I was recently interviewed for an article on unexpected shifts or discoveries in gender orientation for folks coming out after age 30. I had a few thoughts on the topic that I expressed in the interview, and I thought I would get them in writing for our members.
I believe my shift in orientation, fundamentally becoming open to a larger range of partners, was due more to my recognizing and breaking down social taboos on orientation than any innate shift from hormone replacement therapy (HRT) or transition-related surgeries.
Our gender orientation, sexual and romantic, is built in layers. There is a biological primitive, a bit of our brains wired to recognize other people as possible mates or competitors. This sets the core of our sexual orientation. We see others and this bit of our brain identifies those who might be possible mates or sexual partners, based on what can be perceived. It tends to be a pretty broad sort of classification filter, and there are correlations such that it appears to be set in fetal development during the third trimester by the testosterone level the developing brain is exposed to.
In my case, the filter seems to favor femme appearance as a possible mate.
Our culture insists on certain behaviors as being acceptable. Since this body was assigned male at birth, this culture had insisted that while growing up and presenting as male, that I only select persons with a strongly femme appearance as a potential mate. That more or less matches my brain’s setting, so that was OK. I accepted the cultural conditioning and assumed that was just how I was.
Ah, but then I came to accept my true nature, and violated cultural taboo by coming out and transitioning. It turns out that breaking one taboo and surviving makes it easier to break other taboos.
Post-transition I, as a woman attracted to women, identified my orientation as a lesbian. (Cis-lesbian readers, I understand how you may feel about this. Just read on, please. This is just my orientation, not culture!)
I was in a transgender person support group meeting, and sitting next to me was a man, with a lovely red-orange beard and reddish leg hair. They were very kind and open, and I liked them. In fact, I found myself fantasizing about them. Now, where was THIS coming from?
After considerable introspection and discussion with some very good sexuality specialists, I realized that the people I am attracted to have not actually identified their genitalia to me, and that the women I did attractive are actually just a subset of persons with some strongly feminine aspects that I admire. That is I am attracted to persons with some strongly femme attribute to their presentation, and not to some particular set of genitalia.
I rather flippantly describe my orientation now as lesbian with a 30% chance of queer.
This change was driven by my being more open to questioning cultural norms, and I beleive it was not affected by my HRT or surgery, beyond those resulting from my initially challenging and violating cultural norms.
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