It's ok. Just think of it this way: sexual orientation and sex/gender are two different things and are not dependent on each other. So a man (or a FTM transgendered person) can be straight or gay or anything in between, and so can a woman (or MTF transgendered person). less

I think I'm more confused on the part of: If you are a woman attracted to men (or men attracted to women) then why get a sex change?

Trying to straighten this out in my mind..... If you are a (man in a)woman(s body) unhappy with your gender (unhappy with being a woman) and are attracted to men, then from your prospective, you're already gay, just waiting to get the change?

And I am so sorry if any of that is offensive or come out wrong... Just trying to get it straightened out so I can stop being confused. less

Please don't apologize, asking is never inherently offensive it signals that you genuinely care about understanding another point of view, and if you ask me that is the path to enlightenment!

Again I think it has very little to do with what sex you are attracted to but what you feel you are in sex. A friend of mine said this to me.

"I really think that I am a gay female trapped in a mans body"

He identified with being a woman, he did not feel that he was a man even though he was attracted to women. He has been considering a sex change for sometime now.

I hope that helps a tiny bit. Don't feel bad that you are confused, just think how confusing it must before for these people! less

This isn't offensive at all. Asking for clarification is great 'cause we get to swoop in and correct misunderstandings.

Your example is exactly right. I have a friend, for example, who's a transman (that means he is female-bodied but he identifies as a man). Let's say he came out as trans at 20 years old. When he was living as a woman ages 0-19, he liked men, but he didn't feel like he was a woman who liked men. He felt like a dude who likes dudes. Then, when he came out at 20, he began presenting as a dude. He still liked dudes.

So for him, he feels like he's always been a gay man, even though society didn't recognize him as a gay man until he started presenting as a man. less

And this is pure curiosity. Not bashing on anyone, not putting anyone down. Just really confused.

Why would a woman get a sex change to be with men? Or a man become a woman to be with women? It seems really really strange to me...

Again, pure curiosity!! less

I know a lot of other people have already commented and cleared things up for you, but I thought I'd chime in with my 2 cents and what really made it click for me. I'm a cis-female lesbian. Born a woman, happily so, completely comfortable in my skin and my body. But I love women. I have absolutely ZERO desire to be a man. I do perform in drag for fun, but that's just putting on a costume and assuming a character. I love my girl clothes and doing my hair and makeup and wearing dresses and high heels. But I'm completely attracted to women, femininity, curvy bodies, breasts, and I LOVE having sex with women. So, when an ex of mine confided in me that she had at one point considered transitioning and still had some residual dysphoria about her body, I had a really hard time understanding it. A few years later, I met a lovely trans woman who I'm still good friends with. She explained to me how she felt when she was growing up. She struggled for years to understand her identity. She never felt comfortable in her skin, always felt like she didn't belong in her body, was very uncomfortable with all of it. When she started experimenting with wearing women's underwear under her clothes, and eventually into dressing in women's clothes all together, she started putting pieces together. She thought she might be a cross dresser so she started talking to some cross dressing males and came to realize, no, it wasn't a fetish or sexual activity for her, so then she thought she might be gay. She started socializing with some gay men and exploring that a little bit and realized, no, she definitely isn't attracted to men at all. Finally she stumbled across info on being trans* and things started to click. Eventually she began transitioning and is now fully transitioned. Her gender identity had nothing to do with what she was attracted to. What finally clicked for me, listening to her story, was "what if I had been born in a male body?!" I love being a girl, love my body, my breasts, my hips, all the things about being a girl that I enjoy. What if I'd been born fully myself, all my thoughts, my brain, my preferences, my desires, ME, but in a different body? How miserable would I have been if I'd had no breasts and a hairy chest and facial hair and wearing boys clothes everyday. Sure. I'd be "straight" because I'm still me and still attracted to women. But I'd have been so unhappy in that body. When I told my friend this, she said that's EXACTLY how she feels. Before talking to her, I'd always thought, gosh, there's no way I'd ever want to change anything about me. I'd never want to change my body to be a man. But I was looking at it from the wrong perspective! Because I'm female-bodied AND female-identified, of course I'd never want to be a man so the idea of changing into one was completely foreign and horrible to me, but what if I'd been given that body at birth! If that had happened to me, of course I'd have wanted to change my body because I'm female to my very core and for the same reason I'd never want to change into a man, if I'd been born as one I'd have been desperate to correct that! But even once I did, I'd still have been attracted to girls.
So, according to your profile, you're a straight and happily married female, and I'm assuming that you're happy and comfortable with your birth assigned gender. What if you had been born in a man's body? Still you in every way emotionally, intellectually, with all your preferences and desires and attractions, everything about you still being you, except you have a man's body and a penis. You'd still like men, still want all the same things sexually that you enjoy now, but just have the wrong body. Assuming you're like me and happy to be a woman, you'd probably be just as miserable in a man's body as I would be. Thinking this way suddenly made everything much easier to understand for me. Not sure if it will help you but hopefully you find this as clarifying as I did. less

I think it's a little hard to fully grasp being trans unless you've experienced some sort of discomfort with your own gender identity. I think others explained the basics pretty well, but I'll give my own self as another example.

My genitals, or biological sex, make me male by assignment. My sexual preference is for female partners. But my gender identity is sort of all over the place, and more female than male. I don't really identify as male (I've never really felt comfortable being really masculine or manly), I dress/present myself as a woman part of the time, and identify as transgendered. But I'm really pretty happy living in kind of the middle (or switching between) the two "standard" genders.

If I were to get a sex change it would have nothing to do with wanting to have sex with a certain set of people, it would be simply to align my body with my more female oriented identity. I'm comfortable as-is, but for many people that's not the case, hence the need to medically/surgically transition. less

I don't know if those of us who feel comfortable with our own bodies and genitals will ever "get it" completely.

But, when I was a little girl, I had a friend who really wanted to be a boy. She wasn't just a tomboy. She said she needed to be a boy. As a little kid, I simply accepted this. I remember we had a sleepover one night and she woke up and ran into the bathroom "too look" hoping she had grown a penis and testes in the night. Sadly, she hadn't. It doesn't work this way.

I lost touch with her/him after High School. I do hope s/he was able to achieve what s/he needed to be and feel though. I remember how SAD s/he was to have to live in a girl's body. It made an impression on me at 6, so I kind of understand. But, I can never know exactly what she, nor any of my other T friends have suffered through. less