Is forcing a boy child to dress as a girl child abuse?
In this situation, it was not punishment as far as I know. It was a mother and two sisters having a laugh on the only boy child in the family.
A picture was taken. (This was decades before the internet.) This picture was around the house all my childhood. Ready to be pulled out at a moment's notice.
Throughout childhood my sisters teased me and always had this hanging over my head as a threat---that they'd tell my friends and their friends about it if I didn't do whatever they wanted. Or maybe they would just say that to terrorize me and see my reaction of horror. It led to years of enormous anxiety. And fear. Fear that it would happen again, that they'd do it to me in my sleep, that everyone would know.
The die was cast and whatever the mechanism is, the fear and anxiety turned into a teen and compulsive (and closeted) crossdresser. And all the related behavior of sneaking clothing, etc. etc. And should humorous cd-ing appear on TV or movies, or Halloween or an innocent children's party---I was mortified, beyond mortified. I could not react normally. I probably felt that everyone around me KNEW by my behavior that I was a crossdresser.
I married young, a bad marriage, I was head-strong and crossdressed as I wished though she was without doubt opposed to it. There's no telling who she told while we were married---friends, relatives, neighbors, co-workers---and most certainly in our divorce (our kids were teens by then) and no doubt it was used as a weapon by the wife in the divorce, as if accusing me of cd-ing would be tantamount to accusing me of being a murderer. The wife cheated, seeking a "real man" and everything she did---stole, lied, committed felonies, broke laws, financially cleaned me out, the kids' college funds, fraudulent loans, maxed out every credit card---whatever she did before, during and after the divorce was JUSTIFIED in her eyes and those of the ones I knew who'd been told. Those horrible crimes were justified due to CD-ing---the ONLY thing in the world that could justify that behavior. It was simply a scarlet letter WORSE THAN IF I'D BEEN ACCUSED OF CHILD ABUSE! Far worse. It was viewed by all who knew as the most justifiable cause of divorce; really serious larceny, as well as three threats and/or attempts on my life---who could not fully understand THAT considering your husband was a cross-dresser?
But I was free from that horrible marriage. Met a woman I adored. Incredibly as close to perfect as I could ever have a shot at. We never married, were together for 5 tumultuous years---tumultuous because of my crossdressing. Same story we hear often in forum discussions: sometimes she'd be ok with it, even encouraging. Other times she was beyond cruel and equated it to, well, the worst things a human being could be imagined to do.
It led to our breaking up. There's two sides to every story, and I understand hers. I on the other hand was persistent that I was going to do it. I always wanted love and romance, and I had it with her, I really did. But in her mind the issue had to be resolved (i.e. ended) before we could move forward to marriage. Basically she gave me a choice and I chose crossdressing. This led, again, to this woman ALSO using my CDing like a public shaming, she thrilled in revealing it to everyone I knew or we knew, in her mind fully believing (mostly correctly) that the reaction to it---that we broke up over crossdressing and that I crossdressed---would be the equivalent, or worse, than if i had been a child abuser. A murderer would have been a more more sympathetic character, and accepted, than a crossdresser.
The only thing that was really fulfilled in my life was the next few years when I crossdressed at will, participated in activities I wanted, went out, did whatever the things were that I wanted to do while crossdressing or involving crossdressing.
The urge dwindled, possibly due to enormous fulfillment, growing older and less passable, though my appetite for reading and viewing and participating on the internet on anything involving crossdressing continued. Just not actually doing it. I was satisfied. With lost of fantastic memories of doing, while crossdressed, most everything I ever dreamed of doing.
My daughter is now close to 40, after the divorce she was either told by the ex wife or the ex girlfriend, or picked up clues or whatever, it doesn't matter. So at this point now, me a senior citizen, I am estranged with her---she estranged and abandoned me because of the effect it had on her as a teen, she said. She is mother to my grandchildren. The amount of time I am allowed to see them is SEVERELY limited (virtually nil.) This estrangement, and "losing" my grandkids (and no telling what THEY are being told about me) is the worst thing I've ever been through. My daughter says I exposed her to something that as a teen she was far too young for, an "adult" thing that she could not handle as a teen so it messed her up for life. Her shrink told her that she should not be around me and should not let the grandchildren see me. From what I gathered, her shrink also treated my CD-ing, and my daughter learning of it as a teen, as the equivalent to child abuse---don't associate with that parent who did that and don't let the grandchildren see him. (I regret deeply that she learned as a teen of my cd-ing; it was wrong that i let it happen, however it happened. But I was on the pink cloud, free after 20 years of a marriage prison, free for the first time in my life.)
Estrangement of parents by their adult children is almost an epidemic, though I am probably one of the tiny few whose estrangement is due to her, as a child, learning about my cd-ing.
Back to the question: when my mother, with the participation of my two sisters (and possibly my father's acquiescence), both sisters roughly my age, dressed me for laughs, for teasing. Maybe even for ridicule. I don't know what was in my mother's mind, but it could have been manifestation of her own troubled relationships with men in her life, I have no idea. For my part, i moved from a nightmarish horror as a child of being "outted" or forced AGAIN, to being compulsive and having the happiest times in life, by cd-ing as an adult. The compulsion no doubt clouded my judgement, but that's just a sidebar at this point.
So----WAS what my mother, and sisters, did to me as a boy child, child abuse?
This is not a "Gee I only wish they'd done that to me" or anything titillating as a cd. Rather it is, in hindsight now, the source of most of the most serious pain and suffering in my life.
