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Can a transgender person be gay?

by Staff writer

The answer is yes!

Gender identity is different from sexual orientation. Gender identity is a person’s internal knowledge of their gender – the deep knowledge that they are a man, a woman, or non-binary.

Sexual orientation is about who you’re attracted to. Regardless of being trans or cis, anyone can be attracted to lots of different people.

For example, a transgender man (someone who lives as a man today) may be attracted to other men and identify as a gay man.

He may also be attracted to women and identify as a straight man.

Or he may be attracted to both men and women and identify as a bi man or a queer man.

Transgender respondents to a 2015 survey self identified as queer (21%), pansexual (18%), gay, lesbian, or same-gender-loving (16%), straight (15%), bisexual (14%), and asexual (10%).


A survey of roughly 3000 trans women showed that at least 60% were attracted to women.

About Daniel Nkado

Daniel Nkado is a Nigerian writer and social researcher whose work examines Black identity, racism, institutional inequality, social power and belonging. He is the founder of DNB Stories Africa. Read more about Daniel, including his research methodology and full biography, here.

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One Comment on “Can a transgender person be gay?”

  1. The confusion never ends. So if you are born a woman and you transform to a man and you are sexually attracted to a man are you gay or straight or what?

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