Cogaiti

[trappedNhere]

Well I did it. I finally took the COGAITI today. And I think I passed. He He. I scored a 440n which means I'm defanatly a transsexual, gee whiz, and I just thought I was a woman trapped in this shell.

Gonna print out my results and try to find a good counselor to help me with the journey to womanhood. :)

Hope I can find a good one here in NW Florida.

[Rianna Humble]

A lot of people will tell you that COGIATI is "just for fun" or isn't "scientific", but I think the author of the test applied more rigour than she is given credit for. I'm glad that the result confirmed what you were already thinking and hope you find a good counsellor.

[Byanca]

When I took the Cogiatti some 10 years ago, it freaked me out as it told me I was borderline classical transsexual and should seek help asap. Still I was not all freaked out, as I got 350 or something and I saw it went to 5 or 600. Until later when I discovered it didn't start at 0, but -5, 600 :eek:

This was a bit of a shock as I hoped to be more in the middle, so that the situation was not as dire. So that I could manage.

To put it short-I wish I had listened to the test and gone to a therapist back then when I was still a teenager.

[CharleneCD]

I think I detect more than just a little sarcasm coming from trappedNhere. If you already feel like your the right gender trapped in the wrong body this test isnt going to tell you anything you dont already know. But for those who have spent years repressing any feminine identity or are just lost, it can give an indication that it might be time to get some solid professional advice before pushing onward.

[Kaitlyn Michele]

That test hurts more than it helps...pls don't let it influence you too much. you know what's in your heart...if you are confused about what's in your heart, answering some questions on the internet is not what helps...being honest with yourself and being willing to trust your gut is what helps.

reacting the way you did...YAY! i passed!! is a really good data point for you though...it should tell you something about what you already know about yourself that you were excited the test scored you the way it did..if you took the test and it gave you the other answer would you have been disappointed??

[Cherie]

i agree with Katlyn if the test was the other way would u feel bad about who u are the way u feel inside about yourself is all that maters love the girl within:battingeyelashes:

[Chloe Renee]

When I took this test I thought many of the questions were biased, but gave it a run anyway. When it was all done it put me on the 4/5 border not quite a classical transexual. It did however give me another reason to seek out a therapist. It was a push, one of many that caused the long look in the mental mirror. That being said, I would have still sought out therapy without taking this test.

[Stephenie S]

To be blunt, the test is BS. Nothing but crap. Bend it anyway you want, you can influence the outcome easily.

As some have said, it's for entertainment purposes only. Have fun with it if you like, but PLEASE don't let it influence you seriously. Life affecting decisions should be made seriously.

S

[Gina X]

To be blunt, the test is BS. Nothing but crap. Bend it anyway you want, you can influence the outcome easily.

As some have said, it's for entertainment purposes only. Have fun with it if you like, but PLEASE don't let it influence you seriously. Life affecting decisions should be made seriously.

S

OK can you recommend a better test ??

Love Gina x

[Melody Moore]

To be blunt, the test is BS. Nothing but crap. Bend it anyway you want, you can influence the outcome easily.

As some have said, it's for entertainment purposes only. Have fun with it if you like, but PLEASE don't let it influence you seriously. Life affecting decisions should be made seriously.

S
I just took the Gogaiti test and also passed the first time, telling me I was 'a probable transsexual' however I have to agree with Stephanie in that it is crap because it is no way conclusive enough, so I did the test again changed some of the answers and scored much higher, so it can be easily manipulated. Do not take this test seriously!

[Stephenie S]

Gina, you don't need a "test" to tell you. This is something you know.

Some people don't know, but if you are seriously troubled by thoughts that you might be female, try some GENDER therapy. Many TGs know from an early age. Many discover it as they mature and experience life. And many come to this decision after much therapy. Take your pick, but there are no real online "tests" that you can take to diagnose transsexualism.

Stephie

[Hope]

OK can you recommend a better test ??

Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately?) there is no better test - but that doesn't mean that the COGAITI is anything but utterly useless as a diagnostic tool.

There is a LOT of rigor that goes into properly building a test like this, that simply was not done (according to the test's author) in this case. Despite what Facebook or quizzmonster or Cosmo has taught us, building a useful test is not as simple as assembling a battery of questions, answers and scoring criteria. Tests like the COGAITI leave a LOT of questions unanswered.

One question is quite simply - "is the COGAITI actually testing anything?" We don't know. The first question "Describe your relationship with mathematics" is a great example - we have learned from stereotyping that women don't like math, or that they are not very good at math, and that men like math, or that they are great at math. But is that really true? We don't know. AND - if it is true that women suck at math - is asking about one's "relationship" with math get at the heart of the gender question? We definitely don't know that. It could be that even if men are better at math, that they hate doing it more than women do. So we don't know if women and men would answer that question any differently from one another, much less what the "male" or the "female" answers would be.

The same is true for every other question on the test... And that is just one objection to the legitimacy of the test.

All this test really does is show us what the author thinks about gender stereotypes.

You want another objection? Lets look at question #2. "You get a phone call from somebody you met for the first time a few days ago. How easy is it for you to remember who they are by the sound of their voice?" The underling assumption is that women are better at remembering people's voices than men are. Maybe that is true, maybe it is not, but for the sake of argument, lets assume that it is true, that women do indeed remember people's voices better than men. At least in this case (with our pretty shaky assumption) we know that we are measuring something. But do we know what that is? Do we know what we are measuring? We do not. Because we don't know the source of the gendered behavior. It might be a genetic trait, perhaps girls have better hearing, or the auditory portion of their brains might process sound with a finer resolution than male brains do. Or it might be that being able to determine a person's identity over the phone by voice is a learned trait, one that for some unknown reason girls pick up, and boys do not. We don't know. So if it is a physical trait, would a transgender person with a brain of one gender, and the body of another, respond to the question, like a male or like a female? Don't know. If it is a learned trait, how would a person with a physical gender that points one way, and a childhood being raised in the opposite gender respond. Still don't know. That is a problem for something that purports to be a "transsexuality inventory."

So we don't know if the COGAITI is testing anything, and even if we assume that it is testing something we don't know what that thing is that it is testing.

Now lets talk about the obvious one - we all know the right answers. We all know how to answer the questions to get the score we want. Even if we "take it honestly" the research shows, that when taking a test like this we will fudge the results in our favor - even if we are unaware of having done it. Among professional types this is called "malingering," and real diagnostic materials have questions built in that detect it. The COGAITI has none. It is absolutely positively easy-peasy to take the test, get the answer you want, and go on with life. This is absolutely worthless.

In order for any test to be useful, it has to be tested across a wide group of people, and be found to be reliable at testing what it is designed to test. That means that you have to take your test out into the wild and give it to well selected groups of people and see how they score. You have to find all sorts of people - white people, black people, asian people, indian people, middle eastern people, and Mork, if you can find him. You have to find people from all socioeconomic levels, and educational levels. You have to find people who are non-native english speakers. You have to test it on women, and men, and trans folks. Gay, strait, bi. This is called "norming" and it has to be done to confirm that your test works equally well in every situation - supposing that you want it to be applicable to every situation. How much norming do you think the author of the COGAITI did? Yeah, I don't think she did any either. I will bet she didn't even norm this test within all of the groups within the trans community. This makes the test useless (assuming it has any use at all) except for the vary narrow group it was designed by / for. My guess would be moderately well educated middle-class white hetero folks.

Finally, a real diagnostic instrument requires a lot of statistical work, not only in combining the final score, but in doing all of the previous work of building the test and documenting it's usefulness. I'm not talking about figuring out which standard deviation a subject fits into, but the sort of meta analysis that requires a dedicated math program and a computer to do the heavy lifting. None of which has ever been done on the COGAITI.

We don't know if the questions are telling us anything, and if they are, we don't know what they are telling us. It is EASY to cheat, and even if it IS telling us something, it is only telling us that something (whatever it may be) about the narrowest slice of human experience. Oh, and it has never been near a calculator. It is really no more or less useful than the latest Cosmo quiz.

Please please please do not base major life decisions based on the results of this "test."

I am starting to wonder (just as I am writing this) given how much authority some folks grant this thing, if it is not irresponsible to have it out in the world at all?

The answers you seek are not in any test, they are inside of you, and you must decide for yourself. That is an awesome responsibility... but that is living. If you want something that is going to be more useful, consider the following questions:

http://www.transsexual.org/provocateur.html

They are a nice place to start - and a good jumping off point for deeper reflection and analysis.

[tanyalynn51]

There was another thread on here a while back that was very similar. I took it and got that I was almost certailnly transsexual and should see a therapist or counselor. I actually already was. I mentioned the test, but she gave the test itself little weight. She had already decided that I should see an endo, and I have now been on hormones for about a week. I do agree that the test can be easily influenced, but it can also be taken honestly, too. How good the test is probably has to do with how honest each person themselves are in taking it.

[trappedNhere]

Good Morning Ladies:

Thanks for your replies. Yes, I was being sarcastic (a little) ab oit the test. I did tale it for fun, but was honest in my answers

I already knew that I am transgendered and am seeking counseling. Currently am seeing a therapist with and independantly from my wife. The therapist is working with me on forgiving myself and liking me, all of me. I think I am expanding her horizons on this whole gender continuium. She does want me to find out who I really am. And "we" are.

BTW: started taking estrogen yesterday, any ideas what I should expect from this. Know what I want, but just not sure about my expectations, real or fantacy.

Again. Mmuuaah

[kendall]

I took the test because i was curious reading about it and did do it honestly and got the following:

Your COGIATI result value is: 465 Which means that you fall within the following category:
COGIATI classification FIVE, TRANSSEXUAL

I to would not put much into an online 60 question survey bascially to tell me what I already know inside. I am the same in jeans, sweats or a dress, be the person inside you not what the outside world expects and just be happy