I've written a bit about
Shifts In Gender Orientation before.
I believe my shift in orientation, fundamentally becoming open to a larger range of partners, was due to my recognizing and breaking down social taboos on orientation.
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.
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 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. This includes women (cis or trans), and some trans men.
I rather flippantly describe my orientation now as lesbian with a 30% chance of queer.
I share more experience and understanding with trans women than any other group, and this may aid in finding a basis for mutual respect and emotional bonding. As a demisexual person, I need that emotional connection before sexuality even enters the picture. I've never had a cisgender woman or trans man try to romance me, so there really hasn't been any sexuality tested in those directions.
