Forced crossdressing of a child---is it abuse?

[ReineD]

I agree with Eryn.

You posted this topic also last summer, and I'm sorry but I think you're stuck, even if the incident was abusive. There's no amount of looking back that will help you fix what happened in your life, you can only take responsibility for your own part in the demise of your relationships (it is seldom one-sided) and then do the best you can to move on. Have you considered seeing a therapist? Not a gender therapist, just someone who can help you come to terms with your past and move on.

You seem to think that your childhood incident caused you to crossdress later on in life:

1) Please consider that likely hundreds of thousands of other boys have been subjected to similar experiences at one time or another in their lives, who didn't end up being CDers ... so if you CD, you likely would have CDed even if your parents had not done this.

2) As to your daughter refusing you access to your grandchild, I think she also has issues if she blames subsequent marital difficulties on having seen you dressed as a woman when she was a teenager. Sorry, but I don't buy that, unless there's a lot more to the story than you are sharing with us?

3) And your exes outing you out of maliciousness? Although I abhor the behavior, sadly a lot of people are vindictive when they end relationships. You should hear what my ex told my sons about me, to the point where my eldest refused to talk to me for three years. Thankfully I didn't accept that situation, I sought help on how to best remedy the situation, I didn't give up, and our relationship is good now.

In any case, please don't take my post the wrong way. I urge you to see a good therapist who will help you to determine your own responsibility in what has happened in your life, and it is only by doing this that you will be able to move forward. I say this with kindness, but I think there are lots of things that a good therapist could help you see, that you cannot see right now, but that will finally bring you peace once you are able to see them.

[Sometimes Steffi]

Dr Renee Richards (born a boy) in her book "The Second Serve" talks about how her older sister dressed her as a girl when they were both young. Her mother, who was a psychologist and should have known better, allowed it to go on. Is this what caused Renee to get MtF surgery? She seems to think so.

Is it abuse? In a business environment if a person feels sexually abused, it is legally abuse, notwithstanding that many people wouldn't consider it abuse. It is defined in th eyes of the "abused". So, from your point, it is abuse.

[Gigicd]

Thanks Krisi and everyone if i don't get back individually.

Oh, I'm over it. I'm an old man. The only reason it's even re-entered my mind is because of my estranged daughter--her sudden estrangement, she's almost 40, and withholds my dear grandsons from me because she had to see or deal with or know about (not sure of the exact words) something "adult" that she as a very young teen should not have to handle. Why it came up at age 40 and not in the previous two decades of pretty normal father-daughter friendship and shared family life.

Oh lord my parents have been dead for decades and in any possible scenario would I sue my mother if she were alive. To her, it appeared just as a lark, a family full of girls, one boy, etc. And to my sisters yes there was the teasing and blackmailing, but it was the SHAME that was the torture, that they might TELL someone about it, which is the main threat they made.

And as to my wanting to get opinions as to whether it was abuse or not, I guess because it could be some kind of life lesson for someone. My family "abused" me psychologically (I was only 3 or so and have no REAL memory but their years and years of REMINDING me made it as real and clear in my mind--plus there was the one photograph that was preserved of the moment.)

What makes someone crossdress---for me, I don't think it would be very far off to think that this incident cast the die in my case, going from fear and shame to curiosity and the sublime.

So similar to the way a child abuser who abuses their child---then the abused CHILD grows up and is an abuser, then THAT child grows up and becomes an abuser...not always, not every time, but sadly often.

For me being introduced to crossdressing, I became one, it messed up my marriage, which led to my daughter being messed up by divorce (as most kids are) and knowing of the CD aspect. Then when I found a woman to really love after 20 years of a loveless marriage where we were together just for the kids---my CD-ing caused the end of that relationship, as despite sometimes her actively participating and encouraging, and going out together, etc., the bottom line was, if we're going to be serious and get married, the CD must end. Then I chose CD and again, she told friends, relatives, probably my children, "Your dad's the lowest kind of degenerate---he likes to wear women's clothes.

So if not for the die being cast at age 3, probably I wouldn't have become a crossdresser, at the least crossdressing would not have led to my daughter estranging and abandoning me and withholding my beloved grandkids, and the "love" and romance I found---cd broke it up. And when she broke up with me over CD, she said, "You will grow old alone." That was 25 years ago. And she was exactly correct: I am alone. Totally alone and facing old age and all that comes with it.

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Thanks ReineD. I can tell you carefully read what i wrote for content and your replies are fully informed---you made sure you understood it all, thought about it, and replied. I appreciate that. Mostly, your comments are helpful, reminding me of things I KNOW but have forgotten, and also of wants to view it that I haven't been able to. And you are so write---that's a question, gosh---that launched a million threads: how can any number of boys get crossdressed for random fun times, goofing around, parties, whatever, and they NEVER in the least become CD, but there's the occasional one who, like me, had neural pathways BURNED into the soft tabla rasa of my childhood brain that made me a cd-er within a few years of that traumatic, isolated situation of "abuse."

I was always someone who NEVER thought about my childhood while i was going through adulthood. Didn't have one concern. My parents were always there, always provided, loved, everything physically and emotionally required. It's just come up now with the estrangement, because my "excuse" for everything followed that one crossdress incident as a child was a CASCADE of heartache and anxiety leading now to estrangement and abandonment and almost TOTAL estrangement, which I never would have dreamt of in my life. I told my kids from their childhood--I am your daddy for LIFE, not 'til you're 18, or 'til you go to college' or get married, or move out....I am always your dad and will always be there for you when you need me and will always love you. (Lots of men I've noticed like the bravado of, I'm gonna throw my son out on his 18th birthday and he's gonna have to make it on his own yadayada")

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Steffi--i didn't know that about Renee Richard's mom being a psychologist etc.

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Your sisters's boys---you have never seen them and it's been 25 years. That's so sad.

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To all, thank you.

[ReineD]

Oh, I'm over it. I'm an old man. The only reason it's even re-entered my mind is because of my estranged daughter--her sudden estrangement, she's almost 40, and withholds my dear grandsons from me because she had to see or deal with or know about (not sure of the exact words) something "adult" that she as a very young teen should not have to handle. Why it came up at age 40 and not in the previous two decades of pretty normal father-daughter friendship and shared family life.

I also experienced parental estrangement from my oldest son for about three years, although in my case it was caused by parental alienation on the part of my ex. It was devastating. My heart goes out to you.

I mention this because everything I've read suggests not giving up on your daughter. Send her birthday and holiday cards. Write her letters. Make efforts at reconciliation. Let her know that you love her. There is a great deal written on the subject but perhaps a few meetings with a therapist would provide you with guidance on the frequency and type of contact, depending on how severe were her experiences as a teenager. Do you remember the incidents that caused her trauma? Earlier I took it that she had merely seen you dressed but she may have seen other things?

Also, there's a possibility that other aspects of your relationship were strained (other than the CDing that she witnessed) and if this is this is the case, it would be beneficial to recognize and acknowledge the other ways she may have been hurt. Also, sometimes adult children have their own unresolved issues that until resolved, are projected onto the parent.

I do hope that you and she will eventually be able to reconcile.

[josrphine]

Hi Gigi, Being a little older then you , I got a interesting tail for you. In my mid 50"s I was a cross dresser. I never put two an two together . Like all of us we go thur the guilty first. At a family party on my father side I was in a talk with one of my aunts, about WW2. She then said to me your were a girl the first 5 years of your life. WHAT ?????? I new i was a C D but this. My parents were dead so who do I go to. Well I found out that my father was there only male out of 6 brothers that was married then. If he had a son he would have been A 1 for the draft, havng a daughter he was excempet. I found my org. birth an it was alter. I then talked to others in the family an found out it was ture. I hated my father because he was an alocohlic an as a chid I grew up benign abused by him, were he hit me a lot. When I grau. from high school, one day my father was sober, we were sitting at the kitchen table my mother was making breakfast I said to them i wanted to join the navy. My mother immedely said NO I won't sighn for you I had just turn 17. My father look at me an said I WILL, OOPS what just happen here, my mother said nothing. Knowing that I hated my father this was like WHAT THE HECK JUST HAPPEN HERE. I joined an bacame a sniper with a U D T team in 59 I was in Nam with the team, we had gone in to help the French, there prisnor of war were being ransomd back to the french. 3 of us got out that is another story. I am with my 3 rd wife that loves me more as a women then a man. I now have it made. My father became an alocohilic I think because he was ashamed of what they did. Then I found out a lot of things an wish my father was still alive to tell him how much I loved him. JO

[Krisi]

Gigicd, my mother also dressed me as a girl. I remember when I was perhaps three or four that she would sew dresses for her nieces and make me put them on and stand on a box so she could mark the hems. What I didn't remember was that as an infant, she would dress me in the girl clothes she got at her baby shower (in those days nobody knew if it was a boy or a girl until the actual birth). I found this out when she wrote her life story and sent it to the entire extended family shortly before she died. In a way, she "outed" me.

I never had a good relationship with my mother as a child, perhaps because I knew somehow that she really wanted a daughter, not a son.

My point is, most of us suffered from some sort of inappropriate behavior from our parents, especially if we were the first child. New parents usually have no training and get some things wrong. We have to put this behind us and live our lives as best we can. At least we know not to dress our sons as girls and take photos.

[Jill Devine]

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I believe that forced dressing of a child, esspecially with the intent to tease, ridicule, and blackmail is definately child abuse. I do think its ok for a child to agree to crossdress as long as none of the parties use it for mean or intentionally embarrasing purposes. I dont think your daughter was too young to know about your crossdressing, I think the real problem was the bigoted stereotypical misinformation that she likely inherited from her mother and others around her and I think that too is a form of abuse that she endured and has unfortunately set the course for her views on the issue. I hope that over time as more people begin to accept us maybe she will think about things a little differently.

100% agree with this. Well said.