Translation
“I was a lesbian woman and now I’m a gay man.”
That’s what trans TikToker Rory, a musician with 62,000 followers on the video-sharing platform, said recently about his unique (though increasingly less common) transition journey.
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“I came out as a lesbian, and then I came out as non-binary, and then I came out as trans. I identified as a lesbian for a very long time. I was solid in that identity. There was no fluidity there, no interest in men,” Rory told Pink News.
Now there is, he added,
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“Now that I’ve transitioned, I can date men and I’m still in a queer relationship, and I don’t find myself attracted to girls anymore, and I don’t know if that’s because then I would be in a straight relationship,” he added. “I’m almost like, I’m too queer for that.”
“I do know a lot of trans men that like men after transitioning, and they didn’t before. It’s like a common pipeline that happens,” he said.
@r0rycity
The moment I started to pass
#ftm #transman #storytime
♬ original sound – Rory
About 28% of trans people experience a change in their sexual orientation after transitioning, which happens independently of gender-affirming care like starting hormones or getting surgery, according to a 2014 study published by PLOS One, the peer-reviewed, open-access scientific journal published by the Public Library of Science (PLOS)
The researchers attributed the change in sexual orientation to factors like social or self-acceptance, or to trans people’s newfound understanding of their sexuality and their evolving relationship with their bodies.
However, the orientation change could also be related to their interactions with the opposite sex, Rory suggested.
“Maybe there was a hatred toward men because I wanted to like, be them,” Rory said, “but I didn’t know that for so long.”
Now, Rory is navigating both his own version of masculinity and others’ as well.
“Some people would meet me and when they realize I’m trans, or if they find out or they knew before, they’re like, ‘Oh why do you act feminine?’ I’m like, ‘Oh, well, because I’m like, gay.’ Some people in their heads, they’re like, ‘If you wanted to be a man, why are you not being their version of a man?’ And that is what some trans people think, as well.”
Dealing with those preconceptions is a fact of life for trans people, Rory says, but manifesting his own self-image outwardly has been an important part of his transition.
In his latest TikTok post, he shared the moment he knew “everything had changed” on his own journey from identifying as a lesbian woman to coming out as a trans man.
He passed at a rail station bathroom.
“The moment I knew I was starting to pass as a trans man was the moment I went to go to the women’s toilets. Because like up until the point I started to pass, I obviously wasn’t going to the men’s toilets, like I don’t feel comfortable doing that,” he said. “Anyway, I head to the toilets, and I was at the station, and there was a security man standing outside, and he was like, ‘Excuse me! The men’s toilet is that way!’ My boyfriend was there, and I was like…”
Rory gave a big thumbs up, and a smile spread across his face.
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Source: https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2025/07/tra ... a-gay-man/