I lived most of my life simply not feeling attraction at all. I knew from very early that relationships just weren't for me. Years ago when signing up with a new family doctor I remember the intake form asked for my sexual orientation, with only straight and gay as the options; I vividly remember wishing there was a box for "none of the above." But as my transition has progressed, taking me from "some flavour of nonbinary" to mostly accepting myself as a woman, it was as if that whole part of myself suddenly got "plugged in" for the first time in my life. I now consider myself a lesbian and I find myself craving deeper relationships for the first time in my life. I always related far better to women than men, but I never, ever considered going any farther then being friends. I now realize that, at some level, I knew subconsciously that being in a relationship where I was perceived to be/expected to fulfil the male role was simply *wrong* for me, so I disconnected that whole part of myself for decades. And I don't know how it works for anyone else, but when it got reconnected last winter it really did feel like a powerful physical change. Sort of like someone was moving the furniture around in my head. I find all of this stuff fascinating, and often quite magical. Dr. Jamie, I really found your Winchester House metaphor to be absolutely spot on.
Yay! I'm happy somebody liked my Winchester mystery house metaphor. I visited that place as a kid and never forgot it! So cool! Thanks for sharing your experience. I think for many of us our transitions open us up to possibilities that were impossible to conceive prior to transition. It is magical and exciting when you think of it.
I’m a couple months into transition mtf and used to identify as bi-curious, but now I definitely see gender and my own sexuality in a whole new way. I’ve found new attraction to more masculine non-binary energy and have always been attracted to and have attracted queer women, whether it be bisexual women or closeted lesbians. It’s been such a eye opening experience
I started to feel attracted to men about 2 months into HRT. I think deep down I always was, but I just did not want to accept the idea that I am gay. When I first told my male friend that I was transitioning, I told him it would be much easier for me if I was gay. I could not resolve my orientation as I was conflicted about my sexual orientation and my gender identity. The further along, I get in transition, the more I understand that I have always had the orientation of a heterosexual female. Maybe, after I fully transition, I will finally be able to have a sexual relationship that I find fulfilling and satisfying. I was married for 14 years, and I was never able to achieve an orgasm unless I was thinking about myself being the woman. Of course, the marriage failed, I just was not that into heterosexual sex. I always knew it, but I refused to accept it. This denial resulted in a failed marriage and was a selfish attempt on my part to try and be the "man" I knew society expected me to be.
Having transitioned two years ago, at 57, my preferences have definitely changed. Before, while pretending to be male i thought I was bi, about 30% into men and 70% into women. I'm still in a monogamous relationship with a cis woman since 30+ years, but now more of a lesbian relationship and I'm very lucky our connection was strong enough that we "survived" all this. My preferences are now more 50/50 and I look at men in a whole different way, where before i only looked at women with any real interest. Last year I also discovered that i have a type in men, getting all flustered when looking at certain ones. It's certainly been a couple of years of big changes and re-learning what I thought I knew about myself.
Thanks for sharing your experience. 😃🏳️⚧️ These orientation shifts seem to be a normal part of transition. I’m happy your relationship endured the blossoming of the true you. 🌸🩵🩷🤍🩵🤍
Dr. Jamie, I must say it's been incredible watching you come into your gender identity / presentation over the past few years on this channel. You look incredible, and you give me a lot of hope for my own transition :)
I was attracted to women before exploring my gender. Once I started to explore my gender and have sexual relations with men as a woman, I started to feel sexually attracted to men. Now that I am transitioning, I am exclusively sexually attracted to men. Admittedly, I have not had much experience with men and I am not sure how I would react if I had more chances at intimacy with them. I have no desire to be sexual with a woman. As a man, I never had attraction for men and I have never considered myself gay. Am I some kind of repressed homosexual? Before exploring my gender, I had opportunities to be with men and they were never appealing to me. For me my sexuality seems tied to my gender exploration and transition. I know the common wisdom is that gender identity is separate from sexuality. But, my experience is otherwise. I know many trans woman who were attracted to woman pre transition and still are after transition. I do not understand it, but I accept people are different and sexual orientation is quite diverse. Sometimes I think my shift in sexuality has to do with affirming my identity. Yet, as hard as I try to explore it, I cannot bring myself to feel sexually the same as I did before transition. In fact, it is not a problem for me and I connect with and enjoy better my current sexual orientation.
You have a very interesting experience. I have a friend who also became more attracted to men after transition. She was married to a woman and after transition began dating men. She is now in a stable romantic/sexual relationship with a man and very happy. I suppose that last part is what really matters. :-)
@@DrJamieTalks Agreed totally. Actually, I read some research somewhere (unfortunately cannot remember the exact reference) that upward of 40% of people transitioning see some kind of sexual orientation change. Whether all that is a change in interest of one sex for another I am not sure.
@@ericfreshcorn3590 No. Actually, I still am married to a woman I love. Our relationship certainly has changed since I started to transition. We are working to stay together in some way. I think about how nice it would be to have a boyfriend. I am older and am not sure how and if that will happen. Admittedly, it would be an adjustment for me because it has been awhile since I have been with a man, or a woman other than my wife for that matter. Because of my age I am not as sexually driven as some younger girls may be. Truthfully, for now it makes things easier given I still am relatively early in my transition. I have to plenty to think about and work through at the moment. Regardless of anything, I am happier than ever and feel I have a good handle on my sexuality. Thanks so much for your interest.
DrJamie has been a big part of my journey. I discovered her soon after I started hrt and gave me the help and advice, or no advice so I had to rethink things. If you take the time and go through her presentations you will find them to be a vast wealth of information, but you with quickly find a sense of belonging. I for one know that if I hadn't found her work I would have abandoned transition and tried to glue the egg back together.
I figured out I'm aroace, before figuring out I'm nonbinary agender. Prior to transitioning, there can be a lot of shame towards one's own body, leading to a reluctance to explore one's sexuality. While I'm not certain that's the case for me, and I still think I'm aroace, I'd be open to the possibility that I'm T4T. I know I'd probably feel safer in a hypothetical relationship with someone who has had similar lived experiences and faced similar challenges. I'm just not in any rush.
Thanks for sharing your experience. I respect your process. I knew I was aromantic since I was a teen. The sexuality piece has moved around for me. When the predominant hormone in my body was testosterone, I was masculine attracted. When I was on blockers alone, I was definitely asexual and really liked it. As I added in estrogen, still mostly asexual with sparks of interest all across the spectrum.
my earliest attractions were to others of my same assigned at birth sex. with puberty came a crisis with my gender that resulted in a social transition and then detransition when my mother expressed disgust with my gender presentation. after 30 years of repression and feeling no sexual attraction, i eventually medically transitioned once i knew i would un-alive myself if i didn’t start making changes. i’m still asexual. i had a real problem with thinking i needed to exercise my junk to keep it from shrinking from hrt to get a better outcome from bottom surgery. now that i know i want a peritoneal pull through i am happy not to have interact with it anymore. it’s too early to know if my increased interest in women is sexual or just a result of becoming my authentic self and not repressing anymore. i used to be repulsed by women as i identified them with my mother but that has completely changed since i started transitioning again. i’m just excited to be discovering myself and not hiding anymore. i’m trying not to rush things with intimacy.
Transitioning means relating to the world in a different way. You fit in differently. I don't see men as I once did. I don't see woman like I once did. Many people are very dogmatic on this topic. They want to say one's orientation cannot change. In most cases this is true. I am here to say that one definitely can change when one's place in the world changes. Body changes are part of it but so is attitude. And no, there was no suppressing secret desires before transition, before someone claims that is the case here. Believe me I know. It's estimated that about 30% of transitioners see a change in orientation.
Here comes my intellectually genderqueer hot take! I think that there is a continuum where, on one end, people are slaves to their image of themselves and their assumptions about what the big other expects from there. Our characters are always bigger than our stories but then we're also actors - actors that fall in love with the characters we play, and experience pleasure in experiencing how others respond to our character because it gives us a fleeting sense of "realness". These people can suffer because the stories in which we find ourselves are not as well crafted as they could be. People on the other end of this continuum are quite conscious of this scheme, and on the one hand they tend to not box themselves in but then they can also suffer because they never get to enjoy their own illusion and experience the "realness". I find that the trick is to be able identify and utilise modulating devices that keep us somewhere in the golden mean. In Twin Peaks they say, "without chemicals, he points" and I always completed the picture by saying, "with chemicals, she points" - I was able to find my D.I.A.N.E through the ritualistic use of psychedelics, and I sustain her through the routine use of estradiol and progesterone. When you negate a frame, you evoke a frame. I grew up in a relatively religious part of my city and attended a Christian school from middle school through to the end of high school. In Yr12, we had a formal. I took a boy to the formal (and I am AMAB). I understand that it could have appeared as though we were feigning qness but the truth was that he was in a relationship with one of the female teachers, and I was just providing a bit of cover. We were both q - we just weren't g, at least not with one another. But what was in it for me? Well, it saved from having to take a girl to an event like that and to say the least, I could not handle that kind of emotional pressure, and all the gender envy that would flare up if my counterpart was more feminine than me. I suppose both he and I were somewhat pretty boys but it got us through the night. 🌃 As regular readers would know, I've often been clocked as a gay man, and I've never really been one to correct people because a) it seems homophobic as though I need to put up my defenses and set the record STRAIGHT b) Who knows what's in their shadow? Maybe there's a part of me that would love to play a bear character but my actor is not keen on the role because their agent says it gonna ruin their career. That's right, the extended metaphor is back, baby. Although I am "primarily attracted to women", let's have a closer look at my sense of taste. As a child, I had a crush on Bob McGrath from Sesame Street. He sang songs; he seemed like a chilled out dude and so what's not to like? In some ways, I can see that he had a kind of femininity about him. If I think a guy is cute then he's probably some kind of q. I tend to find straight men quite unappealing. Some of them might have a pleasant enough vibe but I don't really get the hots for them. If I think about the kind of women that I like then I suppose there's lots of different things I might find appealing and they don't really cohere. Petite; curvy; short; tall; it really doesn't matter so much to me. I see many women dressed in ways where I think, "hey, she looks cool" and maybe that's something to notice. For me, the "raw material" of a person's body is not particularly important. Rather, it's how people adorn their bodies and code them in a way that I can read. I like q men because there's often a bit of a sense of style whereas other men have this vibe that suggests that they're not wanting to communicate or that they think I ought to be in awe of their masculinity. While I enjoy reading lots of sorts of women, the ones I love the most have a bit of an L/B/N-B vibe. I love butch confidence. My wife and I watched Go Fish (1994) the other day - while I thought each of the actors were beautiful, it's probably Daria that is the person to whom I most gravitate. But then if we look at But I'm a Cheerleader (1999) then Hilary is like an 11/10 for me. She's got all that nervous energy; she wants to make sure that newcomers know the rules; she's got glasses - I'm a bad widdle autogynephile! ☕👩🎨 If look at my relationships then I think it's true that say that it can't work for me if she's going to just play the woman and I'm going to be the man. In the first relationship I was able to withstand (as opposed to running away before things can form) then my girlfriend was a very headstrong girl and she loved riot grrrl and q-core bands. This helped to give things a sense that there was an undercurrent that gave our relationship a bit of an L vibe. It couldn't move forward once she wanted to take things in a more heteronormative direction. 🚪 In my second relationship, I was the artsy DIY HRT proto-phoenix while my partner was an assertive electrical engineer who's the sort of gal who tends to be much more comfortable around men than women. We had a very deep sense of emotional intimacy and her dominance helped to bring out my own assertiveness. It was all a mess, to say the least, but I really did enjoy the way she was so up-front because I can otherwise get caught up, thinking that I am reading things that are simply the product of an overactive (read: lonely) imagination. With my relationship with my wife, I think we've both developed the sense that the more I'm pushed towards heteronormativty then the more miserable I become. Getting married was just the pressure I needed to clear out my broken character. ☸⛓♻ I love my wife's sense of fashion and, while I think her hair has looked lovely at different lengths, I am happy that she seems to be going for increasingly short hair cuts. I suppose there's two things a couple can do to address the gender envy - I can feminise and she can androgynise, and maybe we meet somewhere in the middle. I guess that's where my embodiment goals become complicated. I know what would "feel right" for me. But then I do also have the hots for women, and my feminine desire to please others can sit quite comfortably with the enjoyment I can give someone with my p... In some ways, pandrogyny also coalesces nicely with the philosophy that I outlined in my first paragraph. One thing I notice in my discourse of attraction is that I tend to spend more time discussing the codes that I think are cool. What is it that actually gets me hot? Attitude, folx! Make your signals loud and clear. I am not at all sxually assertive. I'm never confident in my understanding of situations and I feel wary of making others uncomfortable, or at least in that particular way. The other person letting me know that they are like me is key. They're only reinforcing what I assume to be the case. That's why when somebody presents their sexual needs to me as a deficiency then I feel powerless: I am confronted by the extent to which my own needs are unmet. When somebody presents their sexual needs to me as a surplus of energy then I feel powerful: I can relish in my own sexual desire. If someone approaches me with the right attitude then their gender expression and their identity does not mean much to my alien and plastic being. This is about interactions and not about labels. What good are these labels anyway? During the AIDS crisis, health practitioners needed to confront that people's identifications tell you little about what they do and with whom. In my own doctoral research, I spent some time explaining why I think that the way that different discourses that construct the minor-attracted adult actually have little bearing upon the broader phenomena that that concept is designed to help us understand. What good are these labels anyway? In recent weeks, I have been taking my students through Thematic Analysis. I suggested that when we're initially coding then it's better to err on the side of redundancy, and that our codes should reflect what it is interesting about this unit of analysis but that we do not have to get too hung on the exact articulation of the code. Not at first, anyway. But as we're engaging reflexively with the data and attempting to develop our themes then it might be necessary to tweak our codes so that they make our themes more salient. I think that the experience of life (or at least from the perspective of a unit of analysis) is a bit like this process. We get coded pretty quickly but the trick is to engage in the iterative and reflexive processes that enable our codes to clearly point to our themes. Those codes might seem arbitrary labels and in a sense they are but it's also true that bad coding can undermine our progress and that good coding can assist us in moving to the next stage of our research and producing something with impact. 🪜 Some people try to tell me that I am the same as my former identity. I think those people are so stuck in their own characters but maybe, over time, they might notice a few things and get a few ideas 🦋 I think it's great to see the depth of engagement that you receive from your audience - some very interesting comments to read for sure. 🏳⚧
I use to think I was cis het male but as a trans woman my sexual orientation is really confusing. I am still attracted more by feminity but it seems some men I don't hate as much... and I become dumb around them. So maybe bi or pan... I'm quite confused.
I was taught deeply homophobic feelings in my youth through a particular religion and the small group culture that came with it. Interestingly these feelings only applied to men who were attracted to men and did not apply to women who identified as Lesbian. I am very comfortable with Lesbian friends and they with me. After many decades of life and feeling attracted to women and struggling to live the Mask of Hetero Male, I came to awareness that I was TransGender and started Transition and all the changes in body and mind that came with it. By this time I was accepting and comfortable with Gay Men as friends but still felt powerful self directed homophobia. After two or three years of HRT and changing my feelings, presentation and acceptance of my Trans self I had an experience of vivid, unexpected fantasy of intercourse as a receptive woman with a vague undefined but thoroughly male faceless shape. It was a solo experience and I had an extraordinarily powerful sexual response. After the moment of self passion had passed and I caught my breath I had a huge tsunami wave of self homophobic panic. It was an emotional crisis for me. As days and weeks passed I did a lot of processing of my feelings through writing and meditating and gradually found acceptance for myself and my feelings in all their complexity. And continued to experience this Male (undefined) - Female (me) fantasy with great passion. I feel like I have arrived (always truly passing through, never arriving at a final version of me.) at a comfortable space of general attraction for a variety of people - Male, Female, Cis, Trans - as people, as who they are and their gender is not the most important aspect about them. And I have been more than 20 years without any romantic or sexual experiences except with myself and now look forward to returning to the world of relationships at some point and feel excited and happy to find out how this will unfold for me. How I will discover more of me. I do note however that I am often annoyed and uncomfortable with the company of Cis Hetero Men. They seem immature, even stupid, insensitive, oblivious. Annoying. I don't know what this means or what decisions I will make in times to come. Perhaps I am drawn to the image, the concept of a masculine body with an erect penis to have intercourse with, but not interested in actual Men? I am glad to be on this path and look forward to tomorrow. It seems to me impossible to sort out what I am discovering in me that has always been there and what I am creating about me that is new and different. Doesn't really matter. Thank the Gods, Old and New, that I am a TransWoman!
First I am 65 and have only been in transition for 3+ years (old values play a part here). I have always been more comfortable with cis-men (the question of how I feel with transgender folks is still in question). I would rather be with a cis-man always. HRT did not change anything, other than my orgasms. I started finding cis women sexually attractive in my 30's I believe cultivated by my internalized homophobia implanted in me growing up. (I was becoming increasingly aware of my attraction to men and compensated). But in truth, whenever a woman became interested in actually having sex...I lost interest. I now see that I enjoy women socially and men sexually. HRT didn't seem to affect it at all.
Thanks for your comment. Some people don't notice a change in attractions with HRT. As you illustrate, your change in sexuality over the years was related to other factors.
I have a interesting observation of a friend of mine and family. My friend has been quietly taking estrogen for many years. She has not yet fully transitioned as her spouse does not support her in this endeavor. She has become an expert in hiding her breasts and only dresses around people she trusts. Unknown to her her oldest grand child has also started hormones also.This new grand daughter contacted my friend to tell her about herself. My friend traveled by herself to see her last year. My question is just how common is transsexual in families groups ? My brain tells me there has to be some biological action connecting this. This child was not around her grand parents a great deal So I don't think there is some influence being generated from this exposure. Personally I think it has to be comforting for both of them to share their lives with one another. Im a old fool who loves stories like this. I have resisted my normal need to question my friend about this subject but did offer my full support for both of them. I just want both to be happy.
In identical twins, there is a high concordance of being transgender when that trait is present. This implies some genetic basis for rainbow 🌈 unicorn 🦄 magic 🪄 😊
@@DrJamieTalks I repressed my gender identity for most of my life. Even when I started to know better whom I was I said transitioning was too hard. That was in the 1990s. Twenty-five years later in my late sixties I started transitioning. I am happier than I have ever been. Is it hard and are there limitations at my age? Yes, but it is so worth it. ❤
I would love to transgender! I can always crossdress. Thank you for the advice! I started out heterosexual. I started to develop crushes on men. I started to want to act feminine. If I can transgender it would be phenomenal! @@marti7343
Sorry I'm late to your presentation but ive been busy with this exact part of my transition.i started realizing my orientation was changing. Before I started hormones thought of myself as heterosexual, it took and 3 months I to hrt that I noticed I was beginning to see things differently. Let's jump forward, a few month and I started to explore my orientation and have come to realize, I am in fact lesbian and it feels very much like home. Will that change again I'm not sure, but it has helped with my alinement goals.
The more I move into my transition, the more I consider orientation to be just a label. I mean, I thought I was a cishet man for 46 years with a hint of bi about me that I never explored, but these days I'm finding that I'm interested in feminine people in general including non-binary, and occasionally masculine people. That said, I am happily married and not on the market, so it's not something I have to worry about. :) (To be fair, I also have a lower libido than I used to have, and it was low to start with. That's also okay.) It takes me a long time to warm up to people and their personality is more important than anything else. But in general, I don't get why people care what anybody's orientation is; surely it doesn't matter unless you want to sleep with them.
❤❤❤❤ keeps it simple..those three things...thought I would never go weak at knee over ' cute' baby in pram, & have overwhelming urge to get pregnant ( head says:" this impossible ") but - after two years on HRT, guess- what happens? 😂 all the time xxxReikki Kyra 💕 🦄 🌈
I must say that I have become mesmerized by becoming transgender. I have watched videos all day. I am fanticisizing over such a move. I get emails from men trying to meet me. I don't think that I should answer because I don't know them. I wish that I could be treated like a queen by a georgous looking male.
@@DrJamieTalksvery sound advice Jamie I am from the time of newspaper adds, and got my self in a pickel a few times. But at least it was open to tne whole like it is today.
I was always attracted to women, so I suppose that made me hetero to start with, but I always thought in my mind as a lesbian, does that make me weird..? 🤣
@@DrJamieTalks thank you dr . I tried to change m'y sexual orientation. It was a mistake . Now i love myself due to your vidéos . You are a bless to me.
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I lived most of my life simply not feeling attraction at all. I knew from very early that relationships just weren't for me. Years ago when signing up with a new family doctor I remember the intake form asked for my sexual orientation, with only straight and gay as the options; I vividly remember wishing there was a box for "none of the above." But as my transition has progressed, taking me from "some flavour of nonbinary" to mostly accepting myself as a woman, it was as if that whole part of myself suddenly got "plugged in" for the first time in my life. I now consider myself a lesbian and I find myself craving deeper relationships for the first time in my life. I always related far better to women than men, but I never, ever considered going any farther then being friends. I now realize that, at some level, I knew subconsciously that being in a relationship where I was perceived to be/expected to fulfil the male role was simply *wrong* for me, so I disconnected that whole part of myself for decades. And I don't know how it works for anyone else, but when it got reconnected last winter it really did feel like a powerful physical change. Sort of like someone was moving the furniture around in my head. I find all of this stuff fascinating, and often quite magical. Dr. Jamie, I really found your Winchester House metaphor to be absolutely spot on.
Yay! I'm happy somebody liked my Winchester mystery house metaphor. I visited that place as a kid and never forgot it! So cool!
Thanks for sharing your experience. I think for many of us our transitions open us up to possibilities that were impossible to conceive prior to transition. It is magical and exciting when you think of it.
I’m a couple months into transition mtf and used to identify as bi-curious, but now I definitely see gender and my own sexuality in a whole new way. I’ve found new attraction to more masculine non-binary energy and have always been attracted to and have attracted queer women, whether it be bisexual women or closeted lesbians. It’s been such a eye opening experience
Wow! What an exciting transformation!
I started to feel attracted to men about 2 months into HRT. I think deep down I always was, but I just did not want to accept the idea that I am gay. When I first told my male friend that I was transitioning, I told him it would be much easier for me if I was gay.
I could not resolve my orientation as I was conflicted about my sexual orientation and my gender identity. The further along, I get in transition, the more I understand that I have always had the orientation of a heterosexual female. Maybe, after I fully transition, I will finally be able to have a sexual relationship that I find fulfilling and satisfying.
I was married for 14 years, and I was never able to achieve an orgasm unless I was thinking about myself being the woman. Of course, the marriage failed, I just was not that into heterosexual sex. I always knew it, but I refused to accept it. This denial resulted in a failed marriage and was a selfish attempt on my part to try and be the "man" I knew society expected me to be.
I hope you find that fulfilling and satisfying relationship you seek. :-)
Thank you!
Having transitioned two years ago, at 57, my preferences have definitely changed. Before, while pretending to be male i thought I was bi, about 30% into men and 70% into women. I'm still in a monogamous relationship with a cis woman since 30+ years, but now more of a lesbian relationship and I'm very lucky our connection was strong enough that we "survived" all this. My preferences are now more 50/50 and I look at men in a whole different way, where before i only looked at women with any real interest. Last year I also discovered that i have a type in men, getting all flustered when looking at certain ones. It's certainly been a couple of years of big changes and re-learning what I thought I knew about myself.
Thanks for sharing your experience. 😃🏳️⚧️ These orientation shifts seem to be a normal part of transition. I’m happy your relationship endured the blossoming of the true you. 🌸🩵🩷🤍🩵🤍
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Dr. Jamie, I must say it's been incredible watching you come into your gender identity / presentation over the past few years on this channel. You look incredible, and you give me a lot of hope for my own transition :)
@@nissutobor9078 I am touched. 😊🥰😃 May all the transition goals to which you aspire be realized! 🏳️⚧️💕
I was attracted to women before exploring my gender. Once I started to explore my gender and have sexual relations with men as a woman, I started to feel sexually attracted to men. Now that I am transitioning, I am exclusively sexually attracted to men.
Admittedly, I have not had much experience with men and I am not sure how I would react if I had more chances at intimacy with them. I have no desire to be sexual with a woman. As a man, I never had attraction for men and I have never considered myself gay. Am I some kind of repressed homosexual? Before exploring my gender, I had opportunities to be with men and they were never appealing to me.
For me my sexuality seems tied to my gender exploration and transition. I know the common wisdom is that gender identity is separate from sexuality. But, my experience is otherwise. I know many trans woman who were attracted to woman pre transition and still are after transition. I do not understand it, but I accept people are different and sexual orientation is quite diverse.
Sometimes I think my shift in sexuality has to do with affirming my identity. Yet, as hard as I try to explore it, I cannot bring myself to feel sexually the same as I did before transition. In fact, it is not a problem for me and I connect with and enjoy better my current sexual orientation.
You have a very interesting experience. I have a friend who also became more attracted to men after transition. She was married to a woman and after transition began dating men. She is now in a stable romantic/sexual relationship with a man and very happy. I suppose that last part is what really matters. :-)
@@DrJamieTalks Agreed totally. Actually, I read some research somewhere (unfortunately cannot remember the exact reference) that upward of 40% of people transitioning see some kind of sexual orientation change. Whether all that is a change in interest of one sex for another I am not sure.
@@marti7343 do you have a Boyfriend?
@@ericfreshcorn3590 No. Actually, I still am married to a woman I love. Our relationship certainly has changed since I started to transition. We are working to stay together in some way.
I think about how nice it would be to have a boyfriend. I am older and am not sure how and if that will happen. Admittedly, it would be an adjustment for me because it has been awhile since I have been with a man, or a woman other than my wife for that matter. Because of my age I am not as sexually driven as some younger girls may be. Truthfully, for now it makes things easier given I still am relatively early in my transition. I have to plenty to think about and work through at the moment.
Regardless of anything, I am happier than ever and feel I have a good handle on my sexuality.
Thanks so much for your interest.
@@marti7343 Your Welcome If you ever Decide to Go Men i;m Open
I recently discovered you. Your presentations are phenomenal!
Thanks! 🥰
@@DrJamieTalks such great interactions with my favorite celebrity youtuber! ❤️
DrJamie has been a big part of my journey. I discovered her soon after I started hrt and gave me the help and advice, or no advice so I had to rethink things. If you take the time and go through her presentations you will find them to be a vast wealth of information, but you with quickly find a sense of belonging. I for one know that if I hadn't found her work I would have abandoned transition and tried to glue the egg back together.
I figured out I'm aroace, before figuring out I'm nonbinary agender. Prior to transitioning, there can be a lot of shame towards one's own body, leading to a reluctance to explore one's sexuality. While I'm not certain that's the case for me, and I still think I'm aroace, I'd be open to the possibility that I'm T4T. I know I'd probably feel safer in a hypothetical relationship with someone who has had similar lived experiences and faced similar challenges. I'm just not in any rush.
Thanks for sharing your experience. I respect your process. I knew I was aromantic since I was a teen. The sexuality piece has moved around for me. When the predominant hormone in my body was testosterone, I was masculine attracted. When I was on blockers alone, I was definitely asexual and really liked it. As I added in estrogen, still mostly asexual with sparks of interest all across the spectrum.
my earliest attractions were to others of my same assigned at birth sex. with puberty came a crisis with my gender that resulted in a social transition and then detransition when my mother expressed disgust with my gender presentation. after 30 years of repression and feeling no sexual attraction, i eventually medically transitioned once i knew i would un-alive myself if i didn’t start making changes. i’m still asexual. i had a real problem with thinking i needed to exercise my junk to keep it from shrinking from hrt to get a better outcome from bottom surgery. now that i know i want a peritoneal pull through i am happy not to have interact with it anymore. it’s too early to know if my increased interest in women is sexual or just a result of becoming my authentic self and not repressing anymore. i used to be repulsed by women as i identified them with my mother but that has completely changed since i started transitioning again. i’m just excited to be discovering myself and not hiding anymore. i’m trying not to rush things with intimacy.
Sounds like transition is opening you up to new horizons! 🌈
Transitioning means relating to the world in a different way. You fit in differently. I don't see men as I once did. I don't see woman like I once did. Many people are very dogmatic on this topic. They want to say one's orientation cannot change. In most cases this is true. I am here to say that one definitely can change when one's place in the world changes. Body changes are part of it but so is attitude. And no, there was no suppressing secret desires before transition, before someone claims that is the case here. Believe me I know. It's estimated that about 30% of transitioners see a change in orientation.
30% Interesting statistic. For some reason your comment made me think of the Truman Capote novella Other Voices, Other Rooms. ;-)
Here comes my intellectually genderqueer hot take! I think that there is a continuum where, on one end, people are slaves to their image of themselves and their assumptions about what the big other expects from there. Our characters are always bigger than our stories but then we're also actors - actors that fall in love with the characters we play, and experience pleasure in experiencing how others respond to our character because it gives us a fleeting sense of "realness". These people can suffer because the stories in which we find ourselves are not as well crafted as they could be. People on the other end of this continuum are quite conscious of this scheme, and on the one hand they tend to not box themselves in but then they can also suffer because they never get to enjoy their own illusion and experience the "realness". I find that the trick is to be able identify and utilise modulating devices that keep us somewhere in the golden mean. In Twin Peaks they say, "without chemicals, he points" and I always completed the picture by saying, "with chemicals, she points" - I was able to find my D.I.A.N.E through the ritualistic use of psychedelics, and I sustain her through the routine use of estradiol and progesterone. When you negate a frame, you evoke a frame.
I grew up in a relatively religious part of my city and attended a Christian school from middle school through to the end of high school. In Yr12, we had a formal. I took a boy to the formal (and I am AMAB). I understand that it could have appeared as though we were feigning qness but the truth was that he was in a relationship with one of the female teachers, and I was just providing a bit of cover. We were both q - we just weren't g, at least not with one another. But what was in it for me? Well, it saved from having to take a girl to an event like that and to say the least, I could not handle that kind of emotional pressure, and all the gender envy that would flare up if my counterpart was more feminine than me. I suppose both he and I were somewhat pretty boys but it got us through the night. 🌃
As regular readers would know, I've often been clocked as a gay man, and I've never really been one to correct people because a) it seems homophobic as though I need to put up my defenses and set the record STRAIGHT b) Who knows what's in their shadow? Maybe there's a part of me that would love to play a bear character but my actor is not keen on the role because their agent says it gonna ruin their career. That's right, the extended metaphor is back, baby.
Although I am "primarily attracted to women", let's have a closer look at my sense of taste. As a child, I had a crush on Bob McGrath from Sesame Street. He sang songs; he seemed like a chilled out dude and so what's not to like? In some ways, I can see that he had a kind of femininity about him. If I think a guy is cute then he's probably some kind of q. I tend to find straight men quite unappealing. Some of them might have a pleasant enough vibe but I don't really get the hots for them. If I think about the kind of women that I like then I suppose there's lots of different things I might find appealing and they don't really cohere. Petite; curvy; short; tall; it really doesn't matter so much to me. I see many women dressed in ways where I think, "hey, she looks cool" and maybe that's something to notice. For me, the "raw material" of a person's body is not particularly important. Rather, it's how people adorn their bodies and code them in a way that I can read. I like q men because there's often a bit of a sense of style whereas other men have this vibe that suggests that they're not wanting to communicate or that they think I ought to be in awe of their masculinity. While I enjoy reading lots of sorts of women, the ones I love the most have a bit of an L/B/N-B vibe. I love butch confidence. My wife and I watched Go Fish (1994) the other day - while I thought each of the actors were beautiful, it's probably Daria that is the person to whom I most gravitate. But then if we look at But I'm a Cheerleader (1999) then Hilary is like an 11/10 for me. She's got all that nervous energy; she wants to make sure that newcomers know the rules; she's got glasses - I'm a bad widdle autogynephile! ☕👩🎨
If look at my relationships then I think it's true that say that it can't work for me if she's going to just play the woman and I'm going to be the man. In the first relationship I was able to withstand (as opposed to running away before things can form) then my girlfriend was a very headstrong girl and she loved riot grrrl and q-core bands. This helped to give things a sense that there was an undercurrent that gave our relationship a bit of an L vibe. It couldn't move forward once she wanted to take things in a more heteronormative direction. 🚪
In my second relationship, I was the artsy DIY HRT proto-phoenix while my partner was an assertive electrical engineer who's the sort of gal who tends to be much more comfortable around men than women. We had a very deep sense of emotional intimacy and her dominance helped to bring out my own assertiveness. It was all a mess, to say the least, but I really did enjoy the way she was so up-front because I can otherwise get caught up, thinking that I am reading things that are simply the product of an overactive (read: lonely) imagination.
With my relationship with my wife, I think we've both developed the sense that the more I'm pushed towards heteronormativty then the more miserable I become. Getting married was just the pressure I needed to clear out my broken character. ☸⛓♻
I love my wife's sense of fashion and, while I think her hair has looked lovely at different lengths, I am happy that she seems to be going for increasingly short hair cuts. I suppose there's two things a couple can do to address the gender envy - I can feminise and she can androgynise, and maybe we meet somewhere in the middle. I guess that's where my embodiment goals become complicated. I know what would "feel right" for me. But then I do also have the hots for women, and my feminine desire to please others can sit quite comfortably with the enjoyment I can give someone with my p... In some ways, pandrogyny also coalesces nicely with the philosophy that I outlined in my first paragraph.
One thing I notice in my discourse of attraction is that I tend to spend more time discussing the codes that I think are cool. What is it that actually gets me hot? Attitude, folx! Make your signals loud and clear. I am not at all sxually assertive. I'm never confident in my understanding of situations and I feel wary of making others uncomfortable, or at least in that particular way. The other person letting me know that they are like me is key. They're only reinforcing what I assume to be the case. That's why when somebody presents their sexual needs to me as a deficiency then I feel powerless: I am confronted by the extent to which my own needs are unmet. When somebody presents their sexual needs to me as a surplus of energy then I feel powerful: I can relish in my own sexual desire. If someone approaches me with the right attitude then their gender expression and their identity does not mean much to my alien and plastic being. This is about interactions and not about labels.
What good are these labels anyway? During the AIDS crisis, health practitioners needed to confront that people's identifications tell you little about what they do and with whom. In my own doctoral research, I spent some time explaining why I think that the way that different discourses that construct the minor-attracted adult actually have little bearing upon the broader phenomena that that concept is designed to help us understand.
What good are these labels anyway? In recent weeks, I have been taking my students through Thematic Analysis. I suggested that when we're initially coding then it's better to err on the side of redundancy, and that our codes should reflect what it is interesting about this unit of analysis but that we do not have to get too hung on the exact articulation of the code. Not at first, anyway. But as we're engaging reflexively with the data and attempting to develop our themes then it might be necessary to tweak our codes so that they make our themes more salient.
I think that the experience of life (or at least from the perspective of a unit of analysis) is a bit like this process. We get coded pretty quickly but the trick is to engage in the iterative and reflexive processes that enable our codes to clearly point to our themes. Those codes might seem arbitrary labels and in a sense they are but it's also true that bad coding can undermine our progress and that good coding can assist us in moving to the next stage of our research and producing something with impact. 🪜
Some people try to tell me that I am the same as my former identity. I think those people are so stuck in their own characters but maybe, over time, they might notice a few things and get a few ideas 🦋
I think it's great to see the depth of engagement that you receive from your audience - some very interesting comments to read for sure. 🏳⚧
@@ivorydungeon909 “What is it that actually gets me hot? Attitude, folx!” Love it! 😁
Good afternoon dr.jamie, hope you are feeling well these days. You have a beautiful smile. Have a wonderful week. ❤
@@bobcalderon2534 thanks 😁
I use to think I was cis het male but as a trans woman my sexual orientation is really confusing. I am still attracted more by feminity but it seems some men I don't hate as much... and I become dumb around them. So maybe bi or pan... I'm quite confused.
Or maybe you have a condition called trans cuteness. :-)
@@DrJamieTalks I wish lol
@@cathnbabsWell, you meet all of the diagnostic criteria 🙂
@@DrJamieTalks thanks. I love your lipstick :)
I was taught deeply homophobic feelings in my youth through a particular religion and the small group culture that came with it. Interestingly these feelings only applied to men who were attracted to men and did not apply to women who identified as Lesbian. I am very comfortable with Lesbian friends and they with me. After many decades of life and feeling attracted to women and struggling to live the Mask of Hetero Male, I came to awareness that I was TransGender and started Transition and all the changes in body and mind that came with it. By this time I was accepting and comfortable with Gay Men as friends but still felt powerful self directed homophobia.
After two or three years of HRT and changing my feelings, presentation and acceptance of my Trans self I had an experience of vivid, unexpected fantasy of intercourse as a receptive woman with a vague undefined but thoroughly male faceless shape. It was a solo experience and I had an extraordinarily powerful sexual response.
After the moment of self passion had passed and I caught my breath I had a huge tsunami wave of self homophobic panic. It was an emotional crisis for me. As days and weeks passed I did a lot of processing of my feelings through writing and meditating and gradually found acceptance for myself and my feelings in all their complexity. And continued to experience this Male (undefined) - Female (me) fantasy with great passion.
I feel like I have arrived (always truly passing through, never arriving at a final version of me.) at a comfortable space of general attraction for a variety of people - Male, Female, Cis, Trans - as people, as who they are and their gender is not the most important aspect about them.
And I have been more than 20 years without any romantic or sexual experiences except with myself and now look forward to returning to the world of relationships at some point and feel excited and happy to find out how this will unfold for me. How I will discover more of me.
I do note however that I am often annoyed and uncomfortable with the company of Cis Hetero Men. They seem immature, even stupid, insensitive, oblivious. Annoying.
I don't know what this means or what decisions I will make in times to come. Perhaps I am drawn to the image, the concept of a masculine body with an erect penis to have intercourse with, but not interested in actual Men? I am glad to be on this path and look forward to tomorrow.
It seems to me impossible to sort out what I am discovering in me that has always been there and what I am creating about me that is new and different. Doesn't really matter.
Thank the Gods, Old and New, that I am a TransWoman!
Thank the Gods! :-) May all the transition goals to which you aspire be realized!
First I am 65 and have only been in transition for 3+ years (old values play a part here). I have always been more comfortable with cis-men (the question of how I feel with transgender folks is still in question). I would rather be with a cis-man always. HRT did not change anything, other than my orgasms.
I started finding cis women sexually attractive in my 30's I believe cultivated by my internalized homophobia implanted in me growing up. (I was becoming increasingly aware of my attraction to men and compensated). But in truth, whenever a woman became interested in actually having sex...I lost interest.
I now see that I enjoy women socially and men sexually.
HRT didn't seem to affect it at all.
Thanks for your comment. Some people don't notice a change in attractions with HRT. As you illustrate, your change in sexuality over the years was related to other factors.
A wonderful shift for me. I became more attracted to men after transition began.
Thanks for sharing. A lot of trans people experience this shift too. :-)
I have a interesting observation of a friend of mine and family. My friend has been quietly taking estrogen for many years. She has not yet fully transitioned as her spouse does not support her in this endeavor. She has become an expert in hiding her breasts and only dresses around people she trusts.
Unknown to her her oldest grand child has also started hormones also.This new grand daughter contacted my friend to tell her about herself. My friend traveled by herself to see her last year.
My question is just how common is transsexual in families groups ? My brain tells me there has to be some biological action connecting this. This child was not around her grand parents a great deal So I don't think there is some influence being generated from this exposure.
Personally I think it has to be comforting for both of them to share their lives with one another. Im a old fool who loves stories like this.
I have resisted my normal need to question my friend about this subject but did offer my full support for both of them. I just want both to be happy.
In identical twins, there is a high concordance of being transgender when that trait is present. This implies some genetic basis for rainbow 🌈 unicorn 🦄 magic 🪄 😊
@ I love the unicorn part of your medical assessment. From my youth I always thought of myself as a unicorn within the human population.
My sexual orientation changed during my late teens. I became bisexual and one who seeks to act feminine. Is it too late in your 60's to transgender?
It's never too late to be yourself. :-)
@@DrJamieTalks I repressed my gender identity for most of my life. Even when I started to know better whom I was I said transitioning was too hard. That was in the 1990s. Twenty-five years later in my late sixties I started transitioning. I am happier than I have ever been. Is it hard and are there limitations at my age? Yes, but it is so worth it. ❤
I would love to transgender! I can always crossdress. Thank you for the advice!
I started out heterosexual. I started to develop crushes on men. I started to want to act feminine. If I can transgender it would be phenomenal!
@@marti7343
I am happy for you. There is no perfect human story, just the story we live. :-)
Oh F*ck No Asasas! I am in my late 60s and love life as never before. You just drop that "Too Late" stuff right now and get to living your best life.
Sorry I'm late to your presentation but ive been busy with this exact part of my transition.i started realizing my orientation was changing. Before I started hormones thought of myself as heterosexual, it took and 3 months I to hrt that I noticed I was beginning to see things differently. Let's jump forward, a few month and I started to explore my orientation and have come to realize, I am in fact lesbian and it feels very much like home. Will that change again I'm not sure, but it has helped with my alinement goals.
I’m happy you’ve found your orientation.
The more I move into my transition, the more I consider orientation to be just a label. I mean, I thought I was a cishet man for 46 years with a hint of bi about me that I never explored, but these days I'm finding that I'm interested in feminine people in general including non-binary, and occasionally masculine people. That said, I am happily married and not on the market, so it's not something I have to worry about. :) (To be fair, I also have a lower libido than I used to have, and it was low to start with. That's also okay.)
It takes me a long time to warm up to people and their personality is more important than anything else. But in general, I don't get why people care what anybody's orientation is; surely it doesn't matter unless you want to sleep with them.
Cheers to low libidos! How is your recovery?
Hi Jamie, I'm healing up nicely, thank you so much for asking! Not fully healed yet but nearly! How is yours coming?
@@robynrox I have a 3 month update video coming out on the 9th. stay tuned.
I was always attracted by heart didn't matter if guy or girl but living as fen attracted more into femme presenting
Thanks for sharing ☺️
❤❤❤
🩷❤️🧡💛💚🩵💙💜🤎🖤🩶
I would love for Trans Bashers would understand what you just posted here.
Haters are gonna hate. :-)
❤❤❤❤ keeps it simple..those three things...thought I would never go weak at knee over ' cute' baby in pram, & have overwhelming urge to get pregnant ( head says:" this impossible ") but - after two years on HRT, guess- what happens? 😂 all the time xxxReikki Kyra 💕 🦄 🌈
Sending you best wishes on your transition. :-)
❤❤❤❤❤@@DrJamieTalks
I must say that I have become mesmerized by becoming transgender. I have watched videos all day. I am fanticisizing over such a move. I get emails from men trying to meet me. I don't think that I should answer because I don't know them. I wish that I could be treated like a queen by a georgous looking male.
Be careful about meeting people online, especially those who may be interested in more than just friendship.
@@DrJamieTalksvery sound advice Jamie I am from the time of newspaper adds, and got my self in a pickel a few times.
But at least it was open to tne whole like it is today.
I wish you good fortune! My problem is that I am in the closet and frustrated!@@Chloedawnknauer
I was always attracted to women, so I suppose that made me hetero to start with, but I always thought in my mind as a lesbian, does that make me weird..? 🤣
Sounds like you are a lesbian and there is nothing weird about it!
@@DrJamieTalks Thanks, I'm also lucky to have found my life partner (also trans) and we've been married now for 9 years 💞
You looking good ❤❤❤
😊 Thanks!
I can only say your feminine energy has really increased since before your surgery,
Thank You! I feel more feminine!
I dont think that transition changes orientation.
I think its fixed . Orientation in males os fixed .
Thanks for sharing your opinion
@@DrJamieTalks thank you dr . I tried to change m'y sexual orientation. It was a mistake . Now i love myself due to your vidéos . You are a bless to me.
🥰☺️😊💕