KANSAS CITY, Mo., Aug. 4 (UPI) -- The case of a cross-dressing Missouri man accused of killing his wife after rising family tensions is a very unusual one, experts say.
Only on very rare occasions do transgender issues rise to the level of intra-familial violence, analysts told Tuesday's Kansas City (Mo.) Star.
If violence does occur in such cases, "it's usually the cross-dresser that gets killed," Helen Friedman, a clinical psychologist and professor at the St. Louis University School of Medicine, told the newspaper.
Michael Adams Jr., 37, of Belton, Mo., was charged with second-degree murder last month in the shooting death of his wife, Amber Hartwig. Family members say Hartwig expressed her concerns about the behavior of her high school sweetheart last winter during a meeting with them at their Mason City, Iowa, home.
Cambridge, Mass., psychologist Randi Kaufman told the Star that men who cross-dress typically began doing so in childhood or early adolescence, but Adams reportedly had only begun to do so two years ago.
Kaufman said learning a husband wants to become a woman can be a much bigger shock to a wife than learning of an affair with another woman.
