I've heard a lot of people say that there is absolutely no correlation between someone's sexual orientation and gender identity. Can someone please explain why there isn't? Or, why there is, if you believe so. Thank you!
I'm not going to say that there is no correlation between gender identity and sexual orientation because, from a scientific research context, there might be. I think what people mean when they say that is that your gender doesn't determine your sexuality and vice versa. And, in general, that's true! Sexual orientation is based on who you're attracted to and gender identity is based on who you are, and you're free to choose a label for either based on how you feel. However, there are are some labels that are based on your own gender as well as the genders of the people you're attracted to. For example, if someone identifies as a cis woman attracted to women and then later comes out as a trans man still attracted to women, they might identify as homosexual and heterosexual at different points. At the end of the day, their gender still has no correlation with their attraction to women, but it does impact the label they use.
