No. 16 of 2025: From ‘butch’ lesbian to ‘straight’ jock dude: What transition taught trans athlete about orientation 

When I was younger, people saw me as a butch lesbian. I didn’t exactly feel like a woman, but I didn’t have the words for what I was feeling either.

What I did know was that I was attracted to women — and that wasn’t going to change. For a long time, “butch” was the closest label I could find that made sense of how I moved through the world: masculine, protective, a little rough around the edges. 

Now, people see me as a straight man. And technically, I am. But when people say I “went from butch lesbian to straight guy,” it flattens everything in between. It suggests something fundamental changed about who I am — when in reality, the most consistent part of me has always been who I love. 

I’ve always been drawn to women. That never shifted. What did change, though, was how others perceived that attraction. Before I transitioned, it was read as queer. Now, it gets read as straight. Same love, same desire but completely different assumptions. 

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Before I came out as trans, I spent years trying to make “lesbian” work for me. It’s not that it was completely wrong — it just wasn’t fully right. I didn’t feel like a woman loving women. I felt like a man stuck in the wrong frame. But back then, the idea of being trans felt unreachable, or maybe even off-limits. So I tried to find belonging in the only language I had access to. But the discomfort never left. 

Coming out as trans gave me the language — and the life — I’d always wanted. But it also meant that some people suddenly saw my sexuality as something totally different. They assumed I must now be into men, as if one coming out automatically necessitated another. Others figured I’d always been a straight man in disguise. The truth is more complicated. I never “became” straight. I just kept being who I’d always been, and my gender finally caught up. 

Of course, that’s not everyone’s story. Some trans people do experience a shift in their orientation when they transition. Sometimes it’s because they’re finally free to explore desires they previously repressed. Sometimes gender euphoria opens a door they didn’t even realize was there. Sometimes the change is slow, subtle. Other times it’s a lightning bolt. 

And sometimes, like in my case, the orientation itself doesn’t change, but how it’s perceived does. 

That distinction —between how we feel and how we’re seen — can be huge. When I was read as a masculine woman, my attraction to women was seen as queer. Now, as a man, that same attraction is seen as straight. People around me treat it differently. The relationships I’m in are interpreted differently. I’ve had to grieve the loss of visibility in queer spaces, even while finally living in a body that feels like mine.

It’s a strange kind of invisibility — to still feel connected to your queer roots but to be read by the world as something else. I feel most at home around queer and trans people, and I still carry that history with me every day. But unless I say it out loud, no one sees that part of me anymore. 

A love of sports

Sports have always helped me make sense of myself. I was a competitive horseback rider through college and even rode professionally for a while. Being around horses taught me something profound: they didn’t care what gender I was. They responded to how I showed up — not how the world labeled me. Riding gave me a place to channel my intensity, my focus, my care. It was the first space where I felt strong and competent without having to explain anything. My horse saw me, even when I didn’t fully see myself yet. 

These days, I run. I just finished my first marathon — 26.2 miles through Los Angeles, pushing my body in ways I didn’t know it could go. Running gave me back something I lost after I stopped riding: the clarity that comes from movement, the freedom of being in your body and fully present.

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There’s something about training day after day, building endurance, and showing up for yourself that mirrors the process of transition. Both require persistence. Both require trust in the long haul. Running has become a way for me to celebrate who I am now and to honor every version of me who got me here. 

There’s no one-size-fits-all narrative when it comes to being trans, or to sexuality. That’s what makes it hard for some people to understand. We’re raised to think of identity as a checklist: this or that, gay or straight, male or female. But trans people often live in the gray areas. We learn to make peace with complexity. 

And part of that complexity is realizing that identity doesn’t have to be static. For some people, sexuality is fluid, shaped by personal growth, by hormones, by healing, by comfort in one’s body. For others, it’s stable and unwavering. Both experiences are valid. Both belong in the queer community. 

I think it’s important to say that all of these experiences — whether your orientation stays the same, changes, disappears for a while, or refuses to be labeled — are valid. None of them make you more or less trans. None of them make you more or less real. You don’t need a linear journey to be legitimate. 

For me, transitioning wasn’t about becoming someone new. It was about becoming more myself. And that includes the part of me that has always loved women. Maybe the world sees me as a straight man now. Maybe that’s even what I am. But inside, I carry all the past versions of myself — the kid who didn’t know how to explain why girls made his heart race, the teenager trying to survive in a body that didn’t feel like home, the butch lesbian who wasn’t actually a woman. 

They’re all part of my story. 

I sometimes think about what would’ve happened if I’d grown up in a world that had more language, more nuance, more freedom. Maybe I wouldn’t have needed the label “butch lesbian” as a stepping stone. Maybe I would’ve known I was a boy all along. But I also know that every identity I held along the way helped build the man I am now. And I love the man I am now. 

So yeah, you could say I went from butch lesbian to straight man. But that’s only the headline. The truth is, I never stopped being me. And I never stopped loving women.

Jay Robinson lives in Los Angeles, where he works as a Specialist in Lifesaving and Care in the kitten nursery at Best Friends Animal Society. He is a trans athlete who ran and completed his first marathon — the Los Angeles Marathon — on March 16. He was an equestrian athlete in college. He can be reached via email at jaykrobinson83@gmail.com

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The post No. 16 of 2025: From ‘butch’ lesbian to ‘straight’ jock dude: What transition taught trans athlete about orientation  appeared first on Outsports.