Sexuality and hormones question

[Kate T]

OK So I amreading and researching and trying to understand a few things regarding sexuality, sex and gender.

Specifically I want to ask how you feel hormones have affected your sexuality. I am defining sexuality here according to the American Psychological associations (APA)definition i.e. the emotional and physical attraction to others.

The APA website information on sexual orientation is that it is not a conscious choice. The website states "the core attractions that form the basis for adult sexual orientation typically emerge between middle childhood and early adolescence. "

Whilst not specifically stated the implication from what I read is that sexual orientation typically does not alter once formed. Yet on these forums and other places on the web, particularly those on hormones (notably estrogen) note a change in sexual attraction.

Assuming that many on this forum have used / are using hormones do you feel your sexuality has changed?

[Julia_in_Pa]

Adina,

I've always been bi-sexual. After close to eleven years on HRT I'm still the same to the exception of finding men not being able to commit to a relationship. This has pushed me towards the female side for relationships.
Sexually speaking I like both.

There ya go!


Julia

[Bree-asaurus]

Hormones don't change your sexual attraction. That attraction was always there, but it was repressed. Once you start hormones and start feeling more comfortable as yourself, you also start to accept and be comfortable with your true sexual attraction.

Your sexual attraction may or may not "change" because you may or may not be repressing it.

I thought I liked girls, swore I did, but it never really felt right. I started questioning this before I started questioning my gender identity. I came out as "gay" first, and once I opened my eyes to that, I started questioning my gender. So I kind of had it in reverse.

[Aprilrain]

Well I always knew I was a girl, at least sexually, having a male body and subsequent male gender role made the whole thing pretty damn confusing thats for sure! I like girls and boys (what's not to like!) but currently have a BF. I feel pretty lucky to have found a really great guy! There are a lot of DUDS out there thats for sure! So far I have been with several woman and one guy, my relationship with my BF seems less strained than my relationships with woman but I have not been with a woman as my true self so maybe it would be different. Anyway I'm pretty happy with the person im with so I will just have to wonder for now ; )

[Princess Jen]

I had always been attracted to girls before I started HRT. Nothing has changed in that regard but after telling myself it would really be okay, I've noticed a handful of guys that I think are really cute! I'm not necessarily interested in dating any of them, though I just might make an exception for the right one. :daydreaming:

[sandra-leigh]

No change here, other than reduced physical ability to experience attraction.

I guess I don't look at pictures as much as I did, but I suspect that is partly due to the psychological effect of feeling even further cut off from the possibility of anything happening.

That is, suppose you saw a sexy and relatively recent picture of someone: you might know intellectually that they are married or that they are with someone else, but in some corner of your mind you might well tell yourself, "Okay, so nothing is going to happen today, but Things Change and they could break up and Something Could Happen!" such that the two of you end up together. One can end up holding a physical and emotional connection towards someone for decades even.

But now that the physical part is not in-circuit much at all, it is all too easy to "bad-talk" oneself about such possibilities. Yeah, I know that they weren't exactly "likely" outcomes, but now my mind tosses in a "Oh right, who are you trying to fool? What would they want with someone like you? Like, besides you being a freak, you wouldn't do very well at satisfying them anyhow!"

Going on hormones can get to be very lonely that way. "You will never have a normal emotional/physical relationship again!" and "You've already had this much difficulty in forming relationships in your life, and now you've gone and thrown away your chances with most of the population that might have put up with you!"

I do read sometimes that some people find successful relationships, but when you go on hormones, the possibilities can seem far far far away. :sad:

Now, I should say that at least in the area I live in, going on HRT does not necessarily mean at all that your friendly interaction with the gender you are attracted to, will up and vanish. I seem to be meeting a whole series of people who seem friendly and at least sympathetic (and some of them even seem to be a bit "interested" in me.)

But transition, even if only at the HRT level, is often a process of giving things up and leaving them behind and mourning them, and that can be hard on a person. It might turn out to eventually be the case that you find a wonderful person who will be willing to have a relationship with you as you are, but for the great majority of us, we first have to say goodbye to that as a "realistic-seeming possibility": and most of us have to give up the possibility as a priority. Not until we have passed through and made peace with our new selves, gains and losses both, do most of us have a chance of opening ourselves up to the sexuality and relationship possibilities around us.

I know for me it was a rough decision: to hang on to the life I had with its theoretical possibility of finding a "normal" relationship a decade or two in the future, or to say "I can't go on just 'existing' for another few decades against the imagined possibility of a
future relationship: this is something I need to get through my every-day life in the here and now; let the decades-off future take care of itself."

[Kate T]

Thankyou for responses so far.

It sounds like hormones have had little effect on respondents sexuality. It sounds like Princess Jen you may be expressing some level of what Bree is talking about i.e. the pschological set you now have and your HRT allowing you to express an attraction to males that may have always been there?

I perhaps should have been more specific too in asking that, provided respondants were happy to, replies specify what elements of HRT they are on (i.e. anti-androgens, Estrogen, Progesterone) in order to differentiate things out a little more.

[Amber99]

No change for me, I liked girls before and I still do. I'm only nine months in though so I guess it could still happen technically but I know it never will because men are gross!

[CharleneT]

I'm not sure that knowing my regime will help in understanding any sexuality changes ... but for the record, my HRT (until SRS) was Estrogen (EV via IM), Spironlactone (low dose), Avodart (Dutasteride). After a little more than a year Progesterone was added, IM version. Right now I am on just EV.

Prior to HRT I was bisexual, and I am still. Before I was more interested in women than men. Now I am only 7 weeks post-op, so it is a little early to say, but it seems that I am more interested in men.

[Kate T]

I'm not sure that knowing my regime will help in understanding any sexuality changes ... but for the record, my HRT (until SRS) was Estrogen (EV via IM), Spironlactone (low dose), Avodart (Dutasteride). After a little more than a year Progesterone was added, IM version. Right now I am on just EV.

Sorry, I'm not trying to pry per se. But the understanding I have of the research is that Testosterone is principally understood to be a driver of sexual impulses generally, as opposed to estrogen which is usually linked to a sexual preference. Progesterone I think is a furphy and has marginal influence on either physical sex or sexuality. I am more interested to know if the "textbook" interpretation matches up to the actual or clinical experience. Hence the post.

[Aprilrain]

[QUOTE=Adina;2633546], as opposed to estrogen which is usually linked to a sexual preference.

i have never heard that before!

[RiverdanceGirl]

Adina, my surname is Furphy. If you know what that means you must be from Australia. I've always hated my surname.

I'm not on hormones but I started to allow myself to embrace the woman I have always been about 2 years ago. Just in the last couple of weeks I'm finding I like the idea of a man being attracted to me as a woman. Me being *his* woman. So maybe it is psychological too?