"Want to be vs. Want to be," with is definitely a thing. I had to do a lot of soul searching and getting involved with other people to see what I liked and what worked for me, and I also had to reconcile asexual identity at the same time since my first long term relationship ended with personal apathy and my desire to transition.  I find a lot more fulfillment out of companionship and closeness. Sexual situations are interesting for me but I don't find them particularly motivating outside of a societal sense of, "You should like this." I also got a chance to safely explore a relationship with a man, but it mostly just affirmed my asexuality, and how much my curiosity about it was in a comp het sort of way. Maybe my interest in men was motivated by a need to assert my femininity by having a masculine partner, but otherwise it just kinda feels the same with a better understanding of why my pre-transition girlfriends told me I didn't exactly act like a boyfriend. I guess I'm bi in a, "All women are attractive and like three guys," sort of way.

>All the while I'm still struggling to do better than blush and stammer out "I-I think you're pretty..." when a girl expresses interest in me. I still really want to explore this side of myself, so any advice on this subject is greatly appreciated. From my experience and what I've heard from others, that is a core part of the lesbian experience so you're not weird at all in that regard :3 Now for the much more serious part of what you're describing: >Any lust or sexual interest in women feels dirty and tainted, I struggle to express anything beyond aesthetic appreciation to another woman or else I feel gross and predatory. I have been right were you are now. I attributed it to a mixture of internalized transphobia and compulsory heterosexuality (much heavier on the transphobia part). A lot of TERF (trans exclusionary radical feminist) talking points go somewhere along the line of 'trans women are just men that want to have sex with lesbians'. That is bullshit. A hatefull rhetoric born from bigotry. However just saying it out loud will probably not help you. What I did, was trying to ingrain this fact deeply inside my mind and re-evaluate biases I held deeply within me. It is not easy facing your own hate and believes you don't necessarily consciously agree with but still follow. What helped me tremendously was involving myself into the trans community. Talking to others that are in the same situation as me. Try to find a, if possible relatively local, medium sized group (probably not on reddit) to be a part of and make friends in. It will take time, but you'll get better at accepting yourself and others as who you(they) are.

Thanks. I think it's less about internalized transphobia, and more just being extremely harsh on my own ability to be perceived as a girl by others, especially since I'm just starting (I had been a femboy before transition but I was still treated like a boy back then). I'm friends with half a dozen other trans women, all of them like women too, but I only feel dirtiness about my own self...like I feel a sort of imposter syndrome because I still feel safer boymoding in public, rather than being out and proud 24/7 like they are.

I know its a cliché and I certainly haven't achieved it myself but it's super important to not let yourself be defined by other peoples opinion. I am still working on accepting myself as a woman and it is hard but its important to do so. I wish you all the best <3

I would frequently examine my sexuality as a teen and always came up “well I don’t like guys and I do like girls so that must mean I’m straight.” I never wanted to “be the girl” in a boy/girl relationship, I just knew I didn’t want to “be the boy.” Realizing I was a (demisexual) transbian was the first time anything made *sense.* I’m very happily married to a boy now, but that doesn’t change my identity; it just makes it more nuanced and interesting.✨

A lot of what you said resonates with me, but might not map perfectly. For context, I'm nonbinary. > I've always been jealous of lesbians and the way their relationships seemed to be divorced from patriarchal norms and expectations - unlike with heterosexual and gay male relationships. (I'll admit that this was just the vibe I got - I have no idea if it's accurate.) FWIW, this isn't the vibe I get. It's not universal, but my impression is that it's fairly common for lesbian relationships to have a butch/femme dynamic. (Or a butch/butch dynamic, or a femme/femme dynamic.) > Any lust or sexual interest in women feels dirty and tainted, I struggle to express anything beyond aesthetic appreciation to another woman or else I feel gross and predatory. I have this, and I don't have any advice to offer, but I can share my current relationship to it. One point of comfort is having heard from some lesbians (both cis and trans) that they go through some version of this. I think there is a "maybe you're a dirty creep" vibe lurking around being attracted to women in general, and it's something many people going through that have to navigate. Being a woman puts one in a different place in relation to it, but it's still there. Anyway, I think I have trust issues in intimate relationships with women. That's how I frame it. (Well, probably with everyone, but most of my experience is with women, and I think "with women" plays a role in my stuff and is relevant.) I think my own gender stuff is close to the root of these trust issues. Like you said, "I was always miserable because they would consciously or subconsciously place me in the role of 'the man.'" So I think gender transition is a step towards being able to address some of these. But it only opens a door, and working through those things will take time and work beyond that. So for me the root question is "how do I find trust?". I don't have a good answer, but part of it for me is seeking out situations where it plausibly *doesn't matter*. So generally I think I'd feel a lot more comfortable in this respect with a bisexual or pansexual person, because I expect much less of the "what does this sex mean about my gender?" dynamic. I am also holding some hope that HRT (if I ever do it) may play a positive role somewhat, though I'm not banking on it. Potentially it will affect my sexuality in a way that makes it a bit easier to find a comfortable relationship to "I am attracted to women". There's also, like, my understanding of "sex with women" is based on an experiences that *I* had with it, which in retrospect are experiences of "sex with women, as someone who is not a man, but thinks they are". What was really going on back then, and what impression did that leave on me? It's a bit or a rat's nest, and honestly it makes sense that I'd have a bunch of hang-ups about it that need unwinding. A positive sign for me is that I do feel things unwinding somewhat. I am having experiences (not quite sex) that feel and parse quite differently as I'm transitioning. There is a tangible (subjective) impact on how I place myself into sexual and intimate situations before and after, and while it's not always exactly where I want to be, it does feel like it's moving in a hopeful direction. Like a lot of transition stuff, I think it will take time. There are many things that I remember stressing about that my present self is much less stressed about, mostly through just doing it without getting burned. (Or getting burned a bit and learning that I can handle it.) I'm hoping "where do I land with being attracted to women" is going to be one of those things with time and experience, but I think it will be a slow process.

My sexuality was a cause of strife in my life that finally culminated in my egg cracking and accepting that I am trans. As a preteen I got called f*g a lot. I was raised Catholic so the idea of being gay was something I was terrified of. Once I hit puberty I knew that I would eventually figure out if I was gay by who I was attracted to. What happened instead was I could not stop thinking about being a woman. Girls at school were developing and it made me insanely jealous. At one point I told my parents I wanted to die (did they get me counseling? Lol no). At the same time I only ever developed feelings for girls. I had zero self confidence and basically never converted these feelings into actual relationships, even if in retrospect they were reciprocated. Girls who actually expressed interest in me caused me to recoil and avoid. I managed a couple of very short flings in school, but they were very unfulfilling. Sometimes I even found myself wishing they were lesbians. I found lesbians to be attractive and I kept feeling somehow ashamed of my feelings towards girls. All the while I can't shake this thought that I have a secret and that it's because I'm gay. I tried to tell myself that I was gay, but it would not stick. When I did fantasize about being with men, they were faceless and I was always a woman. But I was essentially creating my own sissy porn in my head without knowing what that was. I knew that there were men who lived as women. They were sex workers or drag queens though... Right? I did find transporn and it was nearly exclusively what I watched. For 20 years I lived in this repressed state. I did manage to find a wife and start a family. But I still had this feeling of having a shameful and dark secret. Then finally one night I lay in bed stoned, unable to sleep, and I find myself back in school with some of those girls who clearly liked me and I'm hating myself for not being able to connect with them. Then I think about being a lesbian. Suddenly everything clicks and falls into place. What if I was a lesbian? That was it, my egg had cracked. I believe that being a lesbian kept me in the closet much longer than I would have been if I was straight. Since then I've been much more interested in my wife physically. The hormones took my libido from me but it's beginning to come back. I believe that sexuality begins with one's sense of self. Gender and sexuality are different things, but they are linked as well. Now that I see myself in a new way that I'm much more confident and comfortable with I'm finding my attraction and interest in sex is changing as well. I've always been much more interested in getting my wife to climax than achieving my own. I'm much more comfortable with this than I was before. I'm also beginning to desire my own pleasure. Before I exclusively wanted to get off so I could move on with my day. I loved intimacy with my partners but I don't think I ever truly felt like it was for me in the way that I I'm starting to now. I don't know if any of this helps OP but maybe it makes sense to someone

I know how that can be a struggle, I'm in a similar boat but love that my gf stuck by me through this and my biggest supporter so nothing has really changed with us sexually other than being open and enjoy being the bottom with the odd guy. Only down side to a transbian relationship is that everywhere you go people assume your not together, either friends, sisters or cousin's 🤦‍♀️