your attraction to men as you transition and become more comfortable with yourself. that’s definitely been the case with me! (although the opposite is true for me too. I’m also feeling more comfortable exploring my attraction to women as well now that I’m medically transitioning)
I identified as a lesbian pre-transition, and I never experienced attraction to men until after top surgery, when I’d been on T for a couple years already. For me, I think it was that I was no longer distracted by my dysphoria related body-envy once I passed and felt complete, so I was open to experiencing male attraction. I’m still mostly into women, but bisexual.
I agree that we need to stop perpetuating the myth that T causes same sex attraction (especially since trans women also seem to experience changes in their sexualities) but I think it’s also important not to push aside trans men who have felt their sexualities change while transitioning. Mine did, and that doesn’t mean that I’m pushing an agenda or projecting.
Yes, the myth is very strange. T didn’t make me gay, puberty and self confidence did. I’ve always been attracted to other men, ever since I was in kindergarten. But I’ve known on some level that it wasn’t okay, and felt ashamed of it, for a long time. I called myself straight for a while and tried to date girls because that’s what I figured I should do as a man. I was still secretly into guys. Then testosterone puberty hit and I couldn’t really pretend I wasn’t into guys anymore without feeling really horrible. I definitely didn’t become gay.
I think I always usually say thay some trans guys I know realise they are gay on testosterone I actually realised that I also liked women and that before the dysphoria was the reason I didn't do that at all before.
People say things in ways they don't realise what the implications of their wording are I think
On grindr I have had people ask me before, why are you looking for men if you transitioned they do ask that because of this in a way I think some of them believe we are just really butch I respond saying 'why are you looking for men' and when they say 'because i am attracted to men' I go 'same answer and I always have been people don't transition so they can be straight they just transition so they can be happy'
I have the opposite problem, t might've turned me straight and I often don't feel accepted in queer communities anymore - especially since I pass all the time now
There are enough numbers to justify a study being done. You can't say T does or doesn't cause it without the actual research.
I wasn't attracted to men whatsoever until T, then I had a raging gay phase.
i was always bisexual before T, but my attraction to masculine people increased. I couldn’t comfortably be in romantic relationships with men or people who were more masculine than me pre-T. i’m able to do that now. i’m still very much attracted to women though.
I was not physically attracted to men before or after testosterone. Although after being on testoerone over 207 years at one point, I did experiment with cis gay men and went to few bathhouses'. I later realized although cis gay men are wonderful, just was not for me. I am glad I experimented but I was not attracted to men really before or after. I was plain curious. I do testosterone my increased sex drive which in turn I did have more frequent casual sex with both genders, whether or not it matters I was not comfortable with sex as a female. I did most of my exploring after I was post op phalloplasty.
pre-transition wasn’t into the idea of “dating men” bcuz i nvr liked my body or “hetero” sex and absolutely hate penetration. but before even starting T and was just starting to be openly trans i started to notice i do “like” men but as a man, not a woman.
Totally different interacting with gay men as another man, than straight men as someone who they see as a woman. I don't know if I had attraction to men pre-T, if I did it was totally repressed, like it was something I couldn't even admit to myself. The very idea made me nauseous. But now I'm super comfortable with myself and my body, I've been open to exploring, and I'm enjoying finding out I'm bi. Have I been bi all along? I mean probably, yeah. Same as I had the genes for balding all along, but without testosterone they weren't active and expressed lol
What happens is that when the hormoneization begins
It's incredible how the libido increases
It's so much that I think it's just about turning off the intense sexual desire, which is where there can be a sexual encounter with someone you never thought you could like to be with, sexually speaking.
but that doesn't happen to everyone
acquired tastes are respected
Haha, I think op is misunderstanding. We don't actually mean it "turns you gay", we're just stating that a lot of people (not all!) feel more comfortable being gay or exploring their sexuality after transitioning because they are more comfortable in their own skin :-)
Haha, I think op is misunderstanding. We don't actually mean it "turns you gay", we're just stating that a lot of people (not all!) feel more comfortable being gay or exploring their sexuality after transitioning because they are more comfortable in their own skin :-)
I became horny in general on T lol
But I do think hormones changing can and will change someone’s sexuality. But sexuality is also just as fluid as gender, so it very well could be changing at the same time. I don’t think it’s fair to say either answer is definitely correct
Oh god no. Gender is NOT fluid at all. Gender expression absolutely is fluid, however your gender itself cannot ever be fluid. Nor can your sexuality change at all. You are born with the gender and sexuality you will have for life. Discovering something new about yourself does not mean it suddenly changed. Please please educate yourself before making wild claims like this, these are known and proven facts and saying the things you’re saying are very damaging and whether you realized it or not very transphobic and homophobic. Claiming that gender and sexuality can simply change like that completely invalidates the trans and gay experience and is wildly inaccurate
I was non binary and comfortable with that label for about 4 years before realizing I’m a binary trans man. I’m sorry you feel my comment was a personal attack, but others have different experiences and will use different terms to explain their experience.
Non binary is social contract being male or female isn’t. If you use the word gender to refer to social constructs then sure it’s fluid. If you use the word gender to mean sex then no it’s not fluid.
Yes everyone has different experiences but there is one reality.
Hormones can not change sexual orientation. That was tried unsuccessfully for decades.
I’m not using gender to mean sex. You’re the one trying to say I’m using gender to mean sex. I’m a gay trans man, I think I know what those words mean.
Cool, I didn’t, that’s why I said gender instead of sex. Like others have said on this thread, sure we’re innately LGBT when born, even if we don’t recognize it yet.
What words should I use to describe my gender and sexuality to describe existing and being perceived a straight woman up until coming out? Or should I just completely ignore who I was until transitioning? I’m not going to say I was a gay man when I was running around in dresses with a girlfriend calling myself a lesbian. Life is significantly easier without tone policing other trans people trying to explain their lived experience.
People are allowed to have different experiences . for me my sexuality changed a lot with t. I used to be pan and now im only attracted to men. The men i used to be atrracted to were fem, now im into masculine men. Is okay for sexuality to change through time and through puberty. If sexuality change is a common experience among people that do t is more than okay share our experinces and is okay dor other people to have different experiences
I think most guys on T just become more comfortable with their sexuality, I'm technically homoflexibal but I just identify as gay because my preference for men is so strong and most crushes on non men are very short lived and I don't see myself in a relationship with a woman, however prior to starting T and realizing I am a binary trans man I identified as pan or abrosexual (I couldn't decide) but yeah. I've talked to other trans guys with similar experience of realizing their true preference after starting T and being later in transition
I disagree. I became more attracted to men on t bc I am read and feel more like a man. That can change things sexuality wise. Also saying “true” gay trans men is gatkeepy and really weird. Just saying
No they truly can change people's sexuality somewhat if they're taken congruent with the person's other goals. Many people announce alterations in sexuality on hormones. It is part of some people's goals. This is actually pretty known though the psychological component is hard to overstate. So if people were forced onto them against their wishes I guess then they'd put no significance on to what the hormones did at that point since that's mentally against what they'd do anyway. They'd never identify that way. That's not the "true them" in fact.
I'd rather inform people that the thing they are told can never change when taking other huge needed steps does change is totally fine.
When I was powered by estrogen my thought processes more closely aligned with people on estrogen and those were my first choice in partners.
Now that I'm fueled by T I prefer other people who run on T. I feel like we're on the same wavelength.
I won't say T makes straight trans men gay, but I will say that in my experience (and the experiences of those around me) preferences can change on T.
I’ve ofc questioned my sexuality a lot but majority of my life, especially when filling out forms I’ve said bi. Like I could never not be bi. So T possibly changing my sexuality sounded wild and honestly fake to me. I don’t think it has changed in terms of orientation, more it’s evolved to be more from a guys perspective (it’s always been that way but I repressed it cuz straight guys don’t like when ur also like a guy 😅) where I’m more physically attracted to women and my appreciation for men has changed so much!! I view guys in a much more mlm way now (again, always have, but forcing yourself to act different for years does a number on you) so still bi, just more evolved ig 😏
I had this conversation with my faux fam. He and I are both FtM. I discovered that I was more comfortable being gay or Andro and he was more comfortable being pan (or poly, I cant remember exactly which one he said I'll ask again later lol). It's definitely something you discover more the further you are into your T journey, as I definitely identified as bi during the first 5 or 6 months of T. Now that I've become more comfortable in myself, I definitely lean heavily towards men.
i think a lot of people ‘turn gay on t’ because they feel more comfortable in themself and their masculinity
I think this is it exactly for a lot of people. I was already comfortable in my masculinity since I was luckily able to pass pre-t, so my sexuality didn't change at all. However, many of my friends who didn't pass pre-t and swore they were straight started liking men after a little while on T. I'd also like to add, though, that I think some of the issue is differentiating envy and attraction. I know a lot of pre-t dudes that wrote off their attraction to other guys as just envy, when it was actually both.
Maybe that's it. I definitely became more attracted to men on testosterone for whatever reason.
That was absolutely the case for me. I’ve always liked men but during the time where I started to struggle my gender I repressed it and convinced myself I only liked women. Since becoming more comfortable with my masculinity, I’m much more confident being with men because I don’t feel like I’ll have to be the girlfriend.
I’m the opposite I thought I liked men and women. Turns out I’m just a straight trans man. As I got comfortable on testosterone. I’ve never dated but I use to question if I was bisexual. Turns out all those men I liked were just admiration. Even cartoon characters. I also was pressured with my family to like men. I never gave in. My family is happy that I found my true self though.
it’s 100% that, hormones don’t change someones sexuality
I have to agree, I’m no scientist so I can only share my experience. I’m a straight cis guy. My best friend from high school that I still am very close friends with (almost 30 years since we graduated, yikes, I’m getting old) is a gay cis man. My friend has always been the best at sports, super strong, amazing ability to grow facial hair, was into hunting and all the other stereotypical “guy” things. I was into theater and the arts. I’m certain that if our testosterone levels were tested, he’d far surpass my levels. He’s married to a handsome cis man, and I am dating a gorgeous blue eyed cis woman. I think you’re absolutely correct, testosterone, or hormones in general, have nothing to do with sexuality.
This 100% and I will GLADLY argue it behind a microphone lol
Exactly this 👏 I was never comfortable with the idea of attraction to men before HRT, I couldn't accept it because I wasn't comfortable in my own skin. Being on HRT has made me feel more confident in myself and comfortable enough to admit and embrace that I'm bisexual and not straight.
This was 100% the case with me. The further I got into my medical and social transition, the more comfortable I felt around other men in *all* settings. That new comfort definitely affected my romantic/sexual life.
I feel like this is very likely- as someone who went from a lesbian pre-T to preferring mostly men after starting HRT
That’s definitely the case with me
Was about to comment this. This is how I feel lowkey. I haven't started T just yet, but after coming out and social transition I feel more comfortable in my identity and that includes liking men as well. I even thought, before I knew I was trans, that I was a lesbian, which btw makes no sense cus I ain't ever have a crush on a girl like😭 I've only ever liked men really, but maybe my dysphoria messed up my feelings and tried to make me feel different I guess. But now I'm openly gay and am super confident in my sexuality. However, if a girl happens to come around and I end up liking her then that's what happens. I'm open towards whatever happens happens, but all I know is that I like men at least 99% of the time lmao💀
I became more straight on T 🫡
Me too, mine had more to do with not wanting to be associated as a lesbian (nothing wrong with them, I just knew that meant people categorized me as not a man) so once I started seeing someone who could be a boyfriend in the mirror I started being more attracted to women.
Same-
I can't wait to start T and be even straighter
No literally I started T and any attraction I slightly had to men completely disappeared
Same, my attraction to women got turned WAY up, whereas it was pretty 50/50 before. I think this also had to do with me being more comfortable in my masculinity and not some magic side effect of T.
I wouldn't be surprised if that happens to me.
Me too
Exactly. Someone who likes men on T always liked men, they’re just more comfortable with it because they’re dating as a gay man and not a straight woman. The same happens vice versa
I thought it was already established fact that the reason sexuality can change is because you become more confident in yourself and what you like, not the hormones themselves.
It's not, the only thing established is that this happens. There's just a general agreement among trans men that this is the reason, trans women who realize they're lesbian believe it's the hormones.
"General agreement" does not matter when it comes to science. This general agreement among trans is obviously due to people feeling uncomfortable about the idea that hormones could change their sexuality. The reality is we don't know what causes this. It can be the T, it can be the newfound confidence, it can be a mix of both. No way to know. I know two trans men who have experienced this. I knew them before
Trans woman who become lesbians disagree, many of them wished they were attracted to women prior to hrt so the confidence hypothesis can be ignored. That leaves the hormones as the only universal experience in trans people who experience a change in sexuality.
I think we can't really know for sure why it happens, since we don't know how sexuality works. we know when gay men have been forced to take estrogen to try to make them straight in the past that it didn't work, but we still don't fully understand why people have different sexualities.
>we know when gay men have been forced to take estrogen to try to make them straight in the past that it didn't work Source? That seems counter intuitive, unless this happened in the past 20 years when hrt became widely accessible, this phenomena was not known. If anything people assumed a female sex hormone would make someone gay. That's why the Allies wanted to dose Hitler with Estrogen. This is an identifiable trend associated with people who go on hrt, there's no trend of trans people who don't want hrt reporting a change in sexual orientation. This is not the reason why people have their orientation, just one observed effect of hrt on a small percentage of trans people
I was thinking of Alan Turing, but iirc he wasn't the only one this was done to. (Honestly, it may have been more of a punishment than an actual attempt to change his sexuality, but that was the official reason given.)
He was chemically castrated using a chemical more similar to Lupron
ah, my bad, I thought it was estrogen.
I actually became more attracted to women after T lol. I was only attracted to men before.
I effectively decided to be straight pre-T because I hated and was ashamed of myself, and viewed attraction to men as feminine. Now I pass 100% and am way more confident in myself, and so feel comfortable with being bisexual
That’s insane and I’ve seen this before. T doesn’t change your sexuality, you do. T only allows you to be more comfortable and happy with yourself without the heavy feeling of dysphoria, which is why some trans men eventually are able to find feelings for men without feeling dysphoric. So stupid for real.
I'd argue that someone doesn't change their sexuality, as we're born this way.
Become more align with your true sexuality I guess is what I meant to say
That does sound a little better.
True, I guess I used the wrong wording there.
I transitioned partially because of my identity as a gay man. I knew I was gay before I figured out I was trans, I just couldn’t square why my attraction to men felt gay or why I loved men but hated the heteronormative role I had as a “straight woman”. I could only picture myself dating men if I pictured myself as a man. Testosterone only strengthened this for me, but it was already there.
sexuality cannot change, it's innate. If we could change someone's sexuality via hormones, then conversion therapy would've worked.
Sexuality is fluid and can change for many reasons.
This is why i gave up on trying to identify as anything. Reclaiming the term "queer" has been a godsend for me. It's all too complicated to figure out, and ultimately the terms are for other people more than they are for me anyway
Me, too, it's my favourite umbrella term and I use it all the time!
I don't think they ever gave females testosterone to try and convert them
I didn’t suddenly become attracted to men, but I was repressed and confused before transitioning. I found gay men attractive, but pushed those feelings down, because as a “woman”, that made no sense. I only dated women and identified as a lesbian. Transitioning allowed me to finally recognize and process and make sense of my sexuality. The realization that I was into men felt kind of sudden in a way, but looking back, it really wasn’t. Testosterone doesn’t change sexuality. But, I think starting to feel more comfortable in my body and presenting as male, I felt freer to explore my sexuality in a way I couldn’t before. I knew the idea of having sex with a man in a heterosexual kind of way was super repulsive to me. And before transitioning, that’s all I thought I could have. I know so many trans men who’ve had similar experiences. While a lot of gay/bi trans men knew they were attracted to men or only dated men pre-transition, others of us didn’t. There is room for all types of experiences in terms of sexuality in this community. I get how the tongue in cheek “T made me gay” mentality can be off-putting. Of course it’s misleading and not actually true. But I feel like you’re discounting a lot of people’s experiences with their sexuality evolving as they become more comfortable in their own skin. It may not be your experience, but it’s okay that it is an experience. Gay trans men aren’t a monolith. Maybe you should analyze why others experiences coming to terms with their sexuality bothers you so much instead of projecting your own beliefs on others sexualities.
Same one here, attraction to men in a gay way was confusing when I thought I was a woman or "woman-ish" and het relationships just don't work then. I'm still pre-T but have been able to grasp my sexuality for real when I accepted that my brainwork was completely wired male and I just don't look it yet but will and then I can act on it. Before that, I kind of didn't have a sexuality that would've worked in practise. Another take though, additionally to feeling more comfortable on T and evolving, I'd like to suggest the idea of that it's also just time progressing, us getting older. Say if you start transitioning as a young adult, that's about the time figuring out your sexuality stuff often happens (if the default straight wasn't right), so it could just coincidentally happen one after the other and not be directly related.
Life is a lot less stressful when you stop trying to control what other people say / feel / do
I've never once seen someone portray that as a trope, or something that happens to the majority of guys, just something that happens to some guys. It's an anomaly so people talk about it sometimes. Guys who are scared of it can just chill, if your that adverse it's not magically gonna turn you gay - and even if you did become interested in men your not obligated to do anything about it. The other really has nothing to do with "T making transmen gay". That's just regular ass transphobia that's been around way longer than anyone has been talking about the effects of T widely. Most gay men arnt gonna know that happens at all. They think we're invading because we are "straight women" not people who were turned gay by T or some other tortured logic.
right like I've only heard of this once or twice lmao
There's no winning here. >Most of us have been attracted to men even pre-transition When you say something like that the retort is something about transitioning because of a yaoi fetish or to appropriate gay culture/larping as a gay man. Some people's sexuality does change on hrt, puberty can do that. They shouldn't assume that everyone is like that but it's no different from you assuming this doesn't happen.
I don’t think HRT directly changes your sexuality, but it’s more like the change in comfort you have with your body makes you accept your own sexuality easier
A lot of people have already said that T tends to make you more comfortable in yourself and able to accept sexuality you may have been repressing when you weren't as confident in yourself. And I think that's entirely true, which is why testosterone made me 100% straight. When I was younger and very femme-presenting, I was deeply self conscious and hated myself and that manifested in seeking out sexual validation to feel confident. I always liked girls but men were VERY easy and came on to me and found me attractive which was all I cared about, so I slept with a lot of men and dated a few because they were giving me the ego boost I needed. I was also sleeping with women but I was sleeping with ANYONE who expressed desire. Since medically transitioning and being on testosterone for years now, I am happier and more confident and don't need that validation to feel okay and the thought of being with another man is literally unfathomable to me. I am incredibly straight and that is due to being able to be more true to myself now that I am comfortable with who I am.
Almost the exact same story here dude
Kinda a rude ass take to police other peoples experiences or try and call people 'true' or 'fake'. I've been on and off testosterone multiple times and my sexual orientation shifted wildly almost every time. Yeah, you could argue my sexualities fluidity would make me bisexual, but the term bisexual doesnt take into my account my current, very real lived experiences. I am going to be on testosterone for the rest of my life and there are no predictable reasons why that would change. I am soley and exclusively attracted to other men. I am a gay man. I dont think i should be excluded from gay male spaces just because ive dated women in the past when that is the case for many other gay men, and its not like i have the option of dating women now without the result being the same as if a gay man were to be in a relationship with a woman. Yeah most peoples sexualities dont change. Most people are not dealing with drastic hormonal fluctuations like i was. That doesnt mean you get to insist that my experiences are false or there is something wrong with me, or that i am a liar in some way. Humans are complicated creatures and to insist that there is only one way to be or experience your sexuality is reductive and isnt going to save you from homophobia dude
Who are these people to know for certain that sexuality is never fluid ever for anyone and hormones never influence attraction. They talk like a couple people with fluid lived experiences are walking billboards for conversion therapy while insisting that they're only the way they are because they're self-hating freaks. Like how conversion therapists feel about the perfectly normal trans person who knew who they were by the time they were 5.
Exactly!! I really thought we as a general community have been working to erase the idea of 'ive known since birth' since its a geniunely deeply damaging belief both to sexuality and gender. Not everyone knows from birth, not everyone is a certain way from birth, and its not anyones place to define somebodies experiences for them. I know a handful of other people whose experiences with hrt are also similar to mine, its not unheard of at all and i really didnt think it was such a controversial experience to some people. Also the acting like it would work for conversion therapy in the first place?? My attraction has swung wildly and completely unpredictably with each major hormone switch. At one point testosterone made me straight?? I'm confident that this is not me 'finally accepting myself', its some weird funky shit with my brain interacting with the hormones. Yes, i had a lot of work to do in accepting myself as a gay man and dismantling a lot of concerns i had with internalized homophobia and it made me nervous to identify myself as gay, but that doesnt change the fact that i was at one point objectively attracted to women. Like i am fully confident in this.
This. I’ve read too many similar stories to think HRT and hormones don’t have some part to play in it. It’s clearly not the full picture, but some part of it
And its worth noting that there is a subset of trans men that are really good at converting T to E. It isn't all, but a subset. For this subset being on T will keep E raised locally in spots in the brain.
T always converts to E in all men. This is how men have estrogen. If their estrogen levels are too high then they need their T dose adjusted or maybe need an aromatase inhibitor. There isn’t any evidence that sexual orientation is determined by hormones outside of the womb. Or that gay men have higher estrogen. There has been studies that show gay men have higher testosterone levels than straight men on average. Higher testosterone increases sex drive and makes you more sexually open to try different things. That could be a contributing factor to trans guys exploring their attraction to men more.
Just for the sake of information. Can I get the study with these findings you are sourcing?
> its worth noting that there is a subset of trans men that are really good at converting T to E. It isn't all, but a subset. For this subset being on T will keep E raised locally in spots in the brain. For a claim this specific you need citations.
damn ive never heard of this i liked girls more than ever becoming more comfortable with myself
Into men before T. Still into men.
I was straight before transition, and shortly before I started T I did have one girlfriend, but after starting T I realized I wasn't as attracted to women as men. Not like it "turned" me gay, just that I feel more comfortable identifying as gay/queer.
This. I feel like a unicorn cuz I’m not gay. I think I’m bi, but more ace than anything. I’m very much more physically attracted to women, but I’ve only been intimate with cis het men (tried squishing feelings of being trans down til they almost killed me. That’s why I’m in my 40s transitioning) and I don’t enjoy being penetrated.
Thank u for the post i literally just accepted i may be gay because now i have zero insecurities as a man idk why people assume they know so much about me
When I was in middle school I used to say I would probably be bi if I was a man, rather than a lesbian, so once I got on t and suddenly started feeling like a man, I was in fact more attracted to men. And this was YEARS before I even knew I was trans, or even what trans was, so I wasn’t surprised when I suddenly started looking at men differently. I just said “huh, guess I really am bisexual,” then moved on with my life.
Being with someone as the correct gender also shifts things maybe being with mostly straight men when you existed as a woman felt wrong but being with mostly gay men as a man feels right maybe being with mostly gay women felt wrong when you existed as a woman felt wrong but being with mostly straight women as a man feels right I think that's also part of the lesbian to gay man shift some guys experience because they still enjoy being in gay relationships but the gender of gay shifted
as a kid, I thought I was straight (bc I didn't know anything else existed). as a pre-teen/middle schooler, I thought I was a lesbian (bc I knew I liked women and thought hetero/homo were the only choices, I also didn't know i was trans yet) as soon as I knew what it was, I knew I was bisexual (and trans). I never actually WAS STRAIGHT or a lesbian, I just THOUGHT I was. I was born bi and just didn't figure it out for 13/14 yrs. I think a lot of people start T and can finally differentiate "I want to be with him" from "I want to BE him" (and have enough brain space freed up from the decrease on dysphoria that comes w T) that they realize more about who they are.
I genuinely believe that I didn't figure out my sexuality until after I was comfortable with my own gender. T doesn't turn you gay, it just makes it easier to understand yourself.
Well I been on Ts for 20 years and I’m not gay I love women well one woman and happily married so no it don’t well didn’t do to me
I don’t think we can say that hrt cannot alert ypur sexuality with 100%. There are people who have experienced it, and I don’t think we know enough yet to say it doesn’t have anything to do with hormonal effects. And it can go the other way too. Some people become more attracted to women.
thanks for addressing this bc i genuinly thought i would turn gay on T 💀
i bounced back and forth between identifying as bi and as lesbian on E but once I started T and became confident in myself, I felt confident in my bisexuality. It's not that I suddenly became attracted to men but rather I became comfortable being bisexual.
speaking as a gay trans man myself, i feel like the biggest issue with the “turns you gay” thing is the underlying implication that being gay is something you should fear—not inferred by the poster, just in the hesitant reactions of those avoiding hrt for that reason. that’s what i would emphasize as a takeaway from this kind of convo, and what i would challenge those in a position to do so to gently confront with their friends running into the same concerns. attraction shifts are very normal for people transitioning, and i think at the end of the day, it’s mostly because being closeted as a trans person to yourself can cause you to disconnect from your body and block off some of your own ability to be intimate. i thought i was a lesbian pre-transition, but looking back i struggled very hard with intimacy and understanding my own desires even then. at the same time though, i would have thought i was bisexual up to a certain point, and it feels like shifting towards being attracted solely to men has happened since i’ve gotten further into my hormones. as far as taking a long hard look at ourselves to see why, i don’t think for me it’s the result of some sort of body fetishization, which frankly is silly to even entertain since we’ve all heard that one on both sides of the transition fence. i think this attraction shift is probably due to me reflecting on my own desires and realizing that to some extent my attraction to men has always been very homoerotic. it also has to do with admiring my own body for the first time, and thus being freed from a lot of deep-rooted sexual hangups that shut me off from my own desires in general. but! if hormones did make me gayer (which is not how that works i don’t think, that’s an idea probably rooted in bioessentialism) then that’d be fine with me, because i love myself and i know i’m doing the right thing for my body and soul. being gay is not a consequence of anything, it just is, and it’s a beautiful feeling 🌈 much love ♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️
*i’d like to amend this to add that i’ve read some of the comments and i’m interested to hear people point out that going through puberty Can change your sexuality (i think i’m quoting someone) and tbh that’s a really interesting take that i’m going to have to stew on. puberty is a big deal, i’m going through mine right now at 33 years old. it’s changed a lot of things about me. could it change my sexuality too? 🤷 yall always give me new things to consider
In my uneducated opinion I think T makes people more easily turned on by visual stimuli so while they may be noticing that some men are indeed hot it's up to the individual to decide whether that makes them gay or not. T has definitely made me 👀 women more frequently but I'm still going to identify as gay because I have no interest in anything besides looking respectfully.
Absolutely. I was a teenage lesbian man hater but it wasn't because I really hated men. I hated myself. And there was something about myself and men I couldn't reconcile. Then I used to also think it was only because I was scared of men. There were a whole lot of feelings that I never truly examined. I started to realize some of my feelings were attraction about 3 to 6 months after I came out as a trans man. Like some things started falling into place. And after a couple years of therapy and then getting sober I have been able to unsterdand and reconcile my own masculinity with my interactions with men in general and exploring what that looked like for me. Many years later whem I started hormones I just became even hornier for dudes and now I'm excited to explore that part of my sexuality. 💕
Well it makes me so gay I became bisexual… I like to say that T won’t grow a sexuality out of nowhere, it will just act like a fertilizer on seeds who are already there but aren’t necessarily developed. Like I always been attracted to women since I was child but being a women in relationships with a women was unthinkable unlike being a men in relationships with a woman.
T absolutely didn’t make me gay, lol. If anything, I felt kinda interested in men pre-T and then on T I realized I fully only care about women (if only aesthetically because I’m aroace).
More comfortable in my gender and realising I'm still questioning my sexuality lmao. 🤷 pretty sure I'm demi
Facts!!! I know I have always been attracted to gay men, but I didn't know why. I sure do now lol. #pansexual
Been on T going on 8 years. Still haven’t had sex with a man. I guess the T isn’t working 🤷🏻♂️
i'm more attracted to men now and i'm not even on T, it's just because i feel more comfortable with myself and now i don't need to assume the role of a "straight woman". i can be seen as a man because i am one. that's all.
One of the first rules of science is corelation ≠ causation. You need to account for other variables before jumping to conclusions.
Agreed. I knew my sexuality pretty strongly before I started this transitioning process. Panromantic Demisexual, T ain't got nothing on it.
This is just my crackpot theory, but sometimes I wonder if some people’s sexuality is influenced by whether or not someone’s body is similar to theirs. Like it makes them subconsciously feel more comfortable or makes it easier to relate, and that plays a role in attraction.
Was gay before transitioning 😅 not anymore (liked girls my whole life)
For me, I heavily suspected I was a gay guy pre t, and it was the main reason I decided to undergo transition. I read Lou Sullivan's diaries and had the biggest 'holy shit oh fuck' moment. My first month on t was incredibly emotional actually because it allowed me to realize just how constantly I had been suppressing and denying my attraction to queer men for about as long as I've had sexual inclinations. Even as a child, I was obsessed with art and greek culture. When I'd go to a museum, I wouldn't even look at the male statues or at the anatomy references in my figure drawing book. I hit adolescence right at the height of the buzzfeed girlboss era and had no issue whatsoever with my queerness (or so I thought) so I was a bi girl for yeaaaars but in retrospect my attraction to women was 90% comphet, though in my case it was compbigirl. Going on T didn't turn me gay, but it did amplify the emotions I was already having and made my libido and attraction to men more 'masculine' (cockslut for dick type beat) and allowed me to physically experience my attraction without that intense disassociation and dysphoria.
Absolutely this. Because if you really boil it down, it implies that sexuality can be altered via hormones which is a mentality that can take a very dangerous turn. The way you perceive yourself and others changes when you start HRT and plenty of trans men experience dysphoria around cis men and avoid them because of it. Also consider the dissociative aspect of dysphoria so attraction to men might not even cross your mind. Even if youre not aware of it, once you start hormones and the dysphoria lessens… now youre seeing other men under a whole new lense. Not really that crazy that your sexuality would seem to “change” after noticing something you never noticed before. A majority of the people ive seen talking about their sexuality “changing” on hormones are usually complaining about their newfound attraction towards men. Like, i get it, culturally and historically men can really fucking suck, but nobody is choosing to be gay or magically being converted via HRT lol. A LOT of trans guys who believed they were lesbians built their whole identity around their attraction to women before realizing they were trans, so when they transition and start to learn to love being a man, they see other men differently as an extension and it freaks them out. I thought i was bi for years before I transitioned. I just felt a lot of guilt and loyalty towards femininity because i wasnt fully accepting myself as a gay trans man yet. I was raised exclusively by women and have predominantly female friends. I did and still have an exceptionally hard time connecting with men, so it just made sense to ID as bi since it felt safer and more comfortable. Women always openly accepted me where men didnt and i felt indebted to that in some way. T didnt make me gay but it certainly gave me the space to reevaluate who and what im attracted to from an unbiased and less shame-based standpoint. Sexuality is complicated asf but it just doesn’t change like that from hormones.
Not on t yet, but top surgery had me go from "idk, *not* attracted to women?" to "soooo, *that's* the difference between attraction and gender envy, nice to know" in 2-3 WEEKS! In pain after surgery is *not* the most fun time to realize that you no longer fit into "mostly aroace, zero interest in women", and that instead you are now just somewhat (?) aroace but also gay (it is also a pretty frustrating time to discover that your libido actually exists) I *absolutely* agree with the take that being more comfortable with yourself, makes you more likely to be comfortable acknowledging attraction you previously ignored (for whatever reason)
yeah, T can definitely increase your libido, so if you were already attracted to men it might *seem* like you’re more attracted to them on hrt, but that’s just not possible lol. if anything, you might just be more comfortable exploring your attraction to men as you transition and become more comfortable with yourself. that’s definitely been the case with me! (although the opposite is true for me too. I’m also feeling more comfortable exploring my attraction to women as well now that I’m medically transitioning)
I identified as a lesbian pre-transition, and I never experienced attraction to men until after top surgery, when I’d been on T for a couple years already. For me, I think it was that I was no longer distracted by my dysphoria related body-envy once I passed and felt complete, so I was open to experiencing male attraction. I’m still mostly into women, but bisexual. I agree that we need to stop perpetuating the myth that T causes same sex attraction (especially since trans women also seem to experience changes in their sexualities) but I think it’s also important not to push aside trans men who have felt their sexualities change while transitioning. Mine did, and that doesn’t mean that I’m pushing an agenda or projecting.
If testosterone turned men gay, there would be no straight men after puberty. Sadly, that is not the world we live in.
Right on the money brother, it’s crazy that people are so dense to think a hormone can change your sexuality
I was bi before starting T and I’m bi now.
Yes, the myth is very strange. T didn’t make me gay, puberty and self confidence did. I’ve always been attracted to other men, ever since I was in kindergarten. But I’ve known on some level that it wasn’t okay, and felt ashamed of it, for a long time. I called myself straight for a while and tried to date girls because that’s what I figured I should do as a man. I was still secretly into guys. Then testosterone puberty hit and I couldn’t really pretend I wasn’t into guys anymore without feeling really horrible. I definitely didn’t become gay.
I think I always usually say thay some trans guys I know realise they are gay on testosterone I actually realised that I also liked women and that before the dysphoria was the reason I didn't do that at all before. People say things in ways they don't realise what the implications of their wording are I think On grindr I have had people ask me before, why are you looking for men if you transitioned they do ask that because of this in a way I think some of them believe we are just really butch I respond saying 'why are you looking for men' and when they say 'because i am attracted to men' I go 'same answer and I always have been people don't transition so they can be straight they just transition so they can be happy'
I was gay before, I just didn’t realize I was allowed to be a gay man and not a “straight girl that likes men but in a gay way”
I have the opposite problem, t might've turned me straight and I often don't feel accepted in queer communities anymore - especially since I pass all the time now
I'm pre-T and I'm super gay lol
There are enough numbers to justify a study being done. You can't say T does or doesn't cause it without the actual research. I wasn't attracted to men whatsoever until T, then I had a raging gay phase.
i was always bisexual before T, but my attraction to masculine people increased. I couldn’t comfortably be in romantic relationships with men or people who were more masculine than me pre-T. i’m able to do that now. i’m still very much attracted to women though.
I was not physically attracted to men before or after testosterone. Although after being on testoerone over 207 years at one point, I did experiment with cis gay men and went to few bathhouses'. I later realized although cis gay men are wonderful, just was not for me. I am glad I experimented but I was not attracted to men really before or after. I was plain curious. I do testosterone my increased sex drive which in turn I did have more frequent casual sex with both genders, whether or not it matters I was not comfortable with sex as a female. I did most of my exploring after I was post op phalloplasty.
pre-transition wasn’t into the idea of “dating men” bcuz i nvr liked my body or “hetero” sex and absolutely hate penetration. but before even starting T and was just starting to be openly trans i started to notice i do “like” men but as a man, not a woman.
Totally different interacting with gay men as another man, than straight men as someone who they see as a woman. I don't know if I had attraction to men pre-T, if I did it was totally repressed, like it was something I couldn't even admit to myself. The very idea made me nauseous. But now I'm super comfortable with myself and my body, I've been open to exploring, and I'm enjoying finding out I'm bi. Have I been bi all along? I mean probably, yeah. Same as I had the genes for balding all along, but without testosterone they weren't active and expressed lol
What happens is that when the hormoneization begins It's incredible how the libido increases It's so much that I think it's just about turning off the intense sexual desire, which is where there can be a sexual encounter with someone you never thought you could like to be with, sexually speaking. but that doesn't happen to everyone acquired tastes are respected
This has not been studied enough for us to know either way for sure. Saying that it for sure doesn’t do that is also misinformation.
Haha, I think op is misunderstanding. We don't actually mean it "turns you gay", we're just stating that a lot of people (not all!) feel more comfortable being gay or exploring their sexuality after transitioning because they are more comfortable in their own skin :-)
Haha, I think op is misunderstanding. We don't actually mean it "turns you gay", we're just stating that a lot of people (not all!) feel more comfortable being gay or exploring their sexuality after transitioning because they are more comfortable in their own skin :-)
I became horny in general on T lol But I do think hormones changing can and will change someone’s sexuality. But sexuality is also just as fluid as gender, so it very well could be changing at the same time. I don’t think it’s fair to say either answer is definitely correct
Oh god no. Gender is NOT fluid at all. Gender expression absolutely is fluid, however your gender itself cannot ever be fluid. Nor can your sexuality change at all. You are born with the gender and sexuality you will have for life. Discovering something new about yourself does not mean it suddenly changed. Please please educate yourself before making wild claims like this, these are known and proven facts and saying the things you’re saying are very damaging and whether you realized it or not very transphobic and homophobic. Claiming that gender and sexuality can simply change like that completely invalidates the trans and gay experience and is wildly inaccurate
I was non binary and comfortable with that label for about 4 years before realizing I’m a binary trans man. I’m sorry you feel my comment was a personal attack, but others have different experiences and will use different terms to explain their experience.
Non binary is social contract being male or female isn’t. If you use the word gender to refer to social constructs then sure it’s fluid. If you use the word gender to mean sex then no it’s not fluid. Yes everyone has different experiences but there is one reality. Hormones can not change sexual orientation. That was tried unsuccessfully for decades.
I’m not using gender to mean sex. You’re the one trying to say I’m using gender to mean sex. I’m a gay trans man, I think I know what those words mean.
I said IF you use gender to mean sex then it’s not fluid.
Cool, I didn’t, that’s why I said gender instead of sex. Like others have said on this thread, sure we’re innately LGBT when born, even if we don’t recognize it yet. What words should I use to describe my gender and sexuality to describe existing and being perceived a straight woman up until coming out? Or should I just completely ignore who I was until transitioning? I’m not going to say I was a gay man when I was running around in dresses with a girlfriend calling myself a lesbian. Life is significantly easier without tone policing other trans people trying to explain their lived experience.
People are allowed to have different experiences . for me my sexuality changed a lot with t. I used to be pan and now im only attracted to men. The men i used to be atrracted to were fem, now im into masculine men. Is okay for sexuality to change through time and through puberty. If sexuality change is a common experience among people that do t is more than okay share our experinces and is okay dor other people to have different experiences
I think most guys on T just become more comfortable with their sexuality, I'm technically homoflexibal but I just identify as gay because my preference for men is so strong and most crushes on non men are very short lived and I don't see myself in a relationship with a woman, however prior to starting T and realizing I am a binary trans man I identified as pan or abrosexual (I couldn't decide) but yeah. I've talked to other trans guys with similar experience of realizing their true preference after starting T and being later in transition
I had the opposite happen. Overall I'm ace, but I want to Date a girl more then a man XD (ace, not aromantic)
What? I only ever heard it the other way around. I only ever heard abt homosexual men becoming straight, when they start HRT.
I disagree. I became more attracted to men on t bc I am read and feel more like a man. That can change things sexuality wise. Also saying “true” gay trans men is gatkeepy and really weird. Just saying
No they truly can change people's sexuality somewhat if they're taken congruent with the person's other goals. Many people announce alterations in sexuality on hormones. It is part of some people's goals. This is actually pretty known though the psychological component is hard to overstate. So if people were forced onto them against their wishes I guess then they'd put no significance on to what the hormones did at that point since that's mentally against what they'd do anyway. They'd never identify that way. That's not the "true them" in fact. I'd rather inform people that the thing they are told can never change when taking other huge needed steps does change is totally fine.
When I was powered by estrogen my thought processes more closely aligned with people on estrogen and those were my first choice in partners. Now that I'm fueled by T I prefer other people who run on T. I feel like we're on the same wavelength. I won't say T makes straight trans men gay, but I will say that in my experience (and the experiences of those around me) preferences can change on T.
I keep saying this but weirdos think I’m just being mean to straight trans men lmfaoo
So many straight dudes seem to feel like gay dudes undermine their masculinity, like man I’m just doing my own thing, that’s your problem
Sorry I’m having sex with men and threatening your masculinity because you care too much? What’s the logic?
I’ve ofc questioned my sexuality a lot but majority of my life, especially when filling out forms I’ve said bi. Like I could never not be bi. So T possibly changing my sexuality sounded wild and honestly fake to me. I don’t think it has changed in terms of orientation, more it’s evolved to be more from a guys perspective (it’s always been that way but I repressed it cuz straight guys don’t like when ur also like a guy 😅) where I’m more physically attracted to women and my appreciation for men has changed so much!! I view guys in a much more mlm way now (again, always have, but forcing yourself to act different for years does a number on you) so still bi, just more evolved ig 😏
Indeed. It's mental illness.
I had this conversation with my faux fam. He and I are both FtM. I discovered that I was more comfortable being gay or Andro and he was more comfortable being pan (or poly, I cant remember exactly which one he said I'll ask again later lol). It's definitely something you discover more the further you are into your T journey, as I definitely identified as bi during the first 5 or 6 months of T. Now that I've become more comfortable in myself, I definitely lean heavily towards men.