Is sexual preference something we’re born with, or something we’re conditioned into? Many people believe it’s something we’re born with. Years ago, I would have agreed. But for me, the answer isn’t so black and white anymore.

Continuing my exploration of inner transition — specifically my inner transition as a trans woman — I want to share some thoughts on sexual preference.

Before I began my transition, I identified as 100% heterosexual — or so I thought. I had no interest in men and couldn’t conceive of anything attractive about them. Recently, a friend asked me if I had been trained to be heterosexual. What an interesting question, I thought.

My father was a rabid homophobe. He openly expressed disdain for the gay and lesbian couples in our neighborhood and forbade me from speaking to them as a child. Secretly rebellious, I found ways to interact with them when he wasn’t around. The gay couple across the street were the kindest people I had met in my life up to that point, besides my grandmother.

Around the house, tucked into both obvious and hidden places, were my father’s Playboys and other heterosexual porn. He’d talk about how I needed a girlfriend or a “good woman” by my side from childhood into my teen years. Looking back, it’s clear he was afraid I might be gay. He must’ve sensed something different about me. My family did too. After I began my transition, my grandmother told me she had always wondered if I’d transition someday. A distant relative had already transitioned years earlier, and maybe on some level, my dad sensed the same possibility in me.

I remember when I started bike racing at 16. Cyclists often shave their legs, not for aerodynamics like many think, but rather so doctors don’t have to pick hairs out of wounds after crashes. My dad forbid me to shave, saying, “Only fags and women shave their legs.” I came home from my first race and lied, telling him the other racers teased me. He finally allowed me to shave up to my knees. He didn’t know that I’d already been shaving all the way up to my hips — long before that race.

In my first article, I mentioned that as a teenager, I deeply desired to embody the feminine essence of the women I saw in Playboy. I wasn’t attracted to men, but in my teenage mind, I thought that being sexual with a man was the only way to feel truly feminine. In the world my father created for me, being gay was “bad,” and the only option was to be straight. So I told myself that to feel feminine — the way I so deeply longed to — I had to be with men. Not because I was attracted to them, but because I saw them as the vehicle to unlock my femininity.

When I began experimenting with men in my twenties, I wasn’t looking at the man as a whole person. I viewed him more as a tool — a means to feel feminine, a gateway. Straight porn, after all, often presents the woman as the focus of the scene, while the man is reduced to a lower torso and a penis. That’s how I saw men, too — just a way to feel what I thought it meant to be a woman.

Many years later, during my second year of transition, I saw a man and actually found him attractive. It was summer 2011 in Los Angeles. I had just walked out of a store, and across the street was a man out for a run in nothing but shorts. He reminded me of JFK Jr. I was stunned — speechless — except to mutter “wow!” to my friend. After that moment, I slowly began to find men like George Clooney and Daniel Craig incredibly attractive. I wasn’t sexually attracted to them — yet — but I found them looking hot.

It would take nearly a decade more into my transition before I seriously started thinking about having sex with a man. That shift fully blossomed after my gender confirmation surgery, when I finally had the anatomy that aligned with how I saw myself.

Something profound happened after my genital surgery. When I had a penis, being with a woman made sense. It was like two puzzle pieces fitting together. I was married to a woman at the time, and we “fit” sexually. But after my surgery, everything changed. My wife, who had always been into men, didn’t consider herself a lesbian. And I was becoming more and more interested in men. We were left wondering: What now?

Sure, we intellectually knew the options for sex between two women. But emotionally, spiritually, it was different. We just weren’t drawn to those acts. Oral sex didn’t particularly appeal to either of us, so we found ourselves asking: Do we even want to be sexual with each other anymore?

My supportive and open-hearted wife encouraged me to explore being with a man romantically. When I finally did, it was magical. My body, aligned with who I truly am, responded with ease and joy. He knew I was trans, but he told me, “I can do everything with you that I can do with other women. So, in my eyes, you’re a woman. Period. End of story.”

The first time we made it to his bedroom, he gently pushed me onto the bed and got on top of me. I felt it deep in my soul in that moment: I had arrived. I was exactly where I belonged — a woman with a man.

And now? I feel complete in my body and my sexuality. I have the perfect equipment to be with a man. And oddly, I no longer feel the same attraction toward women. Sure, I can still see beauty in some women, but when I think about being sexual with one, it just doesn’t make sense anymore. At most, I’d want to kiss her gently — nothing more.

So… am I bisexual? Maybe. But if I had to quantify it, I’d say it’s 90/10. Men captivate my attention far more than women ever could now.

Final Thoughts

Sexuality is fluid. And in my case, it evolved with my gender identity — not as a reaction, but as a revelation. My inner transition led to new truths about who I am, what I desire, and what makes me feel whole.

We often ask whether sexuality is nature or nurture. But maybe it’s not about choosing sides. Maybe, just maybe, it’s about discovering who we are when the walls come down.

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Eva Mirelle writes about identity, femininity, and the inner journey of transformation. Her upcoming book is The Inner Transition: A Trans Woman’s Journey into Grace, Self-Love & Feminine Power.

The Evolution of My Sexuality: A Trans Woman’s Story was originally published in Prism & Pen on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

It’s hardwired into us humans to seek external validation, especially when our belonging feels uncertain. As a trans woman, I have deeply craved validation. I wanted to be seen by others as a woman, to be loved by men as a woman.

Over the past several years, I’ve talked to hundreds of men. Most were only looking for sex. They didn’t see me — only the experience they imagined I could offer.

As a child, I didn’t receive much love at home. My parents were cold and distant. I was rarely hugged or told I had done a good job. My mother’s lack of affection left me yearning — aching — for someone to see me, to acknowledge that I existed truly. So, growing up, my sources of pleasure became sugar and sex, mostly just self-soothing. That early longing for love and acceptance never really left me. It simply followed me into my transition.

In the early years, I searched desperately for external validation on dating apps. I wanted confirmation that I was desirable and worthy and that someone could love me as the woman I see myself as.

But most of the men I met were either chasers — when I was pre-op — or just curious to “try out” my trans vagina when I became post-op. To them, I was not a person. I was just an experience; a novelty—a sex toy to be sampled and discarded once the thrill wore off.

Needless to say, those encounters left me still longing. Longing to be truly seen, to be loved like a woman, not a fetish.

A few men came close. They saw me, or seemed to. They treated me with tenderness and respect. And in my desperation not to lose them, I clung too tightly. I smothered them with a fear of abandonment, terrified of letting go of the first few drops of genuine love I’d ever tasted.

I am not unattractive. I am considered beautiful by myself and by many others. But, often, the moment I disclose that I’m a trans woman, some of those same men flee. They run, afraid that seeing me as beautiful might make them gay, or fearful that others might think they are. Their fear turns me invisible again.

Friends have told me to stop chasing external validation and to focus on myself and my joy. And they’re right. But for a long time, I couldn’t let go. My happiness was so deeply entangled with others’ approval, especially the kind offered by men who only wanted to use my body for their pleasure.

Even though I loved and accepted myself on some level, that love wasn’t whole. It wasn’t rooted. Because I still tied my worth to how others saw me. I was afraid to be alone. I wanted that romantic dream: to be loved by a sexy man who saw me for who I truly am, and loved me back the same way.

Eventually, I realized something had to change. I took a solo retreat into the woods to be with myself. I looked deeply at this need for approval. I sat with it.

And in that quiet, I realized: I am the one who needs to approve of myself.
I need to be happy in my skin, do what feels right for me, step away from the world's noise, and drop into the stillness of my own being.

The love I’ve sought so desperately — it’s always been within me. Everything I need has always been within me.

These days, the craving has softened. When a man approaches but wants something that doesn’t align with what I want, I don’t dive headfirst into the illusion anymore. As a result, I feel a little calmer now — a little lighter. And I no longer care so much whether a man approves of me as a trans woman.

I know who I am. And I’m learning, day by day, that that’s enough.

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Eva Mirelle writes about identity, femininity, and the inner journey of transformation. Her upcoming book is The Inner Transition: A Trans Woman’s Journey into Grace, Self-Love & Feminine Power.

✨ This article is the first in my series on The Inner Transition — an exploration of the unseen side of gender transition: self-love, embodiment, and the feminine power already within us.

The Transition No One Talks About

When I first began my gender transition, I thought it was all about the outer changes: hormones, surgeries, clothes, hair, and voice. I was sure that once the world saw me as a woman, I would finally feel like one.

But I learned something no doctor, book, or support group ever mentioned: there is another kind of transition. One that is less visible, yet more transformative than any physical step.

I call it the inner transition — and it’s the most crucial step of all.

First Glimpses of Womanhood

As a child, I didn’t have words for what I felt. All I knew was the spark that lit inside me when I saw Cher performing on television — glamorous, radiant, powerful in her presence.

I wasn’t just watching her; I was remembering something. Some forgotten truth about myself stirred awake in those moments.

That same recognition would come back years later, as I began living openly as a woman. Except this time, it wasn’t just a spark — it was the question: Am I ready to embrace all of me?

Outward Changes, Inward Misalignment

Transitioning gave me relief and joy, but it also revealed a harder truth: changing my body did not automatically heal the way I felt about myself.

When strangers misgendered me, my entire sense of self could collapse in an instant. When I compared myself to cis women, I found endless ways to feel “less than.”

No surgery, no outfit, no affirmation could erase the shame and defensiveness I carried inside.

That’s when I realized: I had been so focused on being seen as a woman that I hadn’t learned how to feel like one.

Discovering Inner Transition

The inner transition began when I asked myself a simple but radical question:

What if I could love myself exactly as I am — before, during, and beyond transition?

The answer wasn’t about performing femininity, nor about proving anything to others. It was about cultivating qualities like patience, softness, trust, and grace within myself.

I began practicing little things: speaking more gently to myself, pausing instead of reacting, noticing when fear made me harden — and choosing, instead, to soften.

Slowly, something shifted. I stopped bracing against the world and started standing with it.

A Different Kind of Strength

I used to think strength meant defending myself, always being ready to fight for my womanhood. But real feminine power, I learned, comes from something deeper.

It is the strength of water, not stone. It’s the quiet power of showing up as myself without apology, of letting my presence — not my performance — speak for me.

This is what inner transition taught me: womanhood is not something you achieve, it’s something you embody. And embodiment only grows where self-love takes root.

Becoming at Home in Myself

The truth is, inner transition never really ends. But it begins the moment you realize womanhood isn’t something you put on — it’s something you grow into.

And the most powerful part? You don’t need hormones, surgery, or anyone else’s approval to begin.

It’s already inside you, waiting for you to say yes.

Continue with Part 2 here.

👉 If this resonated with you, follow me here on Medium for more reflections on self-love, transformation, and the unseen side of becoming.

If you feel called to support my work, you can do so on my Ko-fi page. Your support helps me keep creating and sharing from the heart.

Eva Mirelle writes about identity, femininity, and the inner journey of transformation. Her upcoming book is The Inner Transition: A Trans Woman’s Journey into Grace, Self-Love & Feminine Power.