[Dazeddaisy]

Hi,
Hoping someone may be able to throw some light on my situ!

49 year old female, straight all my life. Started HRT 3 months ago and now find myself really attracted to one of my gay female friends.

Not sure if the HRT is a factor or just coincidental but this does seem to have come out of nowhere and is very confusing!!

anyone any experience of this???

[Wednesday L.F.]

This actually happened with a college classmate of mine (we're both over 40 now). Went on HRT and the next thing we knew, she had an extremely fiery and more diverse sex drive than she ever had in her 20s. Luckily, she was newly single and free to explore her new desires freely.

At the time, she told our friend group that having people she could talk openly with was immensely helpful. I hope you have that. These forums are also a great place to get feedback and support. Glad you're here!

[Dazeddaisy]

Thank you so much for your reply. I’ve only been able to confide in one friend so far and searching for support brought me to this forum.

It’s one thing getting your head around a complete change in sexuality but also another to work out whether this is a permanent thing. I feel like maybe HRT has just made me ‘feel’ again, rather than creating something that isn’t real.

[Wednesday L.F.]

Do you find yourself less attracted to men? If so, is that impacting a particular man--husband, boyfriend?

The nice thing about sexuality is that it doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing situation. And you can change your mind about attraction and sexual preference whenever you want (while respecting any partners you have, obvs).

If it's not too personal, have you discussed this with the person you're attracted to? Do you think you should?

[Dazeddaisy]

I have a partner and an 8 year old, I don’t think I’ve ever been really attracted to him but he’s a decent guy and I care about him. I certainly haven’t felt attracted to anyone or had much of a libido for years but I know I do and did find men attractive.

The woman is a friend of a friend who I see once or twice a year. We get on really well and have lots in common. I’ve known her for about 6 years but it’s only this year that I’ve felt differently. I can’t tell her how I feel because certain things suggest that she likes me too - that would be opening a can of worms.

I just want to stress that I’m not thinking of doing anything stupid or hurting anyone. I’m just trying to work myself out. Most of my friends are gay and so it’s not a new concept to me but I’ve spent years feeling secure in my heterosexuality! I guess I just don’t understand how one day I can wake up and be attracted to a woman when I wasn’t the day before! I also don’t know if it’s just this particular woman or extends to others. It’s very much a case of feeling like I don’t know myself anymore.

sorry for the essay!

[Space-Traveller]

I'm nowhere near menopause, but I think I can add something. I'm bisexual, but I wasn't aware of it my whole life and I have taken a bunch of different hormonal medications due to PCOS, which proved not very severe, but difficult to treat.

First of all, there is a possibility that you were bisexual all along, but weren't aware of it. Or had the capacity to be bisexual, but due to preconceived notions you blocked yourself from experiencing it. I'll explain what happened to me. I was much younger, 19, when I fell for a girl for the first time, but I was into boys and adult men since I was 10 or so and had my first boyfriend when I was 14. I wondered if I was attracted to women in high school and fantasised about female friends as an experiement and it never turned me on. I never found myself falling in love with a girl before college, just guys. However, in retrospect I understand that I found girls attractive, but in more spontaneous situations, more specifically that they made me feel aroused, but I blamed it on being overly horny The reason why it didn't develop into fantasies, for example, or a fascination with a certain person was because of preconceived notions. My whole childhood and half of my adolescence, I had it ingrained in my brain that love and attraction is between a man and a woman, I found myself attracted to guys, which further cemented it and it didn't appear to me that I could be feeling something to a woman or that what I'm feeling could in fact be attraction, not "being silly". It's not that I found being gay wrong - it just didn't occur to me that I could be a part of it or that what I'm experiencing could be it. Then in college I think I also chilled out and learnt how to be spontaneous instead of constantly trying to fit in and try to be liked. I moved out of family home, no longer felt guarded, found great friends with whom I didn't feel insecure or like I need to try to fit in, so I had the space to do what I truly feel like and feel what I'm feeling instead of fulfiling expectations for the first time in my life. So this is conclusion number two: you need to be in the right place in life for such things to occur to you, in a place that you can just be in the moment and don't have expectations in the back of your mind constantly.

Another thing are hormones and I've had a similar but opposite experience. I took a number of different hormones. The first was an antiandrogen for acne and I think I hoped to be "fixed", because I believed I must have an "imbalance" and this is where both my irregular periods and my facial hair and acne are coming from. A doctor told me it's my androgens, so I believed it. It was wrong. I think I was just born to be hairy and to have lots of breakouts in the end. So the antiandrogen got rid of my acne and all of my body and facial hair, but it made my period even rarer and most importantly: made me depressed and gave me an anxiety disorder. It also made me lose 10kg (I weighed 60kg, went to 50kg) and I looked and felt like a ghost of a human being. For context, I'm slim to begin with. I think I lost an awful lot of muscle mass. But what it did to my attraction was that my libido dropped to the floor and I think it made me mostly straight, I was still attracted to guys to a similar degree, a bit less than previously but still yes, and a lot less attracted to girls, I noticed that I stopped feeling turned on at the sight of attractive women.

Then I failed with birth control Yasmin. Apparently the best pill out there. It made me crazy right away, the same feeling as antiandrogens, but a lot quicker and I felt agitated in addition to depressed and anxious. Awful mix. I lasted a few days on it. But the estrogen in it, I suppose, made me very horny and I couldn't stop thinking about tall muscular bearded dudes. Lol. I'm not sure about women, though, I was too busy thinking about bearded hipsters who lift weights, lol.

So the next thing I tried and still use is progesterone to induce a period and this one makes me have smaller libido than usual, but makes me horny in some way and makes me gay when I'm taking it. It blocks my attraction to dudes completely. It might be that my doctor gave me a killer dose, but it works and gets my cycle back, so I trust her. Progesterone has positive impact on my mood.

I tried also progestin-only birth control pill, which I would sum up as a generic experience with birth control. I experienced side effects, but not alarming ones... until I got something that looked like blood clots and I needed to stop. The POP made my libido weird and annoying, but it didn't impact my sexual orientation.

So to sum up the part about hormones, yes, they do have impact and they do impact who I'm attracted to and the effect might depend on what kind of hormones you're taking. Perhaps you're taking some with slight androgenic effects, because a lot of progestins (artificial progesterone-like compounds) have them. How do you feel about it? Do you feel like you'd rather take something less androgenic, because you don't feel like yourself or maybe notice some other undesirable symptoms as well? Or do you feel completely fine and like it's a part of you?

[Kayla Lords]

Hi,
Hoping someone may be able to throw some light on my situ!

49 year old female, straight all my life. Started HRT 3 months ago and now find myself really attracted to one of my gay female friends.

Not sure if the HRT is a factor or just coincidental but this does seem to have come out of nowhere and is very confusing!!

anyone any experience of this???

I don't have anything helpful to add but I wanted to thank you for even bringing HRT up as it's something I need to discuss with my doctor soon -- after having a hysterectomy and due to recent bloodwork, it's probably a good idea for me. And getting my libido back would be amazing. I think we need more conversations about HRT and other changes as we age.

Also, I agree with a previous poster who said those desires may have always been there or had the potential to surface.

Back in the day when I had my highest level of arousal and libido (early 30s), I was attracted to all kinds of people, across the gender spectrum, now I struggle to feel aroused by the person I love most in the world. So I guess I'm saying that to say you're definitely not alone if you haven't felt much and are now feeling ALL THE THINGS.

[Dazeddaisy]

Thank you both for your replies. I’ve been hibernating a bit lately. You’ve both given me good for thought.

Re the progesterone - I’m on utrogestan for 2 weeks of the month. I haven’t noticed this making any difference really.

I guess you are right, after having no libido for so long, I am now feeling all the things. Something I still need to accept.

I hope HRT helps you Kayla - it’s certainly helped with my brain fog and fatigue but has definitely ramped up my sex drive! I hope it does the same for you.

[Dazeddaisy]

Food for thought!