This is a very difficult subject for me to write about. But it’s an important part of the transition journey.
As I’ve written elsewhere on my stance on Sex vs. Sexual Identity vs. Gender. I believe there are only 3 types of Sexual Orientation (SO); homesexual, heterosexual or bi-sexual. Period. Anything outside of that can be considered fetishism. But let’s use the nicer terms of gay, bi and straight, shall we?
My opinion, while respecting that everyone may not see it as I do.
So in my lifetime I’ve been all three. It was from one to the other to the last, where I have been for the past 30 years. My sexual identity at maturity, even though it took me a long time to grow up!
On the surface without any deeper influences, it could be said I started my sexual identity as gay, then bisexual and lastly, for the majority of my life as straight.
From a timeline perspective, from age 12 to 17 I was in a monogamous relationship with another boy. So gay basically during adolescence. I was the bottom, and if you don’t know what that means look it up! But I never penetrated my partner, and didn’t enjoy orgasm, finding it unpleasant. That’s as good as I can describe it.
From age 18 to 23 I was faithful to my first wife and in a completely straight relationship. Mind you AIDS played a major role in not having gay sex. But I could never completely hide the fact that I was a trans woman, coming out to her in 1980, and poorly I might add.
In the early 80’s I began an affair with another young man, so I considered myself bisexual, like a lot of married and closeted men at that time. A gay “affair” that went on until the decade was coming to an end.. Again this was with one young man, my own age, with a rendezvous taking place once a year, while still married. Did my then wife suspect? Not certain.
From the age of 32 until this writing I have been completely heterosexual, and generally in a steady relationship with one woman at a time. There was a period in my first marriage when my wife and I separated. During the separation I did date a couple of different women. Some were more serious than others, a newly separated husband.
I’ve been with the same woman now for nearly 30 years, or close to. How this relationship has survived and grown is another story again. I believe the reason it has lasted so long is the fact I was finally honest and open with a woman about the “trans” journey. Or what I knew of it then.
Keep in mind the whole trans movement, education and knowledge was just getting started.
That would be the end of the story, but because of the influence of being raped at such a young age, the fact that I felt deeply that I was female. I’ve found there is a little more to this story than what’s written above.
The fact that I was in a gay relationship in my adolescence was believing I was female and this was a normal thing to happen. In 1970 the word transgender didn’t exist. Plus neither of us had any idea of what sex was when we first started. “Show me yours and I’ll show you mine.” Kids.
But in truth I never enjoyed the gay relationship, and would endure it because…why? PTSD? Coping skills?
I would learn through years of psychotherapy, part of my sexual attraction stemmed from deep-seated guilt and shame over being the cause of the sexual assault I went through years ago. This reinforced the fact that I was deserving of the punishment, and going through with the pain involved with sex as a reminder.
The mind of a child. I was bad, and deserved the punishment.
I found sex to be an act of violence.
As I look back on that (the gay relationship I was in later in life), that’s a position I have come to believe is true. That the relationship was just reinforcing the guilt. Even though initially brought up by the therapist, this reasoning seems to make a lot of sense. Reinforcing shame and guilt..
I came to understand that my “affair” with the same young man once or twice a year was a way of taking control. My ability to say no.
That’s what would happen. These rendezvous weren’t one night stands at an airport hotel or anything, we were actual friends and would spend a few days drinking beer and doing what other young men did.
In the evening, after too much drinking, the subject of sex would arise, and as the idea began to turn more into an action, right up to the point of disrobing, I would simply say no….let’s not. I’m not interested. I can’t.
Why? It gave me the power to fight the monster that had held me up and shook me as a child. I could say no. My way of fighting back, 30 years later and 30 years too late. But I could say no here.
The first signs I was beginning to fight the shame and guilt I had felt for all these years.