According to many crossdressers online, it is impossible for us to ever lose our crossdressing desires. According to many Christians, our crossdressing desires (or other sinful desires) will go away as soon as we pray and ask God to take them away. I disagree with both.
I believe that healing from crossdressing is about finding healing from the pain and healing from the “need” to crossdress. It is about finding freedom in Jesus and through Jesus having the ability to say “no” to the desires. Healing is about having a full life of joy and happiness in God without giving in to the false pleasures of crossdressing. Healing from crossdressing doesn’t necessarily have to include the crossdressing desires going away, (though that could be part of it for some people and we should all hope for and desire it).
I think that most likely we will never lose our desire to crossdress, just as we don’t lose our desire for other sins in our lives. The desires might lessen, but they won’t fully go away, and that is okay. This is part of the tension of the “already-but not yet,” that we see in the Bible. We are already new creatures in Christ, but not yet fully made new. We are already saved from our sins, but we still wrestle with our sinful nature. We still sin every day in ways we don’t even realize. God has already rescued us from our suffering through Jesus and yet we still suffer. Jesus has already accomplished much in our lives. But he has not yet completed his plan. When he comes again, then we will experience the “not yets.” Our salvation will be complete, our pain will be taken away, and Jesus will make us new creatures, unable to sin anymore. One of the many things that is in the tension of the already-but not yet is that we have the freedom to say “no” to sinful desires now, but those sinful desires and temptations will only gradually lessen, until finally when Jesus comes back, he will make us unable to sin at all and we won’t even desire to sin at all.
For years, I used to beg God to take away my crossdressing desires. He never took them away completely. When I was finally sober from crossdressing for longer periods, the desire for crossdressing was still there. I learned not to expect them to ever go away. I was at peace knowing I would continue to have to resist temptation but at the same time I felt free from crossdressing. But what came as a surprise was that now that I have said “no” to crossdressing for so long and so consistently, that the desires are almost non-existent. They are still there, but it’s an abnormal day, an abnormal week, an abnormal month, that they rear their head. Most of the time I am never tempted, but temptations do still come periodically, most especially when I wake up from having a crossdressing dream. Because I’m so used to not having temptation, I am prone to fail when temptations do come because they take me by surprise. So I have to remain vigilant. And I am content. Whether or not the desire for crossdressing ever fully goes away in this lifetime, it does not matter. I will still remain faithful to God, still try my utmost to refuse crossdressing, and I am enjoying no longer being a slave to that addiction. I feel healed. Why? Not because all the temptation and thirst for crossdressing is completely absent. I am healed because I am free from addiction, and I have the power to say “no” to those desires when they come.
I firmly believe that God can take away our temptations. And I believe he does so for certain people. There are countless testimonies of crossdressers or homosexuals that God healed and even took away their temptations for those things. But there is also no place in the entire Bible where God promises to do so. In fact, most passages show us that sinful temptations will always be a part of our lives until Jesus comes again. This is one of the very big problems with conversion therapy that has been used for those struggling with same-sex attraction. It gives people false hope that their desires will change in this lifetime, and it uses very questionable, some would say horrific, techniques to try to bring about this change that we cannot expect.
I would compare these issues with the issue of physical healing. God can and sometimes does miraculously heal people from diseases or health problems, but with most people he doesn’t, even though we pray with strong faith and trust in him. Sometime his plan involves allowing us to go through suffering. But one day all of his people will be fully healed, and resurrected, physically healed, emotionally healed, and spiritually healed (no longer able to sin).
As I have written about elsewhere, it is not sinful to be tempted. It is only sinful to give in to the temptations. Even Jesus, while he was on earth, was tempted to sin by Satan. But he did not give in, and Jesus was perfect and sinless. We must not let ourselves feel guilt about our temptations. There is a huge difference between temptation and giving in to temptation. However, I would add that we have a responsibility to work on changing our desires to the extent that we can. It is good for us to ask God to change our desires. Our desire for sin certainly is not good and we should hope that we learn to desire sin less and less. It is good for us to work on changing them ourselves through conditioning, through our thought processes, through breaking addictions, and so on. The more we grow in our relationship with God, and the more we grow in holiness, the more we will desire good righteous things, and the less we will desire sinful things. The more that we say “no” to sin and “yes” to what is right, the more we will learn to desire that which is right.
I think this fits with the wisdom author C.S. Lewis gave in his book Mere Christianity:
“The rule for all of us is perfectly simple. Do not waste time bothering whether you ‘love’ your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him… There is, indeed, one exception. If you do him a good turn, not to please God and obey the law of charity, but to show him what a fine forgiving chap you are, and to put him in your debt, and then sit down to wait for his ‘gratitude’, you will probably be disappointed.”
Keep on doing good, and you will realize how beneficial and wonderful it is to do good, obey God, and resist sin. The more you enjoy freedom from crossdressing, the less and less you will desire to go back to it.
I’d like to comment on one Bible passage that fits with this topic. 1 Corinthians 10:12-13 –
12 So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall! 13 No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.
These verses give us a wonderful promise. They do not give us any promise about God taking away our temptations. But they do promise that God will not let us face any temptations that are too powerful to overcome. This is not affirming how powerful we are. The emphasis is not on us. The emphasis is that no matter how powerful the temptations are, God is more powerful. God is at work within us, and God will provide a way out of the temptations. We do ALWAYS have the ability, given to us by God, to resist temptations that come our way. We CAN actually choose which of our desires to give into or not. We are deceived if we become convinced by non-Christians that we have no choices, and we have to give in to whatever desires float through our mind. We DO have the power to make choices, and the power to resist temptations. You have free-will and you are empowered by the Holy Spirit! Thank you to God who works within us.
Someone may ask – Why would God not take away my temptations? How can he be good, expect me not to crossdress, but still let me endure crossdressing temptations? Why won’t he take them away even when I ask through prayer? Those are good questions.
First, I’d say that freewill is a good thing, and freedom of choice is good. God didn’t create us as robots. We have the freedom to give in to sin or not, and that is a good thing. It’s good for us to learn how to choose what is right, to choose God. It is good for us to learn how to choose holiness and life over sin and death.
We could take this all the way back to Adam and Eve, the first people. God allowed them to have freedom to choose to sin or not. They chose to sin, and because of them the world fell from its original perfection, hence we call it “The Fall.” Now we are born into sin. We are born naturally wanting to sin. We are born with all kinds of sinful temptations. But we can’t blame God. Humanity brought sin into the world, not God. And God is letting us experience the consequences until Jesus comes again and makes things new. That means that God is letting us (for the most part), continue to deal with having crossdressing desires and all kinds of other sinful desires, even as Christians. Asking God to take away all of our sinful temptations is a good thing, but expecting him to do so completely is like asking him to completely make peace in this world, or to heal everyone in the world who is sick. Yes, God will eventually take away all of our sinful temptations and physical diseases, but only once Jesus comes again. In the meantime, he does still work in this world, he does still answer prayers, but he won’t act so completely and fully now as compared to the time when Jesus returns and brings an end to the world in this current condition and begins a new age.
Second, I’d say that according to the Bible, God has a good grand plan for this whole world, and for the lives of his people. Romans 8:28 –
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.
God is at work in our lives and in this world, for our good. Somehow God allowing me to be born with this tendency to desire crossdressing fits into his will. It doesn’t make being born like this “good“, but it does mean that God has fit it into his plan to use it for good. Somehow God is using it for good in my life or for the good of this world. And the same is true for each of you. I don’t know the details, and maybe won’t know until heaven. But I trust in God’s providence, his sovereignty. He is in control. There is some reason I was born like this, some reason that God allowed this evil and pain in my life. Perhaps without this problem, I would have never given my life to him. So I believe I was born with this, God allowed it, it is a painful bad thing that I have to resist, but there is some good reason God allowed this in my life. Perhaps in your case, God uses it to make you dependent on him, or to shape your character, or to teach you to have self-control, or to help you have compassion for others with addiction. The list is endless.
Here is an analogy. Children might think their parents would let them eat candy for every meal if their parents really loved them. But if the parents are truly loving, then they won’t give the children candy every meal. The parents know the truth that it isn’t good for their kids. We can’t make the logical leap and say that if God doesn’t take away my desire to crossdress, therefore he must think its okay to crossdress, or he hates me. No. It could just as well be that he knows ultimately it is better for a certain person to still have the temptations. Maybe the temptations draw that person to rely on God day to day. Maybe the experience causes us to have more compassion on others who struggle. We may not know why God allows temptations to stay in our lives, or suffering for that matter, but we have to trust that he is control and has a good plan.
If in doubt about any of this, apply the same question and logic to the issue of alcoholism. Alcoholics have to learn to resist the desire even though they would rather have God take the desire away completely. But they learn self control and they live full and happy lives, having been healed from their addiction. If they can do it, so can we! God will help us.
Thank you for talking about the desire not going away. I have dealt with crossdressing for many years and now I might lose my wife because of it. She tells me that she can only be my friend because I want to be a woman. Looking deep inside, I can argue with her when I fantasize about it or wear women’s clothes. Please help. I’m mad a God for allowing this desire. My wife could handle any other addiction, but I’ve hurt her too many times by sinning. I want our relationship to be more important that my desires and those objects. I need healing once and for all. I’ve tried many times and fail by giving in again to the temptation at some point. My flesh is stronger than the Spirit. What’s the point if nothing can convince her otherwise?
David, Barnabas is unable to respond at the moment due to travel commitments. When he’s home I’m sure he will reply.
In the meantime I want to encourage you that it is possible to say no to the desires even if they don’t go away.
We call this a fight and that means we have to fight against the desires by replacing them with a stronger desire … a desire for Christ. When Christ becomes more precious to us than our sin then sin begins to lose its power over us.
I think the problem is the CD becomes all consuming in our minds and crowds out the things that are good. Even when we know it’s wrong we still allow our minds to spend too much time thinking about the sinfulness of it and then we begin to despair and give in. The key is to spend time in worship, praise and prayer, meditating on the gospel of Christ. As we do we fill our minds with the glories of God and sin begins to look like the ugly thing it is.
I’m going to pray for you that you will find true frethrough a close and personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
Paul
Thank you Paul. I need prayer and healing. The door is wide open for me to just delve into the world of crossdressing especially at this very low point in my life.
Hi David, I’m sorry to hear of what you are going through in your marriage. Even if you know it’s your fault because of your sin, it doesn’t make it less painful, and perhaps makes it even more so, as you are filled with shame, guilt, and regret.
Right now, I hope you will not worry so much about the long term future, but focus right now on getting right with God, and find freedom and healing and new victory over sin as you grow in your relationship with Christ. Please read this post and start doing the steps – https://healingfromcrossdressing.org/12-steps-to-stop-crossdressing/
I will pray for you right now
Barnabas,
Thank you for prayer and concern. I will read the linked article and work on what it says. Also, you are right, I feel/see because of my selfishness I’ve lost a gift from God in my wife. For your specific prayer request she has told me because of the crossdressing cycle of being bad and then asking forgiveness over and over I have completely broken her heart right when she was just starting to let herself become vulnerable because she thought I was finally past crossdressing. She is a wise, Godly woman and never let me do any kind of crossdressing in our marriage. She knows that crossdressing makes me want to be a woman. Because of this she doesn’t think she can ever be vulnerable with me again and all we can really be are roommates/ friends. I did this not her. I’m an emotional abuser and she has to be out of it. I don’t blame her or hate her. Again it wasn’t her; it was me. She has told me that she is free from worrying about what I do or look at. If i want to crossdress-go for it! Oh how i want to because that is where i go to feel better and why not everything is over. Why should I care too? But God has revealed to me that I need to heal even if my wife and I don’t make or she can never have an intimate relationship with me again. But God will still be there and I know I can’t have a true relationship with Him while continuing the cycle. If I give in the whole crossdressing cycle that you have talked about will still continue in my life. Also, giving in will- I believe -truly make it over with my wife. I will prove her thoughts about me.
She is in deep pain and hurt and betrayal. It will take her time to heal. Give her some space, and work on your own recovery. And pray that God will give her a heart that will forgive you and remain with you. But you have been unfaithful, and you cannot demand that. So just do the best you can to love her well from this point on, with the number one thing being to put this addiction to death. You may want to suggest to her that she join our ladies prayer group where she can talk to other wives who understand her deep pain that she is going through, they can help her a lot – https://healingfromcrossdressing.org/private-wives-group/
Thank you for the continued support and prayer. I have shared the link with her. All the words of wisdom are helping me. I also have read the 12 steps article and am pursuing to put all those in place. It is still hard not to look past today because I yearn for reconciliation with my wife, but also fear falling again – and that would probably do it for us. But I understand that it’s time to work on my personal healing and relationship with the Lord right now. I am working to just lay my desires at His feet.
Barnabas,
I don’t know if you get replays to the emails notifications I get, but if you don’t so far I haven’t been able to get into the group. Please feel free to reach out to me through the emails.
Ok more importantly I have a question and pray requests. First though some celebrations 1) I went to church yesterday. How great it was AND of course God HAD me go yesterday for that specific sermon (that was about going to church as part of having victory over sin.) 2) I got to pray with someone. 3) Also, God chose to have this total stranger speak over me. That’s never happened to me. 4)Today at work I was able to listen to the pastor’s other two messages about victory. Between God’s Word there and here I believe that His Joy has come over my life. The worry isn’t as strong and I’m hearing him tell me to do things that I need to do so I don’t purposely have a temptation in my life -now and forever.
So question: you counseled me to pray for my wife to forgive me and that the marriage would reconcile. I want to fight for my marriage for sure, but how do I pray about it where it does become just a condition or another objective to my healing. What I’m asking is how do I pray for that but yet keep my focus on my healing and rebuilding my relationship with the Lord first? I may not be explaining it well. I don’t want to just trade one bad thing for another. If that makes sense.
Pray requests. I have reached out to an employee assistance program my job provides for help with problems. I asked my wife if she would do counseling with me and she said she would. I’m not looking at it to make her change for me, but the counseling could be good for her to heal her way. The problem lies in that this isn’t a Christian counseling place. I ask for prayers that God put us with a person with Christian values or someone who won’t tell me I don’t have a problem and my wife does.
Second prayer request God has revealed to me many, many items that I know that “woman” is attached to and to get rid of it all. Yes the purge, but with the correct focus of purging in order to deepen my relationship with Him. Also, that I will do it with a no-nosense approach. No rationalizing about why I have that item or if it even seems innocuous to my wife that she was ok with before I fell, crashed and burned.
I look forward in getting connected with the group, but until that I figured that out, I appreciate being able to receive help and support this way.
And please share it away. The more prayer the better!
I will email you right now
David don’t listen to them. If you like cross dressing then you should cross dress alright. If your wife can’t be accepting of such a small thing then she’s not the one for you and someone else will make you happy, but you don’t need someone to make you happy anyway. You’ll be happy if you just be yourself, love yourself, and live your life. No matter what you decide to do I wish you the best and don’t let religion make you feel bad. You’re not doing anything wrong by cross dressing it’s just clothes.
Sammy, I encourage you to read this post and tell me if you still believe the “it’s just clothes” argument. Let me know what you think.
https://healingfromcrossdressing.org/they-are-just-clothes-right/
Sammy, thanks. I will not let religion make me feel bad. Because religion does do that to people. It’s a good thing I believe in God very strongly and I believe He is Life and gives Life. I believe He is love and wants what is best for His creation. Is love for another outside of yourself so bad? What do I do when self love and loneliness take over because I’m taking on this world all on my own? I will not throw my wife to the curve just because she has feelings and she does mean a lot to me. So her opinion matters to me. Isn’t that what you are wanting me to do in choosing my own path my own way? I am learning who I really am with people that really care about me that are connected to this forum. They build me up and support me in Christ. They accept me but challenge me to grow beyond what I am today. I haven’t yet had one man treat me badly. I can’t see how this is so bad?!? Sammy thanks for letting me know your perspective, but the Godly one is where I have found Truth.
hii david how is your addiction now?
i heard some fetishistic crossdresser say that if you dont let your crossdressing feelings out sometimes ans supress them(like dont crossdress) then they will come back again after some time and stronger than ever. i scares me :0
The basic premise of this type of thinking is that you can’t quit cross dressing. See my Blog Post: The Big Lie: You Can’t quit Cross Dressing. This person is basically saying you are owned by your cross dressing. You are a slave to it. Don’t even bother to try and escape you will fail there is nothing you can do. Why would someone tell you that? It doesn’t seem they have your best interest at heart. They are suffering from something called Envy. They don’t want to quit (or maybe deep inside they do but are afraid of the work) and feel that if you can quit it makes them look bad. This is common all over society today. Your colleagues at work don’t want you to get promoted because they feel it makes them look bad. People wish bad things to happen to their friends and neighbors because they think they somehow benefit from the misfortune of others. I was dressing full on and going out dressed when I quit. I didn’t dress for over 440 days. When I slipped up, I only dressed for 3 days, only wore a few items, and never left my house. Does that sound like I am worse off and have stronger desires than ever? I haven’t dressed in about 200 days and haven’t had a big desire to do so. Don’t be afraid. You obviously don’t want to dress. Say you quit for 90 days and slip up. You have 90 days of success and a couple days of failure. Say you don’t quit, you have 90 days of failure. Which option is better?
very wise Jack, thank you! I echo what he said.
Hi Aditya
Jack has hit the nail on the head 100%, you absolutely can quit. If others can quit drugs and alcohol (both physically and mentally addictive) then for sure we can all beat the mental addiction to crossdressing. I dont know how many days I have been on the wagon now but its quite a lot and each day on the wagon is a day won – I dont count now. I am having a hard time at the moment, very busy, bits of the body giving up on me and my lovely wife has just been diagnosed with a chronic significant heart disease. So temptation levels are very high as crossdressing is/was my way out of the real world. I haven’t sucumbed yet, but its a close run thing only kept in check by the promise I made. That promise was made to my wife, you and everybody on this brilliant site and most improtantly to myself. Make that promise to all of us and most importantly to yourself and every time you feel negative or someone tells you that you cant quit, remember your promise and tell the naysayers that they are losers! best of luck.
Great comment Keith, thank you.
But I am saddened to learn of the heart disease for your wife. Tough news, I’m very sorry. I know your beliefs, but let me say that I will pray for the Lord Jesus to heal her. Whether he will do so or not, I cannot say, but I will ask Him.
Know Keith that we in this community are grateful for you, and we will be here for you to walk with you during this hard journey. Keep reaching out and keep in touch
Thank you for your thoughts Barnabas.
My wife and I now share yet another thing in our lives:- The same Cardiologist! LoL