Cross-Gender Fetishism Scale

Cross-Gender Fetishism Scale

RAY BLANCHARD,1 Centre for Addiction and Mental Health

The Cross-Gender Fetishism Scale (CGFS; Blanchard, 1985) is a measure (for males) of the erotic arousal value of putting on women’s clothes, perfume, and make-up, and shaving the legs. The term cross-gender fetishism was coined by Freund, Steiner, and Chan (1982) to designate fetishistic activity that is accompanied by fantasies of being female and carried out with objects symbolic of femininity. It is therefore roughly equivalent to the term transvestism as defined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (American Psychiatric Association, 1980).

Description

The Cross-Gender Fetishism Scale CGFS is primarily intended to discriminate fetishistic from nonfetishistic cross-dressers (e.g., gender dysphorics, transsexuals, “drag queens,” self-labeled transvestites). All items, however, contain one response option appropriate for non-cross-dressing males, so that it may be administered to control samples as well.

The scale is a self-administered, multiple-choice questionnaire. It contains 11 items: 6 with three response options and 5 with two options. Scoring weights for these response options were determined with the optimal scaling procedure for multiple-choice items outlined by Nishisato (1980). This procedure directly determines the set of scoring weights that optimizes the alpha reliability of a scale for a given population. This analysis, as well as others yielding the psychometric information reported below, was carried out on 99 adult male patients of the behavioral sexology department or gender identity clinic of a psychiatric teaching hospital. All had reported that they felt like females at least when cross-dressed, if not more generally.

Response Mode and Timing

Examinees may check or circle the response option of their choice. They are instructed to endorse one and only one response option per item. Examinees are permitted to ask for clarification on the meaning of an item. The CGFS was intended to round out a larger battery of erotic preference and gender identity measures (see the paper by Freund and Blanchard elsewhere in this volume) and should not, by itself, take longer than 1 or 2 minutes to complete.

Scoring

The scoring weight for each response option is shown in parentheses in the accompanying exhibit. Because empirically derived scoring weights can vary from sample to sample, users might wish to substitute the scoring weights given here with a simple dichotomous scheme: 1 for each positive response and 0 for each negative one.

The total score is simply the (algebraic) sum of scores on the 11 individual items. Higher (i.e., more positive) scores indicate a more extensive history of cross-gender fetishism.

Reliability

Blanchard (1985), using the scoring weight presented here, found an alpha reliability coefficient of .95.

Validity

Blanchard (1985) found that two factors with eigenvalues greater than 1.0 emerged from principal components analysis, accounting for 68% and 9% of the total variance. The part-remainder correlations ranged from .56 to .89.

Blanchard (1985) demonstrated the expected strong association (within the clinical population previously described) between high scores on the CGFS and hetero- sexual partner preference. Blanchard, Clemmensen, and Steiner (1985), predicting that heterosexual male gender patients motivated to create a favorable impression at clinical assessment would tend to minimize their history of fetishistic arousal in their self-reports, found a high significant correlation of –.48 between the CGFS and the Crowne-Marlowe (1964) Social Desirability Scale. The correlation between these two measures among homo- sexual gender patients–who rarely or never have fetishistic histories–was virtually zero.

Other Information

No permission or fee is required to use the CGFS.

1Address correspondence to Ray Blanchard, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, 250 College Street, Toronto, Ontario M5T 1R8, Canada; e-mail: [email protected]

Cross-Gender Fetishism Scale

Instructions to Subjects

The following questions ask about your experiences in dressing or making up as the opposite sex. These questions are meant to include experiences you may have had during puberty or early adolescence as well as more recent experiences.

Please circle one and only one answer to each question. If you are not sure of the meaning of a question, you may ask the person giving the questionnaire to explain it to you. There is no time limit for answering these questions.

  1. Have you ever felt sexually aroused when putting on women’s underwear, stockings, or a nightgown?

    1. Yes (1.0)

      b. No (–1.1)

      c. Have never put on any of these (–1.1)

  2. Have you ever felt sexually aroused when putting on women’s shoes or boots?

    1. Yes (1.5)

      b. No (–.7)

      c. Have never put on either of these (–.7)

  3. Have you ever felt sexually aroused when putting on women’s jewelry or outer garments (blouse, skirt, dress, etc.)?

    1. Yes (1.2)

      b. No (–1.0)

      c. Have never put on any of these (–1.0)

  4. Have you ever felt sexually aroused when putting on women’s perfume or make-up, or when shaving your legs?

    1. Yes (1.3)

      b. No (–.8)

      c. Have never done any of these (–.8)

  5. Have you ever masturbated while thinking of yourself putting on (or wearing) women’s underwear, stockings, or a nightgown?

    1. Yes (1.1)

      b. No (–1.0)

  6. Have you ever masturbated while thinking of yourself putting on (or wearing) women’s shoes or boots?

    1. Yes (1.7)

      b. No (–.4)

  7. Have you ever masturbated while thinking of yourself putting on (or wearing) women’s jewelry or outer garments?

    1. Yes (1.4)

      b. No (–.8)

  8. Have you ever masturbated while thinking of yourself putting on (or wearing) women’s perfume or make-up, or while thinking of yourself shaving your legs (or having shaved legs)?

    1. Yes (1.5)

      b. No (–.7)

  9. Has there ever been a period in your life of one year (or longer) during which you always or usually felt sexually aroused when putting on female underwear or clothing?

    1. Yes (1.1)

      b. No (–1.0)

      c. Have never put on female underwear or clothing (–1.0)

  10. Has there ever been a period in your life of one year (or longer) during which you always or usually masturbated if you put on female underwear or clothing?

    1. Yes (1.2)

      b. No (–.8)

      c. Have never put on female underwear or clothing (–.8)

  11. Have you ever put on women’s clothes or make-up for the main purpose of becoming sexually excited and masturbating?

    1. Yes (1.3)

    2. b. No (–.4)

References

American Psychiatric Association. (1980). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (3rd ed.). Washington, DC: Author.

Blanchard, R. (1985). Research methods for the typological study of gender disorders in males. In B. W. Steiner (Ed.)., Gender dyspho- ria: Development, research, management (pp. 227–257). New York: Plenum.

Blanchard, R., Clemmensen, L. H., & Steiner, B. W. (1985). Social desirability response set and systematic distortion in the self-report of adult male gender patients. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 14, 505–516.

Crowne, D. P., & Marlowe, D. (1964). The approval motive: Studies in evaluative dependence. New York: Wiley.

Freund, K., Steiner, B. W., & Chan, S. (1982). Two types of cross-gender identity. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 11, 49–63.

Nishisato, S. (1980). Analysis of categorical data: Dual scaling and its applications. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

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