Is it a "gaydar", or do they just make me horny?

 I keep hacking away at the stubborn tree root that is my sexual orientation. Just the other day, I wrote:

"I feel like there's an invisible wall between us. My eyes will look, my body sometimes turns on, but consciously I don't feel much at all. I'm not letting myself feel those feelings at all. "

Today, I had another epiphany in this direction. I saw a performer in a song competition, a woman singing a country/pop song. I'd never seen her before, but got an immediate sense that she was gay. My "gaydar" has previously been pretty accurate, and a quick google search confirmed that I was right this time too. But what am I really sensing?

Is this "sense" that a woman might be gay, really my unconscious ATTRACTION to her? Am I externalizing that feeling of attraction, because I'm unable to deal with that feeling inside of me? 

To attack this from a different direction: I recently saw a "thirst trap" on social media.. A shirtless, bearded guy. Traditionally right up my alley, but now I'm not so sure anymore. Similarly, I recently chatted with a bearded geek on a dating app, looking at maybe hooking up with him, and I... Don't know if I want to. 

The guy from the thirst trap is undeniably attractive... But (like I wrote back in my egg crack in October 2021) do I want to fuck them or BE them? 

And I... Have no idea. None at all. To be clear: I'm not even sure I really like men anymore. Or if I ever did? This makes me question everything. Every man I've ever fallen in love with, every man I've ever been sexually interested in.. Has it all been.. Something else? Not attraction, but an escape from a more dangerous truth? A way to hide from myself, because men didn't feel dangerous to me? 

To be clear: I don't doubt that I've deeply loved several men, including T and Saint. I'm obviously able to fall in love with them. The love was true, and still is. But do I thirst for men? Really? Because if I liked women.. And the idea of lesbians gave my gender dysphoria.. Then I had to be trans. That was the dangerous truth.

A part of me, that part who's listened to way too much anti-trans rhetoric, is questioning if I'm even trans. The terfs claim, after all, that transmasculine people really are just confused, repressed lesbians. As if anyone would think being trans is easier than being gay, in our day and age... And I am trans. I don't truly doubt that, this is just some old gremlins mumbling in the corners.

Writing this fairly short post has taken me over an hour. There's obviously something here, something I'm afraid to touch. It's similar to when I wrote about decommissioned robots back in august 2022. I could follow the trail of my own panic, to unveil things I'd previously hid from myself. I don't think I'll get any further right now, but this topic of my sexual orientation is obviously something I'll keep returning to. 

I'm curious to see where this journey of self-discovery will take me.