Sexuality Stack Exchange Archive

Does a Hetero MAAB Transgender mean they are attracted to men or to women?

This question is asked completely out of ignorance, I am fully willing to admit. But I would like to learn. In reading this question and specifically the answer by Abby, it links to a fact sheet that has a simple table. Within the table is the following:

Fact Sheet Chart

In the fact sheet, under sexual orientation, it lists two for MAAB (Hetero and Bi), and four for FAAB (Hetero, Bi, Gay, and Lesbian). But this is what confuses me. My best guess is that it is what the person identified themselves as being, but I would have thought that a FAAB transgendered individual would classify themselves as male, and therefore be gay, and not lesbian.

Which leads me to my (ignorant) question: When a transgendered person classifies themselves as heterosexual, does this mean that they would be attracted to the opposite gender of their gender at birth (I think it might be referred to in the article as ‘natal’ gender?) or the gender they identify themselves as? Or is that not necessarily something that is standard, so to speak, amongst the transgendered community?

Edit: Edited the terms to be more appropriate. Sorry, I didn’t mean to offend anyone, I am just, as I said, ignorant but learning.

Answer 97

Everyone is different. What one person might mean when they describe themselves using certain words will very likely differ from what another person means while using the same descriptors.

That said, people who have undergone some or all of the process of transitioning between genders will generally describe themselves with words that refer to the gender they present - that is, the gender that is not necessarily the one they were assigned at birth.

For example: a heterosexual transman is a man who was assigned as female at birth who is romantically and/or sexually attracted to women; a gay transman is attracted to men. A gay transwoman is a lesbian; a heterosexual transwoman’s attractions are to men.

There will always be exceptions to this rule, as with any rule, but I think it is a good place to start.

The table in your question has a cell indicating that 12% of transmen identify as lesbian. This goes against what I know of the trans community, but it could possibly be explained depending on when during the transition process the survey information was taken. Sometimes heterosexual transmen identify as lesbians before they transition. (Sometimes they don’t. I cannot stress enough: everyone is different. No rule or statement will apply to everyone.)

At any rate: I disagree with the information in the table, or at the very least I don’t understand what they are getting at. In my experience it’s very infrequent to find a transman who also identifies as a lesbian - the two identities are sort of at odds. (A person who identifies in both of these ways could possibly consider themself bigender or genderqueer. They could also consider themself a lesbian transman if that’s what they felt.)

The long and the short of it is that there are no rules that govern who gets to use what words to describe themselves. It’s always a matter of personal choice.

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