The second barrier that often prevents healing is the perception, Leach says, that God can or will do nothing to help.

Leach, who struggled for decades with G.I.D. before finding healing, understands those feelings very well.

“It’s so confusing because we feel like we’ve done all the prayer needed and God’s only consistent answer has been silence,” he says.  “‘Please take these feelings away from me, Lord God,’ we pray.  Silence.  The feelings persist.  Silence.  Actions follow.  Silence.  Guilt and shame trail behind.  Silence.  The cycle is revisited again and again until the final conclusion seems quite apparent.  Silence thus equates to, ‘God’s will is for me to be a member of the opposite sex.’”

Yet, ironically, all agree that only God can repair the emotional damage sustained over the years, whether through cross-dressing, sexual sin or faulty thinking.  It is all idolatry, they say, that must be dealt with at the foot of the Cross.

“If the owner of a Honda Accord wanted to understand [his car,] he wouldn’t go to Toyota for the owner’s manual,” Thomas says. “For a person seeking to find their true gender identity … the first step is to find out who they are in our Creator’s eyes.”

Leach agrees. 

“You must come to terms with your God-given uniqueness and personality,” he says.  “Shame-based thinking must be uprooted and dealt a death-blow.  All the painful events of your past must be uncovered beneath the Godly oversight of a professional therapist who knows how to minister emotional healing prayer for you.  You will need to understand that your transgender thoughts, feelings are your chosen method of escaping your present reality.  You are running away from that which brings you pain.”

The good news is that, for those willing to embrace the process, hope is definitely available.

Throckmorton estimates that approximately 70 percent of the people he has worked with who were in conflict with their same-sex feelings in one way or another, and who did desire change, found healing and reverted to heterosexual lifestyles.  Leach, who works almost exclusively with clients struggling with G.I.D., has seen an 80 percent success rate. 

Both agree that the path toward wholeness is neither easy nor short, however.  

“Healing begins with the desire to become reconciled with early, unresolved childhood emotional wounds; events in the early developmental years which threatened or undermined a person’s feelings of security, peace, warmth and comfort; and a secure sense of being deeply, unconditionally and uniquely loved,” Leach says.

However, the search for a counselor must be undertaken with great care, he emphasizes, because even within the Christian community, there can be a defeatist attitude that nothing can be done about G.I.D. – especially for those who have never witnessed dramatic change.