Mental Changes

[Aly Cat]

So it seems that the majority of the TS community prefers having a male partner. I have read statistics that show roughly 80% go with male partners or husband's. My question is, was it always this way for you or did something click in you're head that changed your thought process to liking guys... almost like a rewiring of the brain. Did any of it have to do with HRT or did you always know you wanted to be with a guy?
Logically it makes sense to be with a guy if you feel like you always should have been a girl. I myself can't see myself with a guy ever. I am attracted to women 100% and can't see how that would change. Then I guess I would fall into that 20% trans lesbian category? Is this subject to change based on chemical changes inside me?

I just wanted to hear some of your thoughts on this. Thanks!!

[JohnH]

Don't feel you are the odd one out. I have been on HRT for over two years, and I absolutely have NO desire to be with a male. I am happily married to a GG.

Johanna

[Angela Campbell]

I kind of doubt that anything will change my preference for women. I think it has a lot to do with the way I socially interacted with the males growing up. I never felt comfortable around any boy or man and always felt threatened by them. My feelings have nothing to do with genitalia but the behaviors. Then again I have never had a successful relationship so far with anyone.

[Leah Lynn]

I haven't been on hrt very long, I definately want a woman partner. Hmmmm... So far, 3 for 3.

Leah

[Kaitlyn Michele]

If you are transsexual, there is a chance that you will end up wanting to be with a man..that's about all anybody can say with any certainty.


If you are very certain about your sexuality right now, there is a better chance that you will continue to want to be with women

Have you EVER (and I mean EVER) wondered or thought about being with a man...even as a transgender fantasy type thing?

There is something about actually living as a woman that opens up your mind to your own nature..

[Angela Campbell]

Lets just say that I have "been with" some women who had something extra and I kind of like the something extra, but it is the "man" part I am not attracted to.

[sandra-leigh]

Would you have a citation for the 80% figure? The figure that I seem to recall is much lower.

[I Am Paula]

I have no clinical proof whatsoever, but my therapist told me that HRT can't change your sexual preference, but, in her experience, those sitting on a fence about it more often fall on the male side. She also said that pheromone receptors seem to change to 'female', and suddenly men start smelling enticing. This was strictly anecdotal.
Since starting HRT, I've found myself at my most libidoless ever. I have very little interest in anything sexual. Last week in a gay bar I noticed that the air seemed charged with sexuality, and suddenly I noticed the guys seemed to smell really attractive ( in a jungle heat way). I was relieved, cause I was worrying that I may never again feel any sexual attraction.

[Inna]

To my own assumption, denial of one self went so deep that my hyper masculinity overshadowed my true self. As much so, that I was a homophobe, extremely malish male, semi pro body builder, and loved ONLY woman.

HOWEVER!!!
within my subconscious I was pursuing the characteristics of a masculinity within my girlfriends and then my wife, in fact I was always surprised how dissatisfied I was with my relationships. I was seeking strength, I wanted for my partner to hold me in their arms, caress, give me sense of comfort and safety.....
Funny how it sounds now, geeee, but to my own surprise all this I thought I can get from a woman.......sounds familiar, yeah, DENIAL!
So now as I have over come the denial, became true self, I see that what I was seeking in a partner was all but a woman.

So when assessing you own sexual core, ask your self, what characteristics am I seeking within the feeling of partnership?
You may be surprised that sexuality never really changes, what does change, is the Denying of truth, stereotyping one self within confines of societal pressure, and DENIAL of SELF!!!!!

[Marleena]

I've heard and read the same thing as Paula (Celeste). Sexual preference can change but it is rare. Being over a year into HRT my preference has not changed.

[Kimberly Kael]

I'm in agreement with the general sentiment here: your mental model for attraction is unlikely to change, but some of the motivations do. If you're strongly motivated by societal expectations? Then a male/female relationship will start looking more attractive. If you've been attracted to men all along but trying to suppress it? You may find you have the perfect excuse to pursue it. If you were motivated by who showed an interest in you? Pheromone changes might have an impact.

... but if you have an emotional connection with an individual, that doesn't change. If you find women appealing because of their socialization, that doesn't change. I still can't imagine being attracted to men on an emotional level after 18 months of HRT, and that has always been the foundation of my relationships. Lastly, libido changes are very real. I find the "need" aspect of my sexuality to be greatly diminished, but sex is every bit as enjoyable as before.

[Chickhe]

No idea where you go that data, but I thought it was the other way around, that 80% prefer their original partners...

[Nigella]

I daren't say, my SO might read this :o

[Sandra]

I daren't say, my SO might read this :o

:slap:...............

[Marleena]

Lmao! I knew that was coming! :)

[MatildaJ.]

Wiki says some research shows that transsexual women are 38% bisexual, 35% attracted to women, and 27% attracted to men; adding the numbers means that 73% are attracted to women (38+35), and 65% are attracted to men (38+27).

Since there are many more straight men than lesbians in the world, it makes sense that a bi woman (trans or not) will be more likely to end up with a man than a woman. (Assuming they don't maintain a relationship with their wife from before transition).

[Aly Cat]

Thank you all for your input. The 80/20 figure was something I read on a TS flipboard article and you know what they say about what you read on the Internet lol. I appreciate all the input. I have fantasized about having intercourse with the partner having male parts but I have never really been attracted to males. Also, the fantasy was always imagined as me being a genetic female. Who knows. I guess time will tell.

[dunkelkreuz]

well i am glad i am with the 38% from the begining. But it is not only hrt that changes sexuality. A few girls i know have been exclusively into women even years into HRT but had a shift towards men after srs.

which begs an important question: is it possible to be sexual attracted to men and emotionally attracted to women? Just wondering?

[I Am Paula]

"which begs an important question: is it possible to be sexual attracted to men and emotionally attracted to women? Just wondering?"
That's me. No desire for a holding hands at the movies relationship with a man.

[MatildaJ.]

is it possible to be sexually attracted to men and emotionally attracted to women?

Sure, but it makes it hard to build a stable monogamous relationship. Although you might be able to find a gender-fluid guy who could satisfy you in bed but was also emotionally open and responsive to you.

[Kathryn Martin]

I am with Inna on this one.

[KellyJameson]

In my opinion even though sex and gender are separate they bleed over into each other. I remember how I was "emotionally" at three years of age as that emotion that resulted in my adopting a female identity that became stronger with each passing year until I eventually suppressed it for survival so bascially I turned my back on my known identity.

This same emotional energy also shapes my sexuality and this resulted in both my sexuality and gender living in a "no mans land" between homosexuality / heterosexuality and female / male gender identity.

I was trapped between opposing worlds and when this happens you simply cannot know what or who you are. You remain formless and unknown to yourself. This is in part where some of the anxiety comes from because you start searching frantically for the self but because you are not aligned between and with body and mind it becomes impossible to live in such a way that you can test and taste your world in ways that will give you satisfying answers.

You live cast adrift without rudder or anchor. At its most severe it leads to mental illness.

As a female I resonate with men but only very masculine straight men but would be clueless in how to give or experience sexual pleasure with them from inexperience where being "female minded" and " experienced" I knew exactly how to please a woman because her thoughts and feelings were easily known to me and I caused incredible emotional suffering for women who became intimate with me because she had no natural defenses against me where she would a man.

It is impossible for a woman to hide her mind from me where men can. I have to work at understanding men where with women it is effortless because our brains work the same way.

Men fascinate me because they are opposite me so intrigue me but woman give me the comfort of the familiar. This is exactly opposite how men experience men and women.

In my opinion being a transsexual and transitioning means starting over like you are at the begining of puberty so you are resetting your life and now will discover your sexuality and gender to see what you will become

The majority of people are heterosexual so it would make sense that transsexual women would have an interest in men and many admit to thinking they were gay in their teens and later years.

When I was fifteen I was on the path to becoming my best friends lover and what I experienced with him felt "normal" where with all the woman I have known it never felt "normal" as that connection not with our bodies but my connection with his mind and my mind.

It is very difficult to be with a woman sexually because she is to much like me and I am to much like her. It is not a body thing but a mind thing.

I have little interest in sex except as connection and intimacy and I could never find this with a woman and it would have to be that one man out of a million for it to work but the potential is there when it never was with a woman.

For me transsexuality made sex an extremely complex experience. It is impossible for me to think casually about sex.

[Ann Louise]

I purposely tried not to read the above responses very closely so as to arrive more directly at what I actually feel on this topic, and although I've only been on HRT since early this year, I can say that while I thought I was attracted to women for my entire life, and in fact have been married several times, presumably attesting to a strong attraction to women (not!), I find that I am indeed realizing an attraction to men.

It's not straightforward, though. I have been a caretaker, breadwinner, handy-person, combatant, and played lots of other stereotypical male roles over many decades in my attempt to breath life into my former male shell. And while I still am very attracted to genetic women visually, that's getting quite complex though, as now I think I'm actually checking out their hair styles, makeup techniques, style of clothing, manner of speaking and moving, and intonation of their voices, far far more than generating any sexual fantasies. My spouse tells me that women always do that checking out thing, too. In fact, given the average caliber of the men on the street, she maintains that women rarely even look directly at them. It's women dressing and interacting with women, for women. Men are like waiters in a restaurant apparently. There when you need them, but best hovering somewhere off-stage until then... LOL

Indeed, visually speaking, most men on the street repulse me. Drab, baggy, worn out, partially unshaven, and little style or flair whatsoever, except perhaps a bit of swagger and bravado, the basis of which escapes me. All trying to outdo each other in: (1) jeans, baggy and shapeless, (2)a silk-screened t-shirt, or a variation of an untucked dress shirt, with that sexy top-two-buttons-unbuttoned look, and (3) the ubiquitous ball cap, perhaps with those racy sunglasses perched atop the brim, part of the NASCAR thing I suppose.

But there are a few really handsome ones who are now causing me to double and triple take on them. And the peculiar thing to me is that, whereas sex with these few, select specimens is definitely part of my fantasies, a much more significant component of those fantasies is that someone would hold me, caress me, care for me, protect me, value and love me like the most important woman in the world. I could be the one coveted and sheltered, rather than the other way around. The sex part is only a small part of my emerging attraction and fantasy regarding men.

But speaking of smell? I have the misfortune of routinely being confined to long elevator rides packed with people in my 50+ story building downtown. And Oh My, to be stuck in those close confines with a bunch of males? Yuk!!! LOL I sure don't get any kind of pheromone rush from the "Joe's" in those elevators, that's for sure. I've discovered that I can indeed hold my breath for 40 floors!

So perhaps the sexual component of the male attraction, or lack thereof, gets the primary focus of many of us, but in my case it's definitely an emotional fantasy and longing that's arising in me as my transition progresses.

Keep smiling girls! :battingeyelashes:

)*( Ann )*(

[thechic]

I was a bit worried on first reading this, I though o the treatment im taking, I might start looking for some man latter in my life , but no im happily married to my wife with a beautiful family, have no real desire for a man . but my mind hasn't changed yet.