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Prior to his transition, filmmaker Jake Graf identified as a lesbian and had never had any inclination towards men, either sexually or romantically. From the age of 17, he worked in the recently closed lesbian nightclub Candy Bar and spent the next decade dating many girls. At the age of 28 he took a trip to New York and witnessed the city's trans scene, a journey which inspired him to begin his own transition. Like Krisanda, it took less than a year on testosterone for his sexual orientation to shift entirely."From when I was two or three years old, all I knew was that I liked girls and that I was a boy," says Graf. "But within I would say about a year on testosterone, I started looking at guys in the street thinking, he's quite cute, which is obviously weird because I'd never ever looked at them before. It was weird and it was totally confusing. There's a lot of adjustment when you're transitioning and then add to that the fact that all of a sudden all I could think about was my newfound attraction to guys—it was a double head-fuck."Read on Broadly: The Straight Men Who Have Sex with Trans Women
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While the physiological impact of taking testosterone and transitioning is likely contributing to these significant changes in sexual orientation, some who've had similar experiences feel there's also a mental and emotional element to it."Before I transitioned, I considered myself a lesbian," says New York-based writer, Emmett Lundberg. "I was attracted to women and maybe I had a couple of crushes on guys, but it was never anything substantial. But I consider myself queer now; I'm attracted to everyone. For me, I'm sure it's some combination of the hormones and then you're feeling comfortable with yourself, so it's kind of like you're open to other possibilities. I certainly was much more aware and comfortable verbalizing my feelings towards men after I started transitioning."Read on VICE Sports: "Call Me Matt"—Life as a Transgender High School Athlete
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"I think it's much more common than is necessarily even talked about in the community," says Lundberg. "It definitely threw me off because I did know that trans guys transition and then became attracted to men, but I guess I didn't really think about it in my situation. So it did catch me a little off guard, but now I feel much more comfortable with it and I just feel really open to anyone."Having previously come out as a lesbian and then as trans, coming to terms with his homosexual feelings and dealing with coming out again was a familiar experience, one he didn't dwell on too much. But even with the knowledge and experience of growing up trans, accepting same-sex attraction isn't necessarily an easy journey. Will Krisanda is now in a place where he's happy to explore relationships with other men, but getting there was a struggle."When I started my first year, I was very much in this mode of wanting to be seen as masculine as possible," says Krisanda. "It was really hard for me to admit that there was a time when I thought that it was a bad thing to be attracted to men as a male. I just didn't know how to explore that part of me with this new exterior. I think it was just over-compensating my lack of 100 percent presenting as male by just trying to be as masculine as possible and just saying no, being attracted to men makes me less male—which is totally not the case.""So this attraction to men, especially in the last year to two years, has really been a learning process for me to try to accept myself now, as a man who is attracted to men. It's definitely been a challenge, but a good challenge."Follow Chris on Twitter.Read: The Glamorous Beauty Queens of Miss Gay Lady Venezuela