Just a little curious how others came to the conclusion that the real underlying problem was a mismatch in gender expression rather than just a sense of sexual attraction. My path started at 4 with crossdressing then progressed to viewing a neighbor of mine as a boyfriend and experimenting sexually as I grew up through puberty with male and female sex partners. My bisexuality has and never will go away because I'm very comfortable viewing myself as bisexual. Along the way I have always been a crossdresser and knew there was a very important component to my crossdressing both mentally and physically that was horrendously missing. I knew after puberty that my problem was that I needed the proper hormones. After puberty I was quite sexually active which at one point got extreme , but is was never satisfying, there was always the missing component of estrogen and the physical need to have the proper body irrespective of any sex involved. The crossdressing stopped making any sense to me without the proper physical anatomy to fill the dress properly. I stopped everything physically and actively stopped the dressing because it made no sense anymore because I realize at that point that the problem was my gender. I started my transition not long ago and the mental effect of estrogen has been monumental. I can't change the past , but I learning to get the most out of the present. In one sense when I was young the sexual part was so overwhelming there was no way I could of understood that gender was the issue and not sexual predisposal . In this sense there was a benefit to later transitioning even though I so wish it was sooner. Has any one come to a point in life when that light bulb goes off and shows you the difference between your sexual desires and your needs as the proper gender or is it just all bunched up together in a swirling tornado .

I have trouble separating cause and effect, because it's all a big muddle.  I grew up pretty much asexual, which caused me a lot of grief because it made me different.  I didn't lose my virginity until I was 30.

So was my attraction to crossdressing a reaction to the asexuality, or was I asexual because I was trans all along and not fitting into the male role?  Damned if I know!  I'm going to need a therapist to sort that mess out.

Yea, it's a mind boggle

For me the gender came along first so there was no confusion.  As a child I had no conception of sex or sexual attraction.


Sapere Aude

I can only speak for myself, but I'm very certain of my gender identity. Ever since I was around nine years old I knew I was a girl. I also knew that anatomically I was male with male sex organs. I knew that is how society saw me and I tried to go along with it. When it came to dating in high school, I definitely tried my hand. I was only interested in girls at the time. I'd start seeing someone, but once we got to sex I'd make up excuses and eventually stop seeing them. It wasn't that I didn't want to have sex. I just didn't want to have sex as a man. It felt wrong. As a result I remained asexual throughout my adult life. It's only now that I'm beginning to explore the subject of sex, now that my body matches much more closely to my gender. I will say that my sexual preference has shifted to men, but I knew that for some women it does. I also blame my self ignorance and adamant need to fit in as male as for my not considering dating men. Once I realized what was going on everything changed and I began to accept everything I felt, not just what I thought a man should feel.


~Evelyn

I was always very confused with my sexuality. I believe that i tried so hard to be "normal" that i would fight against my attraction to men, and would pretend that i was attrcted to women! I definetely was very mixed up, and at times would fool myself into believing that i wanted to be with a woman, when all i really wanted was to be a woman!!! I cant believe that i fooled myself for so long, i ended up never being with a woman, as i quite simply wasnt attracted to them in that way.

It wasnt until i accepted myself as a transexual that i stopped fighting against my true desires, and it was such a relief that i could accept that i am attracted to men, and i feel so free!!

I think a huge part of my confusion is that im not a gay man, but im a straight woman! So until i accepted myself as a trangendered woman, it was impossible for me to get with a guy, as the thought of being in a same sex relationship as a guy never seemed right! I need to be treated a the female in a relationship, and im so glad that now im out to everyone, that hopefully i will be able to move on with this aspect of my life!!!!

I think i quite simply could not have a relationship as a guy, as im female. So thats how i knew it wasnt just sexuality that was causing me much distress!!

xx

I've always been bi , but I had a hard time dealing with that reality and it made me asexual for a long time . I finally came to terms with my sexuality and embraced who I was and its mentally felt so much better to accept that I do desire men as much as woman and shouldn't feel ashamed of it. Being physically female is truly so important to me. It's a bummer to be so cursed , but what can you do. It's just a seemingly impossible situation that you try your best to deal with.

For me, the proof came when I started hormones.  My sex drive went to zero, and it never changed how I felt about myself.  If anything, I felt much more complete, and comfortable with who I am.  That's when I knew I could never go back to being a male. I am still more attracted to women, but now I have fantasies about male lovers. All I know is whoever I love, I want to be female.

~Terri

Hello everyone, I always wanted men, just needed the correct body to have them.  Sexuality thing?

EOM

I know that's my biggest problem. I love and fantasize men so much , but I'm not gay and I still have this atrocity .

For me from an FTM POV, I thought that it was sexuality until I had the words to describe what it actually was.

All I knew growing up was that I liked to be masculine and that I found girls attractive, so in my very limited young teenage understanding, that made me a great lesbian. It got more confusing when the concept of "stone butches" was introduced. It really fit and made sense to me, even though it didn't explain the strong negative self image I had about anything I found remotely female about myself.

But when I heard the word transgender and it was described to me how being trans can feel, it made complete sense. It immediately explained a lot of long held, deep seated feelings that I had about myself which were overwhelmingly negative, and it gave me a way to fix it. While I wasn't ready to move forward at the time in terms of transitioning, I still mentally identified as trans for years before I came out because it was the most accurate way I had found to describe myself.

As I started to take steps towards transitioning, and especially as I started to medically transition, any remaining shreds of doubt were completely removed and I knew it was 100% a gender thing and had absolutely nothing to do with my sexuality.

I've always been attracted to men. Did try to be bisexual because I had a desire to have a child, but after I became a father I quickly lost my interest in women, apart from being best friends. I wanted to be a woman since my early childhood, but for a long time thought I could cope and keep this desire to myself by being a gay bottom and doing all the "typically female" things in the relationship while being "invisible" as a transgender. I was kind of roleplaying in order to create a "safe zone" where I could feel feminine. Not so much in my outer appearance, but I always was the one cooking, cleaning, taking care of others, etc.

What made me realize that this strategy wasn't working, is that these gay relationships always failed in the end. Gay men are still gay and like to involve my male traits as well during sex, even if they are tops, which depressed me to no end. Although everything is working just fine, my genitals always were a no go area, ultimately causing these relationships to fail. I derive my sexual pleasure exclusively from being penetrated. In the end, I'm a straight girl, not a gay bottom. Big difference, I found out.

Being outside of a relationship, my sexuality was the only place I could allow myself to feel feminine. So I started dating men for sex, because I needed to have some kind of "quick fix" for my gender dysphoria. For a while my sex play became kind of extreme, which entirely disappeared after I came out and could feel feminine all the time.

all quite interesting

I considered that it was just sexuality for years and used that to remind myself that a transition was not a good idea. It wasn't until I hit a breaking point where I just couldn't take it anymore that I even tried to seriously entertain the idea that I needed to transition. Since starting, the depression I had my entire life hasn't been around anymore. I wouldn't say I know for sure and I have periods of doubt, but what I do know for sure is that transition is right for me, no matter what the reason. I probably would not be here today if I hadn't done it and I now remind myself of that when I have my doubts.

I assumed it was a sexual perversity. I thought I was not any given description, so while a symptom was cross dressing, that was just a symptom. I did not ever "Know" I was a girl. I only came to the idea of being on the transgender spectrum last year. I then thought I was a cross dresser. I started going to therapy for the first time in 50 years. I had not realized that I had severe anxiety and depression. I just thought that was how everyone felt.  However, the descriptions from other cross dressers were kind of familiar but not what I felt. I hated changing back to male clothes. Cross dressing did not relieve anxiety or depression. It ended up almost making it worse but only knowing I would have to hide or purge it all again.

I had thought last year that I was not MTF because I hadn't always known. I didn't have things in my head telling me I had to be a girl. It wasn't till I read an article online titled "That was dysphoria" , that I started thinking differently. I then realized that there is not just one narrative. In therapy, I also started remembering dressing around 8 or 9. While there might be some sexualization it was pre puberty. It should not have been something attached to sex. I started exploring more and now wish I could have had these thoughts years ago. It then became more of a gut reaction than a true realization. I was happier. Maybe it's from speaking to someone and the weight that is lifted from that, but I don't think so.

The starting of HRT has not been a religious epiphany. Partly, because I have approached it with some self introspection. I am well aware of how easily the euphoria can be felt from a placebo effect. After a few weeks, I can't say I am a new person, but the anxiety has lifted. Depression does not stay as easily. I am able to sleep better than I have in years.

Maybe more information than you needed but I think this all shows problem in gender identity and not sexuality.

Joanna

for me the effects of HRT have just built over the 2 years that I started . It's momentum that's quite enjoyable.

It's really incredible that each day longer I'm on HRT and live full time I feel so beautiful. I feel so free to my daily thoughts of just being one of the  girls. That male person just drifts farther away. To actually be living my authentic self is so mind bending. The doubts of the past keep slipping farther out of reach. I'm so much more confident that if I can do GCS it will be incredibly joyful . Being on Susan's and listening to all the successful stories of having GCS has taken so much of my doubts away. Hopefully someday I can be reporting on my success. I had doubts when I was younger about way I wished to live this way , but not anymore.

I knew pretty much as soon as it really started hitting me at age 14 that it had nothing to do with my sexuality, but it took me a LOT longer to figure out the full depths of it, along with what was attraction and what was dysphoria.

I was never attracted to men pre-transition, so that made any hypothetical confusion pretty clear. I asked myself many times "Am I gay?" and the answer was always no, so I knew it was something different from the start.

However, it did take me a while to realize that what I considered "attraction" to women wasn't the same as it was for everyone else. Like, at age 15ish, I assumed that every single AMAB person I was around was also looking at girls because they were jealous of them, and because they were imagining what it was like to be them. I NEVER knew that they weren't looking at women that way, that they were actually looking at them from a perspective of what they (with their actual bodies) wanted to do to them, or have done their own bodies by them.

It didn't matter a whole lot because my sex life was never something I enjoyed, mostly my experience with it is one of constantly trying to fight it, because it always felt wrong, and it made me objectify people who I HATED myself for objectifying. Plus there were so many aspects of gender that had nothing to do with sexuality which I was also jealous of, such as clothing options, social treatment, etc. So I knew pretty much right away that this wasn't just my sexuality talking, I really was wishing I was a girl.

I did worry that maybe my desire to transition was just a fetish, but going on HRT quickly remedied that worry, because everything else in my life that was an actual fetish (the things I used to hate myself for,) quickly disappeared right along with the testosterone. I couldn't get aroused by them anymore even if I wanted to. And yet the desire to transition stayed as strong as it had ever been.

I didn't realize the full depths of how my gender dysphoria and my sexuality have been interacting all these years, though, until about 6 months ago. I was at a point where I was trying to decide whether I wanted SRS or FFS first. And I'd always wanted SRS, but wanted to double-check my convictions, so I actually started doing some studies and experience-based tests to see if there was any way that I could ever be happy with my current anatomy if maybe I just found the right way to use it, or the right way to view it mentally. And that was when for the first time I started actually being aware that what I thought I was experiencing as "attraction" to women all these years wasn't even attraction at all, at least not what "attraction" means for every other person. I started studying what the common sexual fantasies are for cis men and cis women, and that was the first time that I realized that my experience was COMPLETELY unique. For cis men and cis women, their sexual fantasies occur in their actual bodies, or in idealized versions of those actual bodies. For me, I was NEVER myself in my own fantasies, I always had to transport myself into a female body before I felt anything. And yet disregarding that difference in gender, once I got into that body mentally, my fantasies were completely 100% normal... for a woman. And I also realized that basically all of my actual fantasies were of me in a female body being with a guy. I never had fantasies about being a guy with a girl, and rarely of being a girl with a girl. So that was when I finally, after all of those years of nothing but assumptions, finally learned the complete truth about both my gender identity and my sexuality... that I was a mostly-straight woman, and that SRS was going to remove a SIGNIFICANT hurdle that I didn't even know how much it was hindering my sex life until I started exploring it.

...After 16 years of being post-puberty, having been in an intimate relationship before, and having been on hormones for 2.5 years, FINALLY, after all that time, I knew. And I only learned because I decided to start exploring and comparing... asking serious questions like "what does a cis male feel? What does a cis woman feel? What do I feel? How did I feel when this was happening? How do cis men and women feel when these same things are happening? How therefore does all of this apply to me, and where do my experiences fit in to all of this?"

thanks, it sounds familiar

I need to feel sexy to feel sexy.  I think that's pretty normal, and cisgender people experience this all the time.  Gender dysphoria was getting in the way of my sexuality.  Still does a little, to be honest.  So yeah, there's a complex relationship between gender and sexuality in my experience.  However, my partner's gender has always been irrelevant to me.