Possible causes to consider

Let’s take a look at the some of the characters that may lead someone into the life style of cross-dressing or sexual reassignment surgery (SRS).

1. Attaches oneself to mom’s world. Attaches himself to her as the safest place in the world. Desires to be loved by a man like his mother. My dad never truly felt loved as a son or accepted by his father as a man. As he grew older, his defiance grew deeper towards his father. He detached himself early in life from his father. The family unit was dysfunctional. Verbal abuse would be the type of abuse I witnessed between my grandfather and my dad. My dad viewed my grandfather’s world as a place he did not want to be. He totally detached himself, feeling that the man world was not a safe place for him to be.

2. Feels disconnected from the masculine world. My dad did not feel he could connect to the masculine world. When he visited with people, he seemed to be more comfortable with the woman. He would prefer to talk with the woman. I noticed this as a child and thought it was strange. I was also surprised that no one seemed to recognize this? "Don’t they see it?" I used to ask myself. I believe my dad felt safer and more accepted in the woman’s world more than in the man’s world. It was where he felt he could connect.

3. Does not feel part of the male world and feels out of place when in the male world. There was a time when my mother was in the hospital. This left my dad to take care of his five children and the household choirs. I remember him being in the living room, folding laundry on the couch. I was on the left side of him just watching him while he was whistling folding the laundry. It was like he was totally in his own little world of pretend. It was like he was truly in his glory, taking care of the house as a woman does. He was living his dream for a few days.

4. Envious of girls. Envious of the way a girl looks. Envious of the love and attention girls receive from males. I truly despised the way my dad would comment on how lucky I was to be pretty. I despised the way he would look at my body as I started to develop into a young woman. I hated the way he would just stare at my breast. He was envious of me being a girl, something he could never be. I hated being a girl around him. As I started to date and have boyfriends over he would give a glare that would go right through you. Sometimes the way he behaved around my boyfriends showed his enviousness of not being a girl going out with a boy. I could see this in his eyes and felt all of this growing up with his attitude.

5. Low self esteem of oneself. When you don’t feel good about yourself and can never measure up to someone else’s standards, you are bound to struggle with low self esteem. My dad went to school for masonry. He did not follow through with it long for a career. He worked for my grandfather where he was known for his laziness. Then he tried his own construction business. No matter what he did through life, he struggled with low self esteem. How we are treated by other’s can cause low self esteem. If a child is not ever praised but only comes to know the tearing down, that child will come to find a lonely friend known as low self esteem.

6. Emotional wounds from as early as childhood. Emotional or physical wounds that are suffered are carried with us through life. It can become a part of who we are and how we turn out in life. If molesting takes place it is devastating to a person. The wounds are carried with you through life. If you are mistreated you can carry those wounds for the rest of your life. My dad's emotional wounds were carried throughout his life and the emotional wounds had a deep seeded root. Perhaps the root started when my dad was molested as a young boy. He never shared by whom. In his last days he would put his finger up to his lips as if to say "Shhhh" whenever the question was raised.

The book The Masculine Soul is helpful in understanding what happens when “boys” are not lead into “manhood.” Every boy needs a father or father figure who will love them and teach them about the life of being man. Instead of men teaching their sons to hunt, fish, play sports or work on cars the young boys are pushed more with mom. Mom’s do the best they can, but ultimately our sons need a man to help lead the way.

I know my dad never felt he could live up to his father’s expectations as a man. My dad gave up early in his years to even try. It was easier for him to escape into his fantasy world than to reach out for help and to face the reality of his cross-dressing addiction. When he left our family he had bags upon bags of clothing stashed in the garage attic. It seemed no matter where you went in our home there was his stash. Isn’t this what we find with someone who is addicted to drugs or pornography? The feel good drug is hidden for their fix? We had seen with our own eyes just how much this addiction had taken a hold of him and had him captive in his own prison.

A man once said, “If a lie is told long enough it becomes the truth.” What truth these words speak. The enemy will try to convince us that we really don’t have a choice. This is the way you were born, etc. For those who hear these false words and tell themselves over and over again "I was born this way" really becomes convinced that they are a female or male when in truth they are not. Satan is an opportunist. He will take advantage in every way possible to enslave someone. His powers are in generating lies. My pastor recently made the following comment, “When we find Christ and are born again Satan's power is lost, BUT his will is not. We will have struggles until we reach heaven.”

Choosing your gender identity can be based on someone telling you “You’d make a good girl” or “You should have been born a girl.” Hearing those words could haunt someone just like the comments “You're stupid,” “You're ugly,” “You’re a girl” or even “You’re gay.” The words we speak can affect someone’s self image of themselves. We often unconsciously accept such judgments as the accurate truth. Other influences can bring a reaction to the soul and spirit


I have written some of my dad’s writings that I had found along with his personal items after his passing away. You be the judge. Does it sound to you that living this life is a happy choice our loved one makes? If your loved one says he has found happiness in being a woman, I say they are deceiving themselves entirely.

My Heart Aches

My heart aches from my losses!
From my incompleteness!
Is this the way it will be?
I am missing something!
Change, change, change
Always the need to feel changes
My heart aches from my losses!
Where am I?
Who am I?
All is loss!


Searching

Search our minds! To become ourselves!
Don’t recognize, what’s there!
Don’t recognize, who’s there!
Saying, just not possible! For what has been shown!
We Do not focus! Saying its not so!
Yet the search goes on and on and on!

My dad's heart ached because of what he had lost; his inner self and his family. He found incompleteness with his life as a transsexual. My dad continued to search for peace that he never found. You can certainly hear pain from his words. My heart aches to know that my dad was so miserable. Life is so precious. Life is a gift. To know a loved one who is living with such turmoil inside brings you to a hurting place for them. As angry and hurt as we become with our loved one, we truly do not desire them to be in this much pain.