I have noticed that many ADHD boys I know seem to like cross dressing myself included. Does anyone else know of any connection between cross dressing and ADHD?

Answer 1

Several people I know have noticed this connection. I have not seen research that confirms it absolutely but I believe there must be a relationship between them.

Crossdressing is often described as an obsession which amounts to one's inability to detach *attention* from some object of focus, so there is a connection. The question no one seems to be able to answer about crossdressing is why focus is drawn so strongly to the feminine role. Likewise no one seems to know what is the source of attention disorders.

I believe that some young males are traumatized early on by being ostracized from feminine intimacy. As with other species, human males are expected to be strong, independent, detached, resourceful, objective, etc. It's hard and scary to try to live up to these expectations. To some boys, girls "have it easy".

I believe that being pushed to "be a man" causes some boys to both narrow their focus to the feminine intimacy they have lost and to lose some ability to focus on the rest of their experience. Thus the same crisis might cause both crossdressing urges and attention problems. Seems reasonable to me.

ADD and ADHD can lead one to a negative mode of focus and attention, which, as Winifred Gallagher in her new book _RAPT_ explains, causes one's width of focus to narrow dramatically. Do something that cheers you up and your mood becomes more positive. Crossdressing can be such a mood enhancer as it literally pulls you out of yourself and makes you refocus on a wider area of how you look and how you behave. For some people I think crossdressing can be an antidote for depression. If CD and ADD have the same cause this antidote is all the more effective.

Lately I am beginning to think that crossdressing must produce some kind of neurochemical high, perhaps due to adrenalin and endorphins, which may give a temporary escape from attention problems as well. There is a lot going on here and we are not getting much real help from the so called experts.