Can God heal you or cure you from crossdressing? More specifically, can God remove your autogynephilia disposition/orientation? Can God remove your gender discomfort? Can God remove all desire to crossdress? Yes, I believe he can do all of those things. Let me explain. I believe God can heal us from this burden in at least two or more ways. The first way is the way that I have experienced. This way is the gradual healing of our hearts and minds over time. To define it, let me tell you my story.

Years ago God gave me the strength to stop crossdressing. Well, I actually think God had always given me that strength, but I finally chose to trust him that he would help me stop. Once I believed that I could stop with his help, I stopped. (Not without a relapse here or there over the years; most of us have a bad day now and then where we look at something online that we shouldn’t, but those days are rare). Over the years since I really committed to stopping, God has gradually worked more and more healing into my heart and mind. Back at the beginning, the temptations were very strong and hard to defeat. I had stopped crossdressing but I still craved it strongly. But the longer I stayed steadfast and didn’t give in, the less strong the desires became. Today once in a while the desires creep up, but largely they are no longer existent in my normal life. I can look at female clothing and have no thoughts of crossdressing. Clothes add to the beauty of women in a natural way, but they have ceased being such a powerful fetish object. God has seemingly even cleansed my mind, making me forget some of the crossdressing stories and images I have looked at over the years. Would I say I am “fully healed?” No, I would not. I reserve that for the time when I go years without a single crossdressing thought. Actually, more truly it refers to the time when Jesus returns in his Second Coming, to make all things new and fully remove sin from my being. Until that day we continue to wrestle with our sinful natures. For now, when temptations come, they are usually easy to dismiss. The amount of healing God has done in my mind and body and soul is significant, significant enough that I feel like a very different person from my past self those many years ago. I feel more free with every day and year that passes. I am not a slave to that addiction. I am living a very happy and joyful life. I am content being a man.

The second way that I believe God can heal us is through an instantaneous healing of our heart and body. This I did not experience, but of course, it must be possible! We need to give God enough credit. God can do anything. Usually I only talk about the gradual healing and I set people up to expect that God won’t completely heal them. I set people up to expect that they will always have these crossdressing desires till the day they die. But who am I to limit God? Who am I to limit the God who created the Heavens and the earth, the God who created Neptune and Saturn, the God who made this vast beautiful world that we live on just by speaking? Who am I to say that God can’t take away someone’s autogynephilia, their crossdressing desires, the same God who raised people from the dead? Of course God can do this! This is the same God who convicted me of my sin, cultivated faith in me, gave me salvation through Jesus, and transformed my heart, making me a child of God. Of course God can change our hearts and minds. He has done it for countless people throughout history and in Scripture.

We should not limit God. Will God always heal like that, instantaneously? No. In fact, I think he usually will not. Usually I think he will heal a person slowly through the long hard work of discipline, changing life habits, trusting in Him, empowerment by the Holy Spirit, accountability from the church community, dwelling on His Word, asking for help through prayer, and many repetitive times of confession of sin and thanksgiving for forgiveness. This seems to be the normal way God heals people from sinful addictions, whether that be alcohol addiction, drug addiction, food addiction, television addiction, pornography, or crossdressing. But even if that is the normal way, we should still keep on asking God for immediate healing. God has given these kinds of immediate healings to many kinds of addicts. While most Christian with same-sex attraction have to struggle with those feelings for the rest of their lives, there are a few who testify that God has healed them miraculously and taken away their same-sex attraction. There are former drug addicts who were prayed for and released from addiction without going through long sessions of rehab and relapses.

So why wouldn’t we ask God for this healing ourselves? I guess if God speaks to you, and tells you that your healing will be gradual and not instantaneous, than you should stop asking for the instantaneous miraculous healing. But if not, you might as well keep on asking for that miracle. Jesus tells us to keep praying persistently and not give up (Luke 18:1). But don’t sit around and do nothing while praying that God heals you in that way. Start doing the hard work of the gradual healing process. But while you do that hard work, ask God to heal your heart, your mind, and your soul.

Don’t be like a sick person who refuses to take medication because he wants God to heal him miraculously. Take the medicine, see the doctor, while praying for healing. And let God choose to heal you in the way he wants to heal you, whether through the medicine that comes from the world he has created, or through a miracle. Either way the glory goes to him for the healing. With this cross-gender struggle, do the work, and pray for divine intervention. Let God work in you the way that he chooses.

Ask God to deliver you from crossdressing. And then leave the results of your prayers up to God. Don’t be discouraged if you don’t see immediate clear results. God will answer your prayer and heal you to make you more like Jesus. But he will answer it in the way he sees fit, according to his good plan for your life. Romans 8:28-30  ²⁸ And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. ²⁹ For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. ³⁰ And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

God is able to deliver us from bondage to crossdressing. He can heal us. He can take even our memories of our pasts and heal us from past wounds, and fill us with his love to the point that we no longer need crossdressing because we are so content with his love and purposes in our lives.

He will either heal you all at once, or he will heal you gradually as he has done for me. He WILL respond to your prayers and work in your life. We need to have faith. But what kind of faith? Not faith in ourselves. Not faith that we know the future. We don’t know exactly and specifically what God will do and when. But faith in God. Faith that God is powerful and can do anything. Faith that God loves us and desires our good and wants to help us overcome sin and bondage. And faith that God in his infinite wisdom knows the best way and the best time and the best method to give us the healing that we need.