I'm well aware that sexuality and gender identity are separate issues. I've also heard that the incidence of homosexuality among the trans community is similar to that among the general population. What I haven't been able to get straight is what is considered homosexuality in a transgender person. Do you reference the gender or the sex? In other words is an AFAB who is attracted to women and identifies as a man straight or gay? Or does it depend on the transition? So before transition the transman would be a lesbian, and after straight?
I base it on gender - I like girls all the time but sometimes my gender is male and sometimes it's female. When I'm in "girl mode" I classify myself as a lesbian, when I'm in "boy mode" I classify myself as straight. I think it's probably up to personal interpretation.
I'd always base it on gender. If a trans guy was straight and you called him gay because he is trans and was born biologically female, that'd be invalidating to his gender. So I always base it on gender. I'm not too sure about non binary folk though. I think if I was non binary I'd identify as a label that doesn't imply a gender upon myself. Like queer for example.
I think everyone in the community bases it off gender. For example, if you met a trans woman who identifies as straight, that pretty much always means they only like men. And so on for other labels.
As far as I know there is a different ratio of sexual identities among the trans community compared to the general population. Here's a quote that explains the distribution: "The sexual orientation of the sample demonstrates a diverse spectrum of sexual orientations among transgender and gender non-conforming people. Among respondents, 23% reported a lesbian or gay sexual orientation (or attraction to the same gender); 24% identified as bisexual; 23% reported a queer orientation; 23% reported a heterosexual or opposite-gender sexual orientation, 4% describe themselves as asexual and 2% wrote in other answers" http://endtransdiscrimination.org/PDFs/NTDS_Report.pdf In other words, it is more common to be LGB than to be straight if you are trans.
Whoa! Why is that? That is a really profound figure. I have always suspected that something like that could be true, but what does that mean? What does this data show?
It's based on gender. Nonbinary people often use labels like gynesexual/androsexual which identify who they're attracted to without having to specify their own gender.
Both gender differentation and sexual orientation are believed to be connected to prenatal hormones. It makes sense that if there are irregularities in the prenatal exposure to hormomes that leads to itregular gender manifestation there would be a decent chance that there would be irregulaities in orientation. I think that the strong correlation between agender and asexuality shows that there is a certain connection between orientation and gender identity. (I wonder if asexuality and agender are simply as a result of no exposure to hormones during that stage.)
I know someone who refers to themselves as lesbian, but she's explained to me that she's attracted to anyone as long as there's no penis, & uses the lesbian label because it's easier for everyone else to understand, so I guess it's up to the individual. I think most people, including myself, go based on gender however.
I think most people base it on gender. For example, when I say I'm gay, I mean that I like men. And like Yaeli said, there does seem to be a higher rate of being LGB in the trans community.
I agree that usually most people base it of of the gender that they identify as. In the case of fluid non-binary people, a lot of times they will base their identity on the gender they are presenting as.
That would make sense with the limited data I've seen. A recent book I've been working on quoted a study that showed ~1/3rd split between heterosexual, bisexual, and homosexual. It wasn't a perfect split, and other orientations were listed, but weren't more than ~10-15% of those surveyed. But still, that split does seem to say that it is a fact.
Generally, it's like this: FtM is a person assigned female at birth but identifies as male. Ergo this person is male in their mind. If they like women, then they are straight. If they like men, then they are gay. And vice versa with MtF transpeople. Interesting side-note... The DSM-IV states that FtMs in particular will almost always display an attraction to females. Although there are of course exceptions to this tendency, such as myself. Personally, I've also seen a lot of FtMs identifying as pansexual.
In the media all I've ever really seen ftms attracted to females, its after coming to this site that I've seen ftms attracted to men. Which makes me feel better, I may be asexual but romantically I am attracted to men.
Sexuality is indicated off of your reference gender and your gender groups you're attracted to. MtFs who like women are lesbians, MtFs who like men are straight, FtMs who like men are gay, and FtMs who like women are straight. It's been my general experience that a lot of trans women I know are lesbians, although a sizeable number of them are bisexuals like me. Very few of my trans women friends are straight.
Personally i base it on gender identity so i'm a lesbian. But to the people who are a little less understanding or accepting i always tell them i like girls. Usually i don't say i'm straight or lesbian, i just say i like girls and then people can fill in the rest themselves, but when i'm with people who know my gender identity and are understanding i call myself a lesbian because from the inside i'm a girl.