Sexual Orientation Labels
Historically, clinicians labeled transsexual people as heterosexual or homosexual relative to their sex assigned at birth. Most transsexual people find this offensive, and prefer to define their sexual orientation relative to their gender identity. Thus, a trans man attracted to women is likely to identify as a heterosexual man.
To avoid confusion and offense, the terms "gynephilia" and "androphilia" are sometimes used to describe attraction to women and men, respectively.
The terms "homosexual" and "heterosexual" are problematic for transgender people who do not identify as male or female. More broadly, terms defining attraction in terms of men and women are often rejected by people attracted to those outside the gender binary.
Read more about this topic: Transgender Sexuality
Famous quotes containing the words orientation and/or labels:
“Every orientation presupposes a disorientation.”
—Hans Magnus Enzensberger (b. 1929)
“In the range of things toddlers have to learn and endlessly review—why you can’t put bottles with certain labels in your mouth, why you have to sit on the potty, why you can’t take whatever you want in the store, why you don’t hit your friends—by the time we got to why you can’t drop your peas, well, I was dropping a few myself.”
—Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)