Gender identity before sexual orientation?

[Ze]

(I've had too much time to think lately.)

So yeah, basically I questioned whether or not I was a dude way before I questioned whether or not I was attracted to women. When I finally realized I solely liked the ladies, one of my first thoughts was, "Maybe I'm just a butch lesbian and got confused." But then immediately I tossed this thought because it seemed (and still seems) utterly ridiculous. If it really was nothing but orientation woes, there's no reason I would've have taken the larger (and arguably riskier) jump to gender rather than desire first.

For those of you that had both your gender identity and sexual orientation called into question for yourselves, just curious in what order you did it. I don't know if my situation is unique or the norm.

I'd be interested in the answers of both FtM and MtF transfolk, if the latter feels so inclined.

[SirTrey]

Gender first, sexual identity second....I have always felt male and I have always been attracted to women....but....I always knew I wasn't a lesbian, so My sexual orientation was not an issue for Me....I just always felt like a man with a woman. But the medical evidence tells us why....When the brain knows what sex/gender you actually ARE, you then move on to step number two....which is figuring out who you are attracted TO....then you know if you are gay or straight. (edit....or bi)

[ReineD]

Ze, is this thread for anyone to answer?

Gender first before sexual orientation, yes, but what about just basic attraction? I knew when I was about 6 years old that I liked boys in a different way than I liked girls and to me, it was all tied into my realization that I was a girl, I was different from them.

Before age 6 or so, I saw no difference between the genders. I used to fist fight all the boys cos I was protecting my little brother. I remember my parents punishing me because they said that my brother would have to learn to defend himself. I stopped fighting the boys once I realized that I liked them.

[Ze]

Ze, is this thread for anyone to answer?

Sure! Thanks for contributing!

In regards to that interesting question on basic attraction (which I didn't think about), without going into details I personally was somewhat "numbed" regarding attraction throughout childhood. Didn't grasp the concept of it; just went through the motions until I finally sat down around 20 years old and actually thought about it.

[4serrus]

I am not sure. Orientation, I think?

This is going to be confusing and hard to follow. I apologize. It confuses me, too.

In the community I grew up in, boys and girls did not play together. It just was Not Done. The only boy my age I was ever exposed to or had any real contact with before puberty was my cousin, who I saw during occasional summer weekends and at major holidays. I didn't have a real internal concept of gender. I knew I was a 'girl' because everyone told me I was a 'girl' and therefore segregated into the 'girl' half of society. I had little exposure to the boy half of society, and had no idea of how it operated other than it seemed to be loud. I did know that I was different from everyone around me somehow--keeping in mind that practically everyone around me was female. The thought that I might not actually be a girl never occurred to me. I just thought I was defective.

On the other hand, I definitely knew that I liked boys. Not so much boys in general, but specific boys; "I like Zachary" or "I like Evan". Sometimes I would also get that feeling for some of my friends (girls, remember). But that was weird, disgusting and gross, because you weren't supposed to feel that way with other girls. I just took this as further evidence of my being defective.

Then I got to puberty and realized that boys were noticing me and wanted to be around me, even though I was defective, because I was apparently a 'girl' and had boobs. This was okay with me. The concept of "transgender" didn't even enter into my consciousness until I was in my 20s. I had no idea that there were other people who felt like I did. I just though the whole time that I was uniquely wrong somehow.

[Kieron Andrew]

I always knew i was male, but i hid behind the label of lesbian because i have always been sexually attracted to girls so it was easier to get dates that way to experiment...once that started not to fit, i decided to that i needed to come out as trans...so it was sexuality first then gender even though i always knew i was male...does this even make sense lol

[Abraxas]

I dunno, for me it was probably around the same time I would guess. Maybe 8 years old. Although for me, since I'm gay, it was hard to differentiate between liking boys because I was attracted to them as people, or because I wanted to be like them.
That seems to have gone away now that my boyfriend is in the picture and I've started transition. I'm not nearly so concerned with needing to be like someone; now I can just be myself, and be in love with my boyfriend, and the two are definitely separate.

[Faith_G]

Gender identity first, definitely. I had gender issues long before I had any idea what sex was.

The gender identity/body dysmorphia stuff combined with an unrelentingly homophobic upbringing left me with a lot of ambivalence towards sex and I had no clear orientation - at least not that I was willing to embrace. Accepting my gender identity has freed me up to admit that I might <gasp> like guys.

[pamela_a]

Neither and both. Being raised as I was the idea of being attracted to a man wasn't an option. I felt wrong about who (what) I was but I never understood why. I enjoyed female company but I have a difficult time saying I was "attracted" to women. In spite of that I got married and had children. It wasn't until I accepted the fact I was a woman that I even allowed myself to entertain the idea of being attracted to men but even then it was a moot point as I was married at the time.

When I was widowed last October all the barriers I'd built collapsed. I now find myself more and more looking for male companionship. Maybe it's something new or maybe it's been there all along and I've never acknowledged it until now. I'm not sure I'll ever know, but then does it really matter?

[Shawn]

(I've had too much time to think lately.)

So yeah, basically I questioned whether or not I was a dude way before I questioned whether or not I was attracted to women. When I finally realized I solely liked the ladies, one of my first thoughts was, "Maybe I'm just a butch lesbian and got confused." But then immediately I tossed this thought because it seemed (and still seems) utterly ridiculous. If it really was nothing but orientation woes, there's no reason I would've have taken the larger (and arguably riskier) jump to gender rather than desire first.

For those of you that had both your gender identity and sexual orientation called into question for yourselves, just curious in what order you did it. I don't know if my situation is unique or the norm.

I'd be interested in the answers of both FtM and MtF transfolk, if the latter feels so inclined.

I always felt like a guy, so realizing that I was atrracted to females just made sense. I thought that meant that I was a lesbian and I lived that life for many years, but it just never fit me. Now, life is finally right!
Shawn

[Karen564]

[SIZE=2]I believe you need to do both in way at 1st...then concentrate on your gender, and the rest will follow.......But you probably already went through step 1 already...[/SIZE]


[SIZE=2]Like for myself, I always felt born into the wrong gender since the age of 5 and that was way before I had any sexual attraction to any sex...[/SIZE]

[SIZE=2]Then when I got older, I followed suit of what a normal male was supposed do and start going out with girls, which I loved being with the all the girls, but after my 1st sexual experience with one, it all felt so very wrong to me, as in, felt I was the one that should of been one on the receiving end during the act, and also confirmed the feeling that I had the wrong plumbing... then I thought, maybe that girl just wasn't the one for me, so I did it with another & another, etc. but it still left me feeling very, very wrong performing as the male...and feeling even worse that my body didn't match the way I felt inside my head on every level..[/SIZE]

[SIZE=2]Fast forward, 30+ years, that strong feeling of being born as the wrong gender never faded on every level, both physically, mentally & sexually..[/SIZE]

[SIZE=2]So later when I started my transition process & then onto HRT, I left all the sexuality out of the picture & worked on my gender exclusively for years, then let the sexuality fall where ever it may after...[/SIZE]
[SIZE=2]Today, I now have the hots for guy's sexually big time, but I still like to keep all my options open, but either way, I need to be the female on the receiving end..[/SIZE]

[SIZE=2]Sorry if that's TMI....[/SIZE]

[halfman_halfamazing]

i'm gonna say gender identity? idk because whenever i liked a girl, the first time was one of my best friends when i was about 13/14 i never felt like a girl. I never felt lesbian. I felt like a boy with a girl but I did feel kind of like 'whoa, wtf..' like 'what is going on?' i was never a lesbian. high school i had the double life where i was dating my girlfriend online who thought i was bio and i was going to an all girl school where i was just trying to catch a date. It wasnt until i got out that i became more manly and the man before you.
I had gotten girlier in high school i was like ok enough of this boyishness let it go so i finally started listening to my sister on how to dress and such. So i really dont think people saw it coming unless they recall my youth then they could be all 'ohh.. well duh.. there it is'

[LisaM]

Definitely, gender identity first. I remember wanting to be female when I was 4 or 5. My questioning my sexuality was years away.

[NiCo]

Never had a problem with how I see myself gender wise but a few times I questioned if I liked females sexually, males sexually and both. I know I have always liked men, but when I turned about 17 y/o I started having strong feelings for females…it stayed that way until a few weeks after starting T, and then I became less and less attracted to them until it got to the stage where I couldn’t be in a relationship with them. I don’t even know if I could have sex with a female…too many bad experiences perhaps, or maybe I was masking my true self to appear more masculine. Idk.

What I do know is I am a man who likes men…and therefore I am gay. I think I may have experienced normal teenage sexual confusion but I have never doubted what I am gender wise. Never.

[EnglishRose]

As a kid, I had plenty of what could be seen as gender issues but never attributed any of them to gender identity; I guess I accepted the default? So my orientation wasn't set pretty much until around 12, but I never considered myself female until recently.

[Thornton]

Sexual orientation first, gender identity second.

I actually cam out 3 times in my life. First as bi, then as butch lesbian, then finally as straight man. I'm pretty content being a straight man. I don't really see myself walking out of any more closet doors in my future. I feel like things finally make sense. But I can't tell the future. As I stand I don't see it ever happening, but I might end up pansexual. But, yeah, i highly doubt that.

[EDIT] ok, so I should've clarified. I did come out to myself gender-wise at the age of 5 as male, but then I went right back in that closet out of fear. I didn't come back out til the age of 17, when I was sure who I was attracted to.

So which came first, the identity or the orientation, is really up to interpretation.

[Karen564]

[SIZE=2]Maybe I should put this in much simpler terms...[/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2]Your Gender does Not determine your Sexuality, just as Your Sexuality does Not determine your Gender...[/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2]Treat them as 2 separate issues...[/SIZE]

[mapletree]

I just asked myself what I would want to sleep with ?
woman woman woman woman and woman

[WalT]

I knew I was bi/pan around the same time I knew my gender identity (around 3 or 4). I just didn't know what either of them were until I was in my tween years. It's not that I had sexual feelings that early, I just knew I "liked" people, just plain and simple. I saw myself as just plain bisexual until maybe 13 or 14 when I learned about pansexuality, then started identifying as that (though it is much easier to explain you are bisexual to people than pansexual). It's not that my orientation has changed, it's just the words for it have.

However I've been out as pan since I was 13, but still have yet to feel entirely comfortable coming out in the real world as FtM. My sexual orientation was soooo much easier to deal and cope with, let me tell you that (although I still hid my orientation from some of my peers; simply didn't want to attract attention to myself, I was being beaten up enough as it is and didn't want people to just like me because they thought I was a "hot bi chick"). I didn't come to terms with being FtM until about six months or so ago.

[Ashley Lynn Swift]

For me It was diffinantly Gender first. Ever since I can remember my christmas wish every year was to wake up and be the girl I always should have been. growing up I always tended to act more like a girl then a boy. I would always chose playing with barbies over playing with cars anytime me and my friends where playing any type of game I always pretended I was a girl.
then as I grew up and started to become aware of my sexuality i really started to get confused I knew that I was attracted to girls, but there was also an attraction to certain boys too. I even experimented with one of my friend but it didn't seen right. So by the time I reached high school I was identfing myself as a lesbian trapped in a man's body.
Then when I started my transition over a year ago I just alway claimed that I was a lesbian. it wasn't until about two months ago that I found myself starting to feel some attraction to men again. After having been on the Hermonse for about 8 months. Now days I consider myself Bi, but I still prefer women over men, and transmen over both GG's and GM's.

[DanielMacBride]

For me, the first *concrete* thing that was called into question was my orientation. However, let me clarify that - I have known since I was maybe 3 years old that *something* was very wrong, but given the environment I grew up in and the rigid gender conditioning that came with it, I didn't have the parameters or the tools to articulate what that *something* was. I just knew that I didn't fit the usual "girly" things - I hated dresses and ballet and all the stuff my mother insisted on forcing me to do because I wasn't "graceful" or "ladylike" enough (well duh mom, there'd be a reason for that lol...) I used to describe my life as being like walking through a Dali painting (think "Soft Watch", where everything appears solid but is slipping out of reach and you can't get a decent grip) and being the only person who KNEW that's what it was - everyone else thought it was normal. If I look back now I can see the signs clear as day though - I was a total tomboy: preferred jeans, skateboards, climbing trees and the company of boys to dresses, ballet, and tea parties with girls lol.

So when I was about 14 I think, I realised that I was attracted to girls as well as boys so from that point I identified as bi, while still knowing but not being able to articulate *why* I didn't fit everyone else's idea of a girl. Because of a combination of the family expectations, rigid gender role conditioning and not knowing what the other options were (as well as I think a degree of denial - I used to think it was me that was wrong, that I had to somehow try to fit the role I had been placed in), I did all the "girl" things - went through an "uber-femme" phase in my late teens/20s, got married, had kids and threw myself into being a fulltime parent in an attempt to "fit" and to distract myself from knowing that something wasn't right but not being able to pinpoint what that something was. It took me till I was almost 37 years old to figure out exactly *what* was wrong and what I had to do with it o_o

My orientation has been much more fluid than my gender identity - I started out as a closet bi (default mode for people who look like girls in my family was heterosexual, no other options allowed), then about 5 or 6 years ago went through a period of not being attracted to men at all and identifying as lesbian (that lasted about 2 years until the time I came out as trans). During the time I ID'd as lesbian, I had a very brief but strange relationship lol (there was a kinda weird power dynamic thing going on, where both of us were constantly trying to gain the upper hand) and when that relationship ended, I was left with an unsettling feeling that something still wasn't quite right. I knew I still liked girls, so I knew my orientation wasn't in question - so I dug a bit deeper and realised that the reason I didn't fit the female role or feel comfortable in it, was because I didn't FEEL female, and then it kinda snowballed from questioning why a particular power dynamic made me uncomfortable, into realising that I wasn't who I thought I was at all, and finding that a whole lot of stuff suddenly made sense.

Once I actually allowed myself to explore the possibility (or for that matter even realised it WAS a possibility! lol) that my gender was not the same as my birth sex, it was very obvious to me what my gender identity is, and it has remained solid since I realised I'm male - I have never once questioned it beyond "am I sure I'm doing the right thing?" (and the answer is always a resounding "YES!"). My orientation however has been much more fluid - since coming out as trans I have gone from straight guy to pansexual. It has changed, and yet it's pretty much still the same orientation I started with (except that now I don't call it "bi" because having a better understanding of gender, I don't subscribe to the idea that gender is a binary; and to me, "pansexual" covers every possible gender, not just the standard binary options).

*wanders off to crawl into bed since it's almost 4:30am and I have to be up at 8am to take Ethan to school....*

[Ze]

[SIZE=2]Maybe I should put this in much simpler terms...[/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2]Your Gender does Not determine your Sexuality, just as Your Sexuality does Not determine your Gender...[/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2]Treat them as 2 separate issues...[/SIZE]

They're indeed technically two separate issues, but society definitely makes them similar based on how we define sexuality (attracted to "men," attracted to "women," etc) and any variations to man-woman/heterosexual creates a struggle in life. Orientation and gender get all muddled up in my brain sometimes because society likes to put them in related categories.

So that's what I was trying to get across, but didn't know how to say that.

[Leo Lane]

I've been questioning my gender identity since age 6 or earlier. I never thought about my sexual orientation till I was 12.

[Picklebob]

I'm not quite sure what would be first for me. I remember gender roles being impressed on me when I was very young (girls have long hair and wear skirts and boys have short hair and wear pants) and thinking, ok, I'm a boy, I need to do this.

About the time I started 6th grade, I was intently curious about what it would be like to be a girl. At that time, I wished that I could go to bed and wake up the next morning as a girl. I also wished that I could go back to being a guy if I didn't like being a girl. During 7th grade, I found my way into my mother's closet, and decided that I was a crossdresser, even though I "knew" that it was "wrong" from the first time I put on women's clothing.

I continued identifying as a crossdresser until about a year ago when I realized that I was more between genders. Some days I am more feminine, and some days I am more masculine. I now call myself transgender because I kind of find myself in the middle of the gender spectrum a lot.

As far as sexual orientation goes, from the time in 8th grade when I noticed girls, I've never really questioned my orientation. I'm just interested in girls.

[Stephanie Anne]

Oh totally! If it was just a question of orientation, I would have been a happy gay boy years ago. But nooo this whole gender f$%k up got in the way and made me question my orientation to this day.