Cogiati test

[Shananigans]

I really appreciate your comprehensive response. I think these things are worthy of debate. I just wanted to clarify one point, in that I don't see the spectrum with CD at one end and Transsexual at the other. I see the spectrum as a full gender spectrum, that is the human gender is a continuum that encompasses all female to all male. It is obvious when you observe human beings, that their gender expresses itself in a myriad of different ways and there is no break in the continuum between what we consider male or female. Looked at it this way I don't believe that there is danger in the continuum concept. I actually happen to believe that the stepping stone theory is nonsense. While I agree with you that there is a constant and ongoing adjustment of ones location on the continuum, the travel is never in one direction only, and so the stepping stone hypothesis is in my view nonsense. Gender is also not just two dimensional. There is a multitude of levels on which gender plays itself out.

The problem with the tests is that they are an enormous simplification of something far more complex. Because of the simplification they are so easily manipulated it makes you laugh. In Blanchards paper, the study results are obtained by questions all of which are prefaced by "have ever become sexually aroused while........ " and the followed with such statements as : " picturing yourself as a woman". If then, like he does, you conclude that if you score in any manner on this test you are a sexual deviant and therefore not transgendered, and that makes it into the authoritative text on mental illnesses, then you immediately silence the entire community of transsexuals and transgendered by calling them crazy. I, for instance would be called a liar, because I have never over my lifetime had this connection of sexual arousal and dressing as a woman.

This is interesting

Kathryn

I think we are in agreement. I mentioned the TS at one end at CD at some other end because that is what it seems like from this particular assessment. Furthermore, I think that some old-fashioned may characterize you as a "sexual deviant", even though CDing in your experience has no sexual aspect...however, I think that there is tons of progress being made that trumps this type of thinking. Likewise, I think that there is a lot of progress being made that trumps the viewpoint that those CDs that are sexually aroused by dressing are deviants. It's technically still listed as a paraphilia, as far as I am aware...however, ANY gender therapist would disagree that this is all that CDing amounts to. (ie, just a paraphilia or just sexual in nature).

For comparison, homosexuality was once a paraphilia and they were considered mentally ill...sexual deviants. Only the truly idiotic still think this way.

I think much of the SRS that has happened would not have had it not been for the limitations placed up people based upon their genders. Doubt me? Look in the history around the time long before the 1930s, you will see story upon story of women dressing as men to serve their country, or to do other "men only" things. How many women do you see passing off as men to be in the armed forces these days? I think the ratio is MUCH lower than it was back then.

I think that what my professor was saying is that the crossdresser that is sexually aroused by wearing women's clothing would not exist if the social taboo did not exist. He wasn't saying that there aren't transsexuals...just that the TS and the CD shouldn't be grouped together as often as they are. He just felt that someone who is truly TS knows it on a very deep level and they are 100% mentally that other gender (the one that they weren't born into). But, he felt that by just growing up in the gender that you do...you still identify with it most of the time. So, some TS make the mistake of HRT or SRS...and, after the surgery, they still don't feel "right." I'm not sure how this would be affected if men were allowed to dress feminine. I almost feel like it's a separate issue, as well. Who knows?