About the Author

By Don

Don’s Testimony (anti-androgen medication)

For most of my life I dreamed of being a girl. It started when I was 5 years old when my mother threatened me several times to put a dress on me when I was bothering my sister.

The thought of that gave me a funny feeling and the more I thought about it the more I liked the idea. Eventually I tried on my sister’s skirt and from that point on I was hooked. I felt unloved by my parents and sisters and unappreciated by boys at school and in my neighborhood. This was the first good feeling I had ever had at that age. I could write a whole book on the ‘WHY” of me wanting to be a girl, with all the circumstances and the corresponding trauma, but suffice it to say, I had in my mind decided that I would be better off and be able to survive as a person better as a girl.

I followed the same course that many crossdressers do and continued to dress in secret while I lived with my parents. I was very immature socially, and was afraid to do anything about my wanting to be a girl, and had my first date going to my senior prom. I dated that same girl for 3 years and then married her. During that time, the good feelings of someone loving me kept the crossdressing at bay.

Fast forward to 10 years ago and a second marriage later and the crossdressing developed into full blown late onset transgender. I hated being a man and wanted everything that women have. When I crossdressed I did not want to get excited sexually but was only doing it so I could spend time being a girl. I tried 3 times to leave home, go on hormones and tried to live full time as a woman.

After a few months each time I was on the drugs, I lost all interest in being a woman. Each time I got very depressed and all I wanted was to go back to the comfort of my wife, who although hated what I was doing, would take me back. After a time of being off the drugs, eventually I was right back to where I started, wanting so much to live as a woman.

After the third time I finally got it. I was not transsexual but just a garden variety crossdresser. The drugs had caused me to lose my sex drive and the desire to crossdress.

Mind you, all of my life, I received counseling and antidepressant drugs to help me with my problem. I spent years in Christian addiction recovery groups and Sex Addicts Anonymous. I attended a whole weekend with a sex addiction specialist for $3600 with one-on-one sessions.

The drugs I was taking for MTF transition were estrogen and an anti-androgen used by many transsexuals, spironolactone. Together they work very well for increasing estrogen levels and reducing testosterone and my T was near zero while I was taking them within a few months. When I had failed for the third time a light bulb lit up above my head. I did not want to go back to the intense transgender feeling that I had. I decided to continue taking the anti-androgen Spironolactone only. I knew that I did not want the estrogen so as not to develop breasts, which had started to form.

When I did this, my estrogen levels went back to what a normal male has, and my testosterone also went back to my original levels, but there was one big difference. My sex drive, although there was some there, was greatly reduced. Before taking any drugs, I felt like I wanted to have sex every day. I used to have to masturbate occasionally just to relieve the physical pressure in my lower body.

With the Spiro, now that the strong desire to crossdress and be a woman was gone, I could appreciate my wife better that I ever could before.

Here is my theory of why it works so well. Unlike other anti-androgens that will bring your T down to nothing, Spiro only acts on your testosterone receptors especially in your brain. It interferes with that part but does not reduce T.

Now here’s the part that will scare some of you away. After two years, I did get a little breast growth, but now I am also taking an anti-estrogen also and that is working well. Just to let you know, from the very beginning, all the drugs I was taking were prescribed by a doctor and I get blood tests every six months to make sure that all my other body chemicals are normal, so I do not feel that this is too dangerous to my health.

In fact, there are some positive side effects. I am 68 years old and just like most men that age, it gets harder to urinate as you get older because your prostate enlarges and many men end up with prostate cancer. With the Spiro now, I am able to urinate like a young man again, and my PSA level, used to measure possibility of prostate cancer, is near zero.

Spironolactone is normally prescribed for high blood pressure; the anti-androgen part is a side effect. My blood pressure has always been okay, but now it is even lower. It’s not too low, but lower, so my heart is not working as hard as it would.

A third benefit is that I am much less easily upset. I used to have a temper that would flare, occasionally, and it was caused by very small matters. In psychology terms I am now less aggressive. Little things don’t bother me, not traffic, not mistakes my wife makes, not being insulted. We know that too much testosterone makes men very aggressive and again the brain T receptors for anger are affected by Spiro.

So there is much upside to this and very little downside in my opinion.

I am including some web links at the end of this article supporting my treatment. Look at the purpose of anti-androgens including Spironolactone with regard to Paraphilias (Yes, that is what crossdressing is classified in psychology). Most professional help does not know about this or has heard that it does not work but there is enough information out there that anti-androgens do work.

I believe that most men want their cake and eat it too. They hate their addiction but are not willing to give up any part of their physical sexuality. After all, we are sex addicts, we love sex so much and that’s what gets us into trouble. Jesus said, “If your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out.”  I choose to do that, but only enough to make it easier to resist temptation. I take (3) 25 mg pills of Spiro a day. You can, with the help of your doctor find the right level where you get as much relief as possible and still function as a man. It won’t be every day, but it also will not be once a month.

I am not saying this is for everyone, but for me it is the only way I can live a normal life as a man without the constant daily obsession of wanting to be a woman and fighting it. I still have the same thoughts and desire to be a woman, although much less often and there is no torment like I used to have. I still have the same brain with the same likes and wants, that will never be erased, but I learned that I can’t do it because of experience of trying it out. Nothing has changed regarding what I think I want, but now, with a reduced libido, I am able to resist temptations, obey God, and be content with my life as it is.

I tried with will power, prayer and programs for the last 50 years and I gave up. From what I see in the Christian crossdressing community, even the men that are having success and long term abstinence still have to work at it very hard and still in some ways fail.

I still have to do all the right things. I have to stay in The Word every day, stay close to Jesus in my life, and I can’t ignore my past and fall back into it. I have to maintain an active life of building caring relationships so I am not isolated, keeping myself from having too much freedom and alone time, maintaining healthy relationship with men’s groups in church, and doing all the things that I read on this blog that are helpful, but it is soooo much easier to do and be successful.

The last two years have been the happiest I have ever had. Whenever I see a woman I admire and would still like to be, I think about the consequences of trying to be a woman, and this stops the thought in its tracks.

If you want to stop struggling and fighting to resist crossdressing than this works. If you love your sex drive so much, even though God has now given you a way out from your temptations, just as God has given us doctors so we can get well when we are sick, then how do you expect prayers to be answered for God to help you stop crossdressing? Don’t think you are doing this without Him. He is giving you a way! If you want to use faith, have faith that this will work, and He will protect you from harm.

http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Antiandrogen+Drugs

http://www.health.am/sex/more/biological_treatments_for_paraphilias_and_paraphilia/