The CAMH Gender Identity Clinic is delighted to announce that our clinic received a Presidential Citation from Division 44 of the American Psychological Association (the Society for the Psychological Study of Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Issues) at a ceremony on August 9, 2003.
The text of the Citation reads as follows:
The Gender Identity Clinic has established itself as the premier research center on gender dysphoria research and clinical care since 1968, and is celebrating its 35th year.”
APA DIV 44 also allowed James Cantor to write a glowing review of The Man Who Would Be Queen by J. Michael Bailey. Joseph Henry Press was later forced to attribute the review to Cantor by name, rather than their earlier attempts to imply that the review was the consensus of APA DIV 44.
Some gender questioning people ask me about online “gender tests.” I think gender tests are pseudoscience. They look like science but are not. I worry these tests might hurt some people who take them. They might make a bad choice in life because of the results. I think these tests are very bad for young people and for people without much school.
Why gender tests are bad
1. You do not learn anything new from gender tests
Some people take the tests for fun or as a joke. That is great!
If you are taking one because you are questioning your gender and want answers, you need to be careful. You already know that you might want to make changes. It is better to talk in person with people who can help. Online tests seem like easy answers, but there are no easy answers.
2. You can often get the score you want
You can often tell which answers are “masculine” or “feminine.” Your score may also change based on when or how you take the test.
3. You might make big choices based on your score
A quick test with a score is less work than thinking hard about how you feel. Some people use the score as “proof” they should do something. Big choices should not be based on an online test. Do not use a number or category from your test score to make a big life choice.
Some people do not like to make big choices. They want to be told what to do. That way if things go wrong, they can blame something.
4. Gender tests look like science, but they are not
I am happy people study sex and gender. I would be happy if a test could tell if you should make a gender change. No test can do that yet.
We do not know why some people are transgender or gender diverse yet.
That means the tests are not based on proven things.
5. Gender tests will give the wrong result to some people
Even good tests are not always right. Think of a test for cancer. Most of the time, the test is right, but sometimes it is wrong. There are two ways it can be wrong:
It says you have cancer when you do not have it (a false positive)
It says you do not have cancer, but you do (a false negative)
If enough people take a test, even a good one, some will get put in the wrong group.
Some people make a gender change, but later they wish they had not done it. This happens when you do not think hard enough about why you want to make a gender change. People who like gender tests may not want to think hard.
6. Some people use gender test scores like game scores
Some people think their score means they are “more transgender” than someone with a lower score.
Many people want to know where they stand among other people:
Gender tests seem real to some who think that “numbers don’t lie.” But gender identity can not be reduced to a number or score.
7. Gender tests say there are simple “types” for things that are not simple
People do not fit into simple types. That is what is great about people!
Many of the ways we divide people into types are too simple.
For instance, dividing people as only “gay” or “straight” gets rid of a lot of big differences. The same is true with dividing people as only “male” or “female.” Sexuality and gender are a spectrum, not a binary of two things.
Think of a rainbow. Imagine saying there are only two colors: warm and cool. That would get rid of a lot of colors!
Background
When I was in grade school, there was a “gender test” we used to tell if someone was a boy or girl by how they looked at their fingernails: if you look at your nails with fingers bent and palm facing you, you were a boy, and if you looked at them with fingers straight and the back of your hand facing you, you were a girl.
This kind of belief is called a stereotype. A stereotype is an idea or image of a group of people or things that is too simple. Some people might not match their stereotype. Some adults think we can split people in types based on stereotypes.
A note on horoscopes
Horoscopes are another way to classify people that is fake science. It takes something scientific (looking at the stars and when you were born) and says that you are a type based on that stuff. People who believe in it say everyone falls into one of twelve types. Each type acts in different ways. Capricorns act this way, and Cancers act that way.
Horoscopes are a lot like gender tests. People hear what they want in the results. In science, this is called confirmation bias. There are even people who plan their day based on a horoscope. That is about as smart as planning your life based on a gender test.
Things like “gender tests” and horoscopes should only be done for fun.
Here are some of the “gender tests” you might hear people talk about:
COGIATI (Combined Gender Identity And Transsexuality Inventory)
These are all fake science and should not be taken seriously.
This page uses easy words. This helps young people read it. This also helps people who don’t know many English words. The words in bold are hard. You need to know what they mean, or this will be hard to read. You can use these links to looks up words you don’t know: Merriam-Webster’s Learner’s Dictionary Cambridge Learner’s Dictionary
The COGIATI is an online “gender test.” COGIATI stands for Combined Gender Identity And Transsexuality Inventory. It sounds like it is a science test (even though it is not). It was made to tell if someone is a transgender woman, but it can not tell you that.
I like and respect Jennifer Diane Reitz. Jennifer created the COGIATI as part of a series Transsexual Tests. She has helped many people. However, I disagree strongly and respectfully with Jennifer on the COGIATI test. I do not think it will help people. These kinds of tests are not scientific. They do not have scientific validity.
The COGIATI has questions that Jennifer says are based on sex differentiation. The scores are:
-650 to -390: Class 1 (Definite Male)
-389 to -130: Class 2 (Feminine Male)
-129 to 129: Class 3 (Androgyne)
130 to 389: Class 4 (Probable Transsexual)
390 to 650: Class 5 (Classic Transsexual)
Many questions are like questions on other tests by Bem and Moir-Jessel. Those tests have problems, too.
Jennifer says:
The COGIATI is a prototype. It was designed for only one target: the curious, unsure, pre-operative POTENTIAL Male-To-Female transsexual (not a post-op, not someone who is already certain, not a Female-To-Male, not anyone else who fails to fit the stated definition target). Further, it was constructed for that given target only because no scientifically and medically based test for such people exists. None. Anywhere. I saw that there was a void, no physicians were filling it, and so I set to work. The COGIATI is a challenge to the scientific and medical community to follow my example, and do a better job than I.
While this is a good goal, I think the test is based on bad ideas and bad science. Some tests look like science, but they are not. This fake science is called pseudoscience.
People who like their score will think it is a good test. That is called bias.
To learn more on why gender tests are bad, go here.
The Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI) is a gender test that was developed by Sandra Lipsitz Bem (1944–2014), who began researching sex roles since the early 1970s. The Bem test indicates the degrees of absorption of cultural definitions of gender, as reflected in the user’s personality.
Overview
Cynthia Connor and colleagues summarize Bem’s findings in an interesting article titled “Intrinsic Motivation and Role Adaptability with Regards to Drama Students:”
The possession of both masculine and feminine characteristics has important consequences for behavior (Bem, S. L., 1974). An expanded behavioral repertoire gives androgynous individuals superior sex-role adaptability in comparison to sex-typed individuals. The androgynous individual is able to adapt to a variety of situations. Sex-typed people internalize societies sex-appropriate behaviors as being desirable and exclude cross-sexed behaviors from their behavioral repertoires. Sandra Bem’s pioneering research on the dimensions of masculinity and femininity led to the development of the Bem Sex Role Inventory, (1974). The Bem Sex Role Inventory measures masculinity and femininity as two discriminable dimensions. The androgynous individual scores high on both dimensions. Sex-typed individuals score high on one dimension and reject while rejecting the characteristics of the other dimension. Androgynous people enact their masculine and feminine on different occasions (Vonk, R. & Ashemore, R. D., 1993). In describing their masculine, feminine and gender neutral attributes sides, Androgynous subjects use more situational qualifiers to explain their behavior. This supports Sandra Bem’s theory that androgyny is manifested as situational flexibility (1975).
After continued research into androgyny, Bem developed a cognitive schema theory of sex role behavior (Cook, E. P. 1985). Androgyny is a particular way of processing information. Androgynous individuals do not use sex-role related schemas to guide their information processing. Gender schematic individuals divide the world into masculine and feminine. They use traditional sex-role standards in their processing of information. Gender schema theory does not emphasize the degree to which an individual is masculine or feminine, but rather the extent to which they process new information along in terms of sex roles (Hargreaves, D. J. & Colley, A. M., 1987).
This inventory (BSRI) provides independent assessments of masculinity and femininity in terms of the respondent’s self-reported possession of socially desirable, stereotypically masculine and feminine personality characteristics. This can also be seen as a measurement of the extent to which respondents spontaneously sort self-relevant information into distinct masculine and feminine categories. The self administering 60-item questionnaire measures masculinity, femininity, androgyny, and undifferentiated, using the Masculinity and Femininity scales.
Criticisms
While Bem’s theories are very interesting, the test itself for use in our community is problematic for several reasons:
Reliance on gender stereotypes which can be recognized as male or female by the test taker.
Self-reporting by the test taker based on the above can influence the outcome.
While Bem asserts that androgynous takers will score high on both scales, this may not be true for trans people. Many people in our community are gender schematic, or very invested in culturally defined sex-appropriate behaviors, and a baseline has not been established for us.
References
Bem, S. L. (1974). The measurement of psychological androgyny. Journal of Counseling & Clinical Psychology, 42, 155-162.
Bem Sex – Role Inventory. Bem, Sandra L. USA: Consulting Psychologists Press; 1981.
The “brain sex” concept put forth by Moir and Jessel is far more troubling to me than the Bem Sex Role Inventory.
Description: The purpose of the Moir-Jessel Brain Sex Test is “to determine whether your brain functions within the normal range for a male or a female.” This test gives two scores of which the participant selects the correct one for their sex. The interpretation of these scores, breaks the male and female scores each into three categories.
Males scoring less than 0 are “Extremely Masculine.”
Males scoring between 0 and 60 are “Normal Males.”
Males scoring greater than 60 are “Feminine Males.”
Females scoring less than 50 are “Masculine Female.”
Females scoring between 50 to 100 is “Normal Female.”
Females scoring greater than 100 is “Extremely Feminine.”
Anne Lawrence states: “The book BRAIN SEX, from which the test is derived, is a sloppy piece of pop science, full of oversimplifications, unsupported inferences, and speculations presented as though they were facts.” She adds, “The test has not been validated by actual samples of male and female subjects… [T]he test has never been validated with a sample of transsexuals, either.”
I agree about the lack of scientific validity in this extremely controversial book. I would also add that science can be used, or misused, for social purposes. Valid observations can be used to draw absurd conclusions, like the concept of “social Darwinism” put forth by racists and proponents of eugenics.
Moir and Jessel’s Brain Sex is to sexism what Murray and Herrnstein’s The Bell Curve is to racism: a veneer of scientific methodology laid over an agenda that is sexist at its very core. I find the fact that this book is warmly embraced by many transgender women to be a highly troubling commentary on our community’s attitude toward gender stereotypes.
To argue that social inequalities between the sexes is based on brain structure is simply misogyny draped in a labcoat.
Several academic journals that are ostensibly “peer reviewed” are getting “peer-packed” with sympathetic ideologues and old-style cronyism. These include Archives of Sexual Behavior and Behavior Genetics.
These connections have been coming out as part of our investigation into J. Michael Bailey and the systemic problems that allowed his book The Man Who Would Be Queen to be published as “science.”
Sheri Berenbaum
Bailey’s colleague and co-author is one of the editors. Now at Penn State, did her post-doc at Minnesota before going to Southern Illinois.
Lisabeth DiLalla
Southern Illinois (where Bernbaum was a few years ago)
David A Blizzard (Penn State)
Gerald McClearn (Penn State)
Robert Plomin (formerly from Penn State)
Matt McGue
Thomas Bouchard
Mentor to Berenbaum and McGue, who has been slammed for his unethical work with twins at Minnesota, notably the “Jim Twins”.
John Loehlin
Bailey’s Ph.D. mentor. On the editorial board. Co-authored many articles with Lee Willerman.
National Convener Mr Gordon Walker Department of Psychology, Monash University PO Box 197, Caulfied East, VIC, 3145 Tel: (03) 9903 2728 Fax: (03) 9903 2501 Email: [email protected]
GLIP News Gay and Lesbian Issues and Psychology An Interest Group of the Australian Psychological Society Ltd. Volume 2, Issue 2 August 2003 page 5
by Gordon Walker, Convener
Book review: Bailey, J.M. (2003). The man who would be queen: The science of gender-bending and transsexualism. Washington, DC: Joseph Henry Press.
This is a book, written by a leading researcher in the field, is about understanding sexual orientation and identity. Although the author makes much use of research, this is not a textbook; any educated person with an interest in this topic would find the material very accessible. The stories of various boys and men are woven together with the discussion of research to create a highly interesting and very worthwhile book. In fact once I started I had difficulty putting down! Broadly speaking it is an examination of the relationship between male homosexuality and femininity. As the author says, to say that femininity and homosexuality are closely bound together has been politically incorrect for some time now, but nevertheless factually correct. The book then goes on to demonstrate this across the sexual orientation spectrum.
The book is therefore a challenge to the postmodern position on gender, although the author clearly occupies the middle ground between social constructionism and essentialism. This is demonstrated in his discussion of feminine boys and of those labeled gender identity disordered (GID) in particular. In looking at the debate between those on the left who want them left alone to be as feminine as they want to be and those on the extreme right who view homosexuality as arrested psychosexual development, he draws the reader’s attention to research that shows that therapy directed at reducing femininity in highly feminine boys reduces the number who ultimately seek a sex-change, and therefore increases the number who as adults identify as gay. He suggests that an alternative to this would be to allow such boys to become women very early (pre-puberty) so that they can have better outcomes as women.
The author uses a range of research to clearly challenge the view that pronounced femininity in boys is the result of socialisation. The question of where does extreme femininity come from is also examined
Similarities and differences between gay and straight men are also examined. Broadly speaking, although gay men have interests more in line with those of women, in attitudes to sex and the body homosexual and heterosexual men were shown to be essentially the same; the differences in behaviour come about because heterosexually men are basically constrained in their behaviour by women. The author provides a very accessible and readable account of the sometimes confusing array of studies that have attempted to account for sexual orientation and draws the conclusion that there is some fundamental biological influence that transcends culture. The last section of the book focuses on transsexualism, and produces a compelling argument for recognising two main types: homosexual and non-homosexual types, with the latter being erotically obsessed with the image of themselves as women. A very much more complex picture emerges than the popular image of a woman being trapped inside a man’s body.
The great value of this book lies in the way it has brought together a wide range of research on important questions relating to sexual orientation. This gives the reader a wonderful opportunity to reflect further on what being other than heterosexual might mean.
Gordon Walker Department of Psychology School of Psychology, Psychiatry and Psychological Medicine Monash University
Letter to Dr. Walker from WOMAN Network
“We write to express our concern that the Special Interest Group on Gay and Lesbian Issues of the Australian Psychological Society has been implicated in support for the writings of Prof J Michael Bailey of Northwestern University.
In this respect, we draw your attention to the following quote from GLIP News, August 2003:
“…any educated person with an interest in this topic would find the material very accessible. The stories of various boys and men are woven together with the discussion of research to create a highly interesting and very worthwhile book. In fact once I started I had difficulty putting down! … The author provides a very accessible and readable account of the sometimes confusing array of studies that have attempted to account for sexual orientation and draws the conclusion that there is some fundamental biological influence that transcends culture. … The great value of this book lies in the way it has brought together a wide range of research on important questions relating to sexual orientation. This gives the reader a wonderful opportunity to reflect further on what being other than heterosexual might mean.”
The book referred to is “The Man Who Would Be Queen” which was published under the imprimateur of the National Academies of Sciences. It has brought huge condemnation for its inaccurate and highly offensive portrayal of transsexualism and the people who are affected by it. This has culminated recently in legal action against the author, who is accused of failing to obtain the necessary informed consents of the subjects of his material. Importantly, the scientific veracity of the work has now been shattered in a most public way at the recent IASR Conference in the United States.
Bailey seized on earlier work by Ken Zucker of the somewhat infamous Clarke Institute, and categorised us as either excessively homosexual males or autogynaephilic males. He deliberately excluded the anecdotal evidence of those, the vast majority, who did not fit with his theory and ignored completely the prevailing hard science pointing to the somatic nature of transsexualism. The fall out from this scientific fraud is gaining momentum and it would be very unfortunate if Monash University were to be included in this.
You can gauge the international responses to the issue by visiting these websites:
One matter of very real concern is the way in which the religious right has already seized on Bailey’s writings to further justify their rejection of transsexualism as a valid condition of human sexual formation and their condemnation of those affected by it. These same condemnations will undoubtedly be directed at gay and lesbian people to the detriment of us all.
We therefore ask you to consider repudiating Bailey’s work and ensure your next newsletter contains a suitable disclaimer.”
It is reported that Dr. Walker is making inquiries about the matter and will respond after he’s had time to review the matter.
The Bailey Affair: Psychology Perverted: A Response
by Dr Peter Hegarty, Dr Penny Lenihan, Dr Meg Barker and Dr Lyndsey Moon
As a social psychologist (PH), a consultant counselling psychologist (PL) a social psychologist (MB) ) and a chartered counselling psychologist (LM), we are challenged and heartened by Joan Roughgarden’s call for psychologists to condemn transphobic and otherwise bigoted research. Like Roughgarden we were troubled upon reading Bailey’s book for its explicit transphobic assumptions that trans adults are a negative outcome of development and for the heterosexism, sexism and racism which Roughgarden describes so well. Trans men, gay and bisexual women are notable by their invisibility in the text. The use of the authors friends’ opinion of bisexuality as “gay, straight or lying” in the book itself, and now it seems in advertisements is not perceived as amusing or trivial in our opinion in view of the slow progress there has been in developing a bisexual psychology, and the real effects of biphobia in blighting people’s lives. There is very little recognition in mainstream psychology generally which is further perpetuated by this book, that someone could be attracted to both sexes or have relationships with both, with many theorists favouring the general binary construction of sexuality which does not allow for an ‘in between’ position; people are either gay or straight (Ochs, 1996). Generally, many bisexuals are seen as straight if in a relationship with someone of the opposite sex, and gay if in a relationship with someone of the same sex and that experience of having an imposed social identity which conflicts with a personal identity, and the confusion it engenders can have commonalities with trans experience. In respect to the “Gaydar” and discussion of sexual orientation and related behaviour described in the book, a whole literature of gay and lesbian psychology which has been painstakingly developed and promoted within mainstream psychology, appears to have been excluded.
We are particularly concerned that Bailey’s work will be seen as representative of scientific psychological research, both by the trans community and by other sections of the public. Bailey relies on a sample size of six – which would not be sufficient for any experimental or survey research to be published in a peer reviewed psychology journal. (Indeed, the standard statistical assumptions upon which quantitative psychological research rests – such as the central limit theorem – cannot apply to samples of this size). In this regard Bailey’s work is an outlier rather than the norm for quantitative psychology.
Sometimes psychologists do conduct research with small sample sizes, and rely on qualitative data rather than quantitative data. Such research can be particularly useful when conducted among under-represented and difficult-to-access populations as it can inform psychologists about a group that it might be difficult to study statistically. Does Bailey’s research then fit the model for acceptable qualitative psychology? This is questionable. A hallmark of good qualitative research is reflexivity – an awareness and description of the way that qualitative data is shaped by the researcher’s own position. Qualitative researchers also frequently understand their participants as directing the research and informing its questions. The participants in this research have provided the case material but cannot be said to be participants in the sense that is currently considered good practice in psychological research. There is insufficient discussion of the limitations of his interviews and too many conclusions are drawn about the essence of transsexual psychology from casual talk in bars, occasional anecdotes and the opinions of the author’s friends. The persistent critiques from the trans community (including Bailey’s own participants) support our criticism of this not being collaborative qualitative research.In spite of the differences between them, and the debates between quantitative and qualitative methods in particular, all social scientific methodologies are designed to ensure that we do not inflate our own opinions into evidence. In quantitative research this is done by using methods that limit the effects of the researchers’ own perspective on the data. In qualitative research, it is done by making those effects part of the data itself. This is not in evidence in the research reported in “The Man Who Would Be Queen”.
As a result the danger that Bailey’s expressed anti-trans opinions might be confused with scientific evidence is particularly high in this case. Indeed, Bailey repeatedly uses a non-scientific form of argument, the ‘ad hominum’, to lend scientific credence to his point of view. He often cites his own status within scientific communities (and those of colleagues) but it is important to note that status within one’s own field, (or elsewhere), should count for nothing in academic debates. For these reasons, the consistent criticism of Bailey’s work from trans scholars, scientists from other disciplines and activists such as Joan Roughgarden, Jed Bland and Lynn Conway is particularly welcome to us as psychologists who are concerned with standards of ethical and scholarly conduct within our field. Roughgarden is right that there is a history of transphobic research in psychology. In fact we are surprised that she describes Bailey’s research as ‘surprising’ as he has been involved in research on childhood ‘gender non-conformity’ for some time (e.g., Bailey & Zucker, 1996). Most of the psychological research on transsexuality and transgender falls into the abnormal clinical literature, as did most research on homosexuality up until the 1970s. Indeed, in contrast to the well-developed fields of research on heterosexism (and also sexism, ageism, and racism) there are few studies of transphobia in psychology journals, and no standardized attitude measure has been published. Clearly there is a wide open field of trans psychology, premised on the assumption that trans people are people rather than clinical cases, which is crying out to be developed. However, it would be wrong to assume that the methods of psychology are so completely flawed that they render Bailey’s research as paradigmatic.
As psychologists with a special interest in lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender psychology and civil rights, we accept the need to change the way psychology has constructed all of these populations and to draw from recent works within the field of psychology to expand our everyday reality about our social worlds. However, we also recognise the need to become more interdisciplinary and even multidisciplinary if we really do want to move lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (and dare we say ‘queer’) studies into the 21st Century. There are growing numbers of critical psychologists challenging traditional psychological theories and shifting paradigms. This is particularly evident in the Lesbian and Gay Psychology Section of the British Psychological Society which promotes and develops lesbian, gay and bisexual psychological research and practice not framed from within a heterosexist framework, as well as including a significant number of psychologists with a special interest in developing a transgender psychology which does not pathologise trans people . This will inevitably take time and patience – despite the need for those impatient enough to want change, to come forward and become more visible.
Suggestions for future considerations for transgender psychology research both for participants to raise prior to being involved in research and for psychologists to address when designing and seeking ethical approval for such research:
1. The employment of standard ethical and scientific procedures.
2. Wide consultation with trans people and trans activists about hypotheses, research questions, etc, and a commitment to applying current good practice more commonplace now in regard to user involvement in more mainstream fields of research to trans research, particularly when the principal researchers come from outside the trans community
3. Not to use trans people as ‘natural experiments’ to test hypotheses about ‘gender’ , ‘sexual orientation’ etc. in static categorical terms.
4. Inclusion of qualitative and quantitative data.
5. Development of prejudice research.
6. Recognition that there is an interface with other minority areas (e.g., psychology of women, lesbian, gay and bisexual psychology) but not a tokenistic addition of trans issues to these areas without substantial engagement.
7. Sensitivity to the ways that research on prejudiced groups will be received and to reflect that awareness in how the research is disseminated.
The Sex And Gender Explorer Test, or S.A.G.E. test is an online “gender test.” While it’s fine to take it for fun, it is not science and should not be used to make important decisions.
As the author says:
I am not a psychologist or psychiatrist. I have only a layperson’s understanding of the “science” that serves as the foundation for both the questions and the methodology of psychological evaluations. As the creator of the COGIATI test says, there is NO professionally authored psychological test for identification or classification of people with gender conflicts. It is obvious such a diagnostic tool would be useful to both the conflicted subject and the health care profession. If the creation of the S.A.G.E. test serves as an impetus or foundation for a credentialed professional to develop such a test, its purpose will have been served.
This test is built on the work of other supposed “gender tests” and shares many of the same short-comings. How you score is NOT a competition with other people or to show that you are “better” than someone else. I did not do ANY of the research on which this test is based, and I cannot speak for the validitiy or accuracy of those gender-related theories or research projects. Quite honestly, I’m not even sure if I totally agree with them. So why did I make this thing at all? I guess I just got bored and wanted to see if I could.
Remember, this test will not TELL you what your gender identity is. It is designed to help you EXPLORE and understand your gender identity against “social norms” and clinical diagnostic classifications. It is NOT a substitute for seeking professional therapy.
