Change your gender, change your orientation?

Now here is an interesting wrinkle that proves nothing but may create some interesting theorizing. From the San Francisco Bay Times, an article titled “Changing Sexual Orientation” says,

“If gender identity is fluid, then sexual orientation is as well,” contends psychology grad student lorne m. dickey, who identifies as a gay FTM and spells his name entirely with lowercase letters. Though many scientists and laypersons believe sexual orientation is fixed and immutable, dickey disagrees. His own experience suggests otherwise: “Prior to transition, I identified as a lesbian. I’d never once had sex with a man. Shortly after beginning my transition, it was clear… I was more interested in being sexual with a man than I was with a woman.”

Read the whole article here…

31 thoughts on “Change your gender, change your orientation?”

  1. I am a transsexual, and I can say that this sort of thing is really common. One of three things will happen:

    you will maintain your sexual preference (ie: you still like men)

    you will maintain your sexuality (ie: you still like the opposite sex)

    you will become asexual (you just give up)

    Many heterosexual men become heterosexual women. No big whoop in our world. Other Male-to-Females will end up being lesbian. Also no big whoop. And yes, it’s not unheard of for a transitioning transgender person to maintain their homosexuality.

    I always thought it was pretty obvious that sexuality was more than a single variable phenomenon… but I guess it’s news to some folks. I have in the past suggested transsexual sexuality as a research topic to some of my psychstudent friends, as I believe that further study would help shine some light onto how sexual attraction actually works.

    I don’t think it “validates the fundamentalists” any more than a hole in our understanding of evolution validates the fundamentalists. These sorts of things are typically very complicated, and just because we don’t know every detail today, doesn’t mean we’re not on the right path.

  2. Timothy–

    I’m sorry that my 3 comments trying to pin down what Jayhuck was actually saying were overkill. You really must print your blog etiquette rulebook one day. It would be a great service to us all.

  3. Eddy,

    Re 71213

    If we send Jayhuck to his room without dinner can we please stop talking about this? Would that be enough? Or do we need to spank him and stand him in the corner with a dunce hat?

  4. Evan,

    Levay, Hamer and Bailey (who I think you meant with the twin studies). all had their papers published in peer-reviewed journals. You have presented NO evidence whatsoever that they had anything to do with the media misrepresenting their work.

    While there are valid counter-arguments to their findings, you make none of them. Instead you give personal attacks on them, based on unfounded claims. Such attacks reveal more about you, Evan, than it does them.

  5. I may have shared this before, I can’t recall at the moment. One of the nicknames I acquired as a kid was “Mr. Dictionary”. I used to read dictionaries for fun…not just the definitions but the roots and the derivatives. I was even one of those “National Spelling Bee” people. LOL! I respect ‘the language’ in much the same way Jayhuck respects ‘the APA’. Now to my point: Although that little story may have been news to you, I doubt any of you are dumbfounded by it. I’ve posted long enough and often enough that people know I’m serious about words and communication.

    So, when Jayhuck stated that this ‘homo/trans’ phenomena was “proof” of bisexuality, I asked for clarification. He replied quite emphatically that he was not kidding. This detour started on the 7th. Early on the 10th, he finally acknowledges:

    “I’m of the mind that this person is probably bisexual – I’m not willing to say, however, that my understanding of the situation is the only one – or even the correct one.

    so let’s try this again – I’m not sure this proves anything except that Lorne might be have been a bisexual.”

    Jayhuck, I realize that you apologized but my first comments to you went to the point that lorne’s situation was ‘proof of bisexuality’. You said emphatically that you were not kidding! And now, 3 days later you say ‘Lorne might have been a bisexual’. That’s a long way from ‘proof of bisexuality’. I’d be tempted to write it off as ‘missed communication’ but

    1) we ALL know what I meant when I questioned ‘proof of bisexuality’…I’m Mr. Dictionary.

    2) mine was an all or nothing kind of challenge: does it prove bisexuality or not?

    2) you didn’t just quip ‘no, not kidding’ or ‘stretching things just a bit’, you chose to say ‘emphatically not kidding’. Translation: I TOTALLY meant it! It’s proof!

    3) and it turns out you BARELY meant it. “lorne might have been a bisexual”.

    You say you were ‘less than clear’; I’m tempted to conclude from the above that you were either ‘purposely evasive’ or ‘playing a game’ (I call that one the loop de loop)..something you claim you don’t do.

    It’s up to you whether we pursue this further. I just wanted you to know how frustrating this was–and why.

  6. None of the examples listed above “rushed to get their work to the press so they could make a stir” and innocently suggest anything later. They reported their conclusions and qualified them from the beginning. Much of the press surrounding them was the result of the breakthrough nature of their work.

    Anyone who seriously believes that LaVey’s work in the measurement of hypothalamus segments of the brain was not valid has been ignoring all of the subsequent work which seems to build on LaVey’s foundation. There are questions which were not at that time resolved – and many which are still open. But there no longer is any question as to whether there are physical differences in the brains of heterosexual and homosexual men.

    The accusations made against these scientist are unfounded. They betray an underlying dishonesty and a desire to ignore facts in order to fight a culture war. I’m sure that has a place at an anti-gay rally, but it doesn’t contribute much to this conversation.

    In the future, please substantiate your accusations… or better yet, don’t make them.

  7. Evan,

    Science is cheaper than personal experience; some use it to defend their experience, at least that’s how I understand a few gay scientists’ rush to get their work to the press and create a stir and then innocently claiming that ‘we never proved anything, just suggested’.

    It shows your own bias when you chastise gay scientists like this but don’t chastise scientists who use science to further their own political or moral agenda such as Focus on the Family or NARTH. It would have been more fair and closer to the Truth for you to say that Science is sometimes cheaper than personal experience or political and religious ideologies.

  8. We must bear in mind that the person who underwent such changes is/was a woman. There is some research suggesting that female sexuality is more flexible, whereas male sexuality tends to fall in categories of primary orientation.

    How much a transperson is “really” like their birth sex is still very much an open question, regardless of what J. Michael Bailey would like to believe. This kind of change is not unheard of in both mtfs and ftms, but the point that apparently needs to be re-emphasized is that IT ONLY EVER SEEMS TO HAPPEN IN SOME TRANSSEXUALS WHO ARE TRANSITIONING.

  9. This is not something new and earth shattering, not entirely sure why there’s such a big deal being made out of it…This sort of thing occurs very commonly.

    Is this really so common? If so, it’s a data point that unfortunately validates the fundamentalists’ contention that sexuality can be flipflopped – that with the right set of stimuli people can go from gay to straight. (Please note that I don’t agree with them – I’m just pointing out why this might be a “big deal”.)

    We must bear in mind that the person who underwent such changes is/was a woman. There is some research suggesting that female sexuality is more flexible, whereas male sexuality tends to fall in categories of primary orientation.

    Good point.

  10. Ken: Who are these “few gay scientists”? What work did they do that was rushed to the press?

    LeVay managed to rise to media stardom in 1991 using research that did not prove what even university courses teach right now — the existence of a difference in size between some brain areas by sexual orientation (I’ve seen university presentations disseminating this unreplicated hypothesis as common knowledge); he later admitted and made an effort to explain that he did not prove what the media ascribes to him, that it was all distortion of his findings. The ironic fact is that before getting in the spotlight he was just a regular neuroscientist with some contributions to the field of neuroplasticity.

    When Hamer came with his 1993 study of gay siblings, we had the same phenomenon: the media latched onto the gay gene, although Hamer knew that he made a special effort to find a marker with sufficient significance by identifying a carefully selected subset, but he never studied the heterosexual siblings to check whether Xq28 was shared but they were not gay. He now makes it clear that he did not prove the existence of a ‘gay gene’ and that his findings should only apply, if replicated, to a very specific subset of the gay population, less than 10%.

    I could go on with Pillard, Bagemihl and others. They learned the lesson that the media has a soft spot for this sort of biodeterministic stories and they know that there hardly is any public for their later qualifications.

  11. Well, that’s why I was saying that science is still trying to make sense of its vocabulary right now. They’re puzzled how their categories don’t seem to really corner stable realities with great precision. dickey’s case begs to differ in all respects.

    Just as a note I consider relevant for the general interest of this blog and this topic here — I wonder if the usual statistical criteria used to draw up a representative sample can hold in the same way for sexuality. I very much doubt that, and the possibility to ascertain that too soon.

    The Bailey Australian twins study about sex-atypicality (published in Archives of Sexual Behaviour, Vol. 29, No. 6, 2000) reported findings related to the distribution of sexual attractions, identity and behaviour in a sample of 1824 males aged between 19 and 52 years. Among them, 41% were married, 22% lived in de facto relationships, 30% were single, and 8% were divorced, separated, or widowed.

    They were surveyed, among others, for same-sex attraction (SSA), non-hetero identity (NHI) and same-sex behaviour (SSB).

    Here are a few interesting proportions I picked up from that study:

    14.5% of all males reported having SSAs (ever). A segment of 46.3% preferred to see themselves as heterosexual. A 60.7% subset of people with SSAs (8.8% of all people) also reported same-sex behaviour.

    85.6% of the sample reported never having SSAs. 7.5% of males who never had SSAs had at least one same-sex partner and experience.

    15.2% of all males reported same-sex behaviour.

    In the studied sample, the number of males who had at least one same-sex experience (15.2%) was slightly larger than the number of males who had SSAs (14.5%) and more than twofold the number of males who self-identified as homosexuals (6.4%).

    ——————————

    These figures are only based on self-reports, and their complicated patterns between attractions, behaviour and identity for just three variables show that the more variables you survey, the more complex an interplay of proportions can be elicited. That’s what we get for our terms’ worth right now. I wonder how lorne m. dickey would have scored — that could have cleared something about his self concept or about our present scientific idea of precision in studies on human sexuality.

  12. Eddy,

    I can see I’ve made myself less-than-clear again 🙂 My apologies –

    I’m of the mind that this person is probably bisexual – I’m not willing to say, however, that my understanding of the situation is the only one – or even the correct one.

    so let’s try this again – I’m not sure this proves anything except that Lorne might be have been a bisexual.

  13. Evan said in post 70743:

    at least that’s how I understand a few gay scientists’ rush to get their work to the press and create a stir and then innocently claiming that ‘we never proved anything, just suggested’.

    Who are these “few gay scientists”? What work did they do that was rushed to the press?

  14. In 70375 Jayhuck said: “I’m not sure this proves anything, except, once again, bisexuals DO exist!!!!!”

    I asked if he was joking and he said emphatically not.

    Conclusion: Jayhuck said that lorne’s situation “proves…bisexuals DO exist!”.

    Yet, in post 70463, he said: “I just wanted to add that my take on this situation is, I’m sure, just one of many – but I don’t think its out of the realm of possibility either.”

    So, is lorne’s position a proof of bisexuality or is bisexuality just one of many possibilities that might explain his/her situation?

  15. We must bear in mind that the person who underwent such changes is/was a woman. There is some research suggesting that female sexuality is more flexible, whereas male sexuality tends to fall in categories of primary orientation. There is more to this case than we can see here, we don’t get any details as to how physical changes reflected change in sexual preference. I would have expected such meaningful contribution from a psychology graduate — instead I get the ideological talk. It seems bias is inevitable, once you get there you no longer explain but defend your condition. Science is cheaper than personal experience; some use it to defend their experience, at least that’s how I understand a few gay scientists’ rush to get their work to the press and create a stir and then innocently claiming that ‘we never proved anything, just suggested’.

    dickey recognizes that the discrimination and hatred trans individuals experience can often lead to depression and anxiety disorders. He says, “I really believe that these issues should be addressed as well, but not be [used to] paint a pathological picture of the trans person seeking care.”

    Just as I said before, once it becomes subjective experience it becomes defended by all means. Maybe the only ‘oppressive’ thing is (the claim to objectivity from) scientific communities populated by too many non-pomosexuals…

  16. This is not something new and earth shattering, not entirely sure why there’s such a big deal being made out of it. I guess it’s a side effect of trans issues finally getting airtime in the media. This sort of thing occurs very commonly.

    When I was in highschool and my first two years of college, I thought I was gay and dated as such. I’d never been attracted to women or dated them in my life until I asserted my female gender identity.

    Once that identity was clearer as I’d been living a lie my entire life, my sexual orientation was suddenly in flux again. I had taken off the mask I’d worn my entire life to find many things I had taken for granted were no longer set in stone. I’m bisexual now as the end result, but I’ve seen things go every which way in other cases.

  17. Of course, depending on where this person was in their process of change – it could be something about the changing process that altered his desires

    But the statement he made about always being a lesbian and never sleeping with a man, does not in any way mean he couldn’t, on some level, have been a bisexual.

  18. Eddy: Now that lorne has a male body, he desires sex with men. (Proof of a gene that is so homosexual that regardless of what gender your body is, you automatically want to have sex with only that gender?)

    No, proof of eroticizing the exotic. — And of how versatile can be human sexuality, given some conditions.

    Remember the myth of Tiresias? The Greeks knew that a long time ago. But they couldn’t explain it, so they wove it in a myth.

  19. Eddy,

    UGH – no wonder I’m the most frequent commenter – One of these days I WILL master the art of saying everything I need to say in one post – sigh.

    I just wanted to add that my take on this situation is, I’m sure, just one of many – but I don’t think its out of the realm of possibility either. 🙂

  20. Eddy,

    I wasn’t kidding – why would you think I was kidding? My old college friend who is bisexual is married now – but he always told me he would cycle through attractions. He was either attracted primarily to men or primarily to women, but never both at the same time. I don’t think its a stretch to believe that this person might be bisexual – or that going through this process awakened some latent bisexuality.

    Of course, depending on where this person was in their process of change – it could be something about the changing process that altered her desires –

    But the statement she made about always being a lesbian and never sleeping with a man, does not in any way mean she couldn’t, on some level, have been a bisexual.

  21. I hope Jayhuck was joking with the bisexual comment. This seems like it would stretch the definition of bisexuality to its breaking point.

  22. Hmmm… first, he starts from a flawed premise:

    If gender identity is fluid, then sexual orientation is as well

    The gender identity of transsexuals is not fluid. The identity is consistent, the body changes. Even if you allowed fluid gender identities, it would not necessarily follow from that premise alone the sexual orientation must be fluid. Orange juice is made from fruit, so coke must be too.

    Second, change of orientations like this seems pretty much confined to transsexuals going through transition, and is quite different from “change” as variously defined by the ex-gay movement. When you talk to transsexuals who have found their orientation shifting through transition, there’s never any doubt that they’re talking about their actual sexual attractions. They don’t equivocate the way the ex-gay movement does. In the majority of cases where they go from hetero-in-birth-sex to hetero-in-target-sex, there’s the strong possibility that it’s mostly about having repressed their true orientation as part of their effort to deny their transsexualism. As for the ones who go from gay to gay or bi , and it happens to male-to-females as well as female-to-males, that would definitely be an interesting thing to study, but since the phenomana appears to be limited to transsexuals, it’s doubtful it would have wider applications.

  23. I have heard of this as well and knew someone a long time ago who was a male, identified himself as gay, and had relationships with men, then transitioned into a female through surgery and became a lesbian and has been with the same woman ever since.

  24. oops! the phrase “…they wanted to have sex with women but only as women” belongs after “but they also believed they were lesbians”.

  25. As bizarre as this story may sound, people of this unique persuasion have been around for awhile. I think it was Love In Action who encountered the first ‘translesual’ I’d ever heard of. Okay, we made up the term…but the first two we encountered were guys who believed they were women trapped in men’s bodies but they also believed they were lesbians. It seems lorne is going the opposite route. When he had a woman’s body, he had sex with women hence the identifying label ‘lesbian…they wanted to have sex with but only as women’. Now that lorne has a male body, he desires sex with men. (Proof of a gene that is so homosexual that regardless of what gender your body is, you automatically want to have sex with only that gender?)

    I’m sure there will be a host of psychological theories to explain this but the conservative Christian part of my brain thinks it screams “ENSNARED”

    It would be ironic if lorne’s situation finally forced psychology to define and examine orientation change. I’ll also be interested to know if he loses his leadership/spokesman role due to his controversial belief in change of orientation.

  26. I should have also pointed out that, in the first instance, the transition may also be from hetero to gay/lesbian, again meaning that the gender to which one is attracted does not change when one’s own gender changes.

  27. Some transsexuals go from lesbian or gay to hetero (meaning they remain attracted to one specific gender), while others go from lesbian to gay or vice versa, meaning that the gender to which they are attracted does change.

    This isn’t news to me, but yes, it suggests that for some people, sexual attraction is fluid.

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