I quit for approximately six years and for most of those years the urge to dress was either non-existent or very mild. I don’t know why the urge suddenly returned but return it did and stronger than I remembered it ever being. I felt depressed and spoke with my Physician about my depression and mentioned that I had a gender issue that might be connected with my depression. While in Medical School my Doctor wrote a thesis on crossdressers and she may have a better understanding about crossdressing than your average Physician. She referred me to a Counselor that she works with and after a lengthy two-hour session the Counselor reported back that in her opinion I should see a Licensed Therapist in the Psychiatry Department. My Doctor put through the necessary papers and the Counselor contacted several Therapists and chose one that she felt I would feel comfortable with and who had experience dealing with gender issues.

During my first visit with Kelly, my Therapist, she explained that if I was there seeking a cure I was wasting both her and my time. Medical science didn’t know the cause of crossdressing and didn’t know a cure for crossdressing and that was also true for transsexuals. I learned that not all men who wear women’s clothes are considered crossdressers; some do it simply for the sexual stimulus they feel, others may have a fetish. I also learned that transsexuals and crossdressers have one of the highest suicide rates, several times higher than the general public. Suicide is usually a result of not being able to transition for transsexuals or not being able to dress for crossdressers.

One thing I have learned is that stopping dressing and quitting smoking are totally different. Smoking is a chemical addiction, a physical habit, and a craving. There are several effective ways to break the chemical addiction including just not smoking for a period of time. Finding a suitable physical activity to take the place of the physical activity involved in smoking may be a bit more difficult for some people. Most smokers will never forget the pleasure they derived from smoking and at various times throughout their lives they will undoubtedly feel a graving to smoke. What they crave is the release of endorphins caused by smoking and probably the old familiar physical aspects involved in smoking.

According to both my Doctor and my Therapist this is totally unrelated to the underlying cause of crossdressing. Admittedly medical science doesn’t know the cause but they do know that it does not have a chemical addiction from an outside source. It probably involves pleasure causing endorphins but the release of those endorphins is not caused by injecting, inhaling, or consuming a mind altering substance.

One theory that is gaining some support is that the cause may happen in the womb. Normally gender is determined by the father at the moment of conception. However chromosomal abnormalities do occur and the chances for chromosomal abnormalities increase with age. All babies start out with female sex organs and the male organs form from chemical stimulation of the female organs. The theory is that something may go wrong during this transition period that develops some years after birth into the “I feel like a woman trapped inside a man’s body.” Depending on the intensity of these thoughts the person may develop into either a transsexual or a crossdresser. Either way the situation is a lot more complex when it comes to not dressing than quitting smoking.