Most people feel fairly certain of their sexual orientation and know what gender or genders they are attracted to. If you only have one gender it's simple but if you are a pre-op transsexual you have your born gender and your "true gender". Transitioning blends the two together into one "true self". Does this mean you can have two orientations for a time? For some the answer is yes until the blending occurs.

I want to be you. This site changed my life.

Most people have dated in their born gender for a while. Some MTF's dated women they thought they were attracted to. Where are their thoughts really though. In the throes of passion are they men (not likely), women with women or women with men or none of the above? The answer to this question determines ones true orientation. In some cases they want to be the gender of the one they are with. In short they want to be their partner but in what capacity?

In my email I've gotten a lot of mail from those who are confused about their orientation both FTM;s and MTF's. Some say they changed on hormones. Others changed during transition or after surgery. Some had an epiphany realizing they weren't ever attracted to their partners but just wanted to be them. That's very sobering and happened to me. Others didn't change at all.

While I knew I was a girl at age 4 and insisted on it though my homophobic family had other plans for me. After being bullied in school I changed my behavior for self protection, sealing my "true self" away. Still in the back of my mind was always what I truly was. I didn't think I could do anything about it in the 50's as a young child. As I got older I dated women and thought I was in love several times. In fact I always thought that one of them would cure me of transsexualism. The problem was I hated sex and always had difficulty. I preferred to be cuddled.

One day I had an epiphany after visiting the above website that I indeed was a girl and in fact always had been. What I thought was attraction was in fact a desire to be them and was not at all my true orientaion. Those i thought were partners weren't even there to me. I was detached from them. I was somewhere else. I was a hetrosexual woman all my life but never knew.

Why didn't I know this all along? Perhaps the homophobia around me kept me in the dark. I certainly wish this epiphany had happened when I was a teen. It would have saved me a lifetime of aggravation. Although being Transgender has nothing at all to do with sexual orientation in my case figuring out the "I want to be You" syndrome would have given me a clear hint. While I'm not exactly rushing towards males since my discovery it's more clear to me now where my orientation lies or doesn't lie. Does the mind play tricks? On me it did. This happens to some others as well.