Gender Testing for Fun and Profit

I don't remember much about my childhood, a fact that has kept my therapists rapt with interest over the years.  What I do remember are individual incidences of dressing as a girl, from the proverbial trying on of Mama's slips and pantyhose to full-on dressing up, like the time I went trick-or-treating dressed as a little girl for Halloween.  That episode is the earliest I recall -- it had to have been before I was eight, and it may have been as early as four or five.  Questions of nature versus nurture aside, I was exploring my feminine side long before I those annoying black hairs started to grow on my, ah ... legs.

Increasingly over the past few years, I've wondered just where I am on the transgendered spectrum.  I'm not  a "classic," early-onset transsexual: I have not felt from my earliest days as if I were a female trapped in a male's body, I have not hated my penis and longed for a vagina, nor have I experienced a significant amount of discomfort due to my male body. (Other than wishing my very masculine body proportions were just a bit  more a feminine ... oh well, that's what padding is for.)


Besides driving me into therapy, this has led me to read everything I can get my hands on regarding transgender issues.  And because I long for easy answers, I have also taken on-line "gender tests" in the off-chance that they will provide an answer.

The most well-known is COGIATI (COmbined Gender Identity And Transsexuality Inventory), Jennifer Reitz's attempt to produce, as she puts it, a "test which could be of assistance to the pre-operative, questioning person who is attempting to decide what they want to do about their gender issues."  Because that has increasingly described me, I took the test a couple of times over the past two days.

The test is scored from -650 to 650, and provides five categories for t-folk: 

• -650 to -389        Class 1 (Definite Male)
• -390 to -129        Class 2 (Feminine Male)
• -130 to 129         Class 3 (Androgyne)
•   130 to 389         Class 4 (Probable Transsexual)
•   390 to 650         Class 5 (Classic Transsexual)

In Reitz's words,

The sexual gratification-based, fetishistic transvestite would fit Class 1.  The mostly sexual / fetishistic but slightly gender involved crossdresser fits Class 2.  The serious transgenderist fits Class 3.  The most common type of transsexual (well over 70%) fits Class 4.  The rarest, early onset, 'classic model of early research' transsexual fits Class 5.

Hmmm ... methinks I see a bias already.  Reitz -- a member of that rarest Class 5, natch-- mixes apples and oranges in the class names.  For classes 1 and 2, she uses the biological designation "male."  However, for classes 4 and 5, instead of using the biological designation "female," she uses the diagnostic designation "transsexual."  Coupled with the use of language that is offensive to many on the spectrum to describe those dirty little transvestites crossdressers, one can begin to get a feel as to where her biases lie.


Still, ff one were completely and entirely objective, it likely would give one a decent idea of just where that is.  The problem is -- as Reitz freely admits -- complete objectivity is impossible.  First of all, if one is taking this test in the first place, it is likely you suspect you are something other than Class 1.  And due to the long-time stigmatization of crossdressers with language like that used by Reitz, it is likely that those who take the test desire to be something other than Class 1 or 2.  And it is very easy to figure out what the questions in the COGIATI are getting at.

Reitz is aware of this last issue, noting that tests like the Minnesota Multi-Phasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), repeat their equally transparent questions many times, each in a slightly different form, to overcome these problems.  But in a 65 question inventory, designed as a prototype, that simply is not possible.  Besides, she says, she works for a living.

By and large, if you are aware of the problems, and take account of its limitations, COGIATI can  serve its stated purpose.  It gives you a general feel for where you might lie along the continuum of individuals with gender issues, and with it, a general idea of certain issues that might loom on the horizon.uh


My scores?  Yesterday's was 126, making me an androgyne or transgenderist, which is what I expected.  Today's score was slightly higher, at 130, one point into the "probable transsexual" range.  Both indicate that I might be closer to TS than I thought, a prospect that both exhilarates me and yet scares me half to death.  But that's the subject of another post.