Read the results to Ray Blanchard's (1989) paper "The concept of autogynephilia and the typology of male gender dysphoria."

This is page 1 (above links) & 8 (below links) of 9.          [1]   [2]   [3]   [4]   [5]   [6]   [7]   [8]  

Results of The Concept of Autogynephilia and the Typology of Male Gender Dysphoria by Ray Blanchard (1989)

Development of the Autogynephilia Measure

The purpose of this phase of the study was to identify a subset of items that could be combined into a statistically homogeneous measure of autogynephilia. This was done by factor analyzing the pool of questionnaire items, which up to this point had been selected solely on the basis of face validity.

Before conducting the factor analysis, the author assigned scoring weights to the response options of all items in the pool. These weights, which were also determined on the basis of face validity, are presented in the Appendix.

The factor analysis used the full sample of 302 subjects. This analysis was carried out with an SPSS factoring program (SPSS, 1986), which determined the number of factors in a preliminary principal-component analysis using the criterion of eigenvalue > 1.0. The factor extraction technique was a principal-axis factoring; this was followed by a Varimax rotation. This analysis yielded three factors, which accounted for 60.2% of the total variance. Factor loadings of the individual items on the three rotated factors are shown in Table 1.

Table 1: Factor Analysis

Factor loadings < .50 have been blanked out to make the factor matrix easier to read.
Note from GenderPsychology.org: Table formatting changed slightly to match web-style tables

Interpretation of factors

The three factors were interpreted and labeled by inspecting the content of the items that loaded most heavily on them. Factor 1, Core Autogynephilia, relates to sexual arousal in association with a simple, unelaborated, and contextless fantasy of being a woman. Factor 2, Autogynephilic Interpersonal Fantasy, relates to the sexual fantasy of being admired, in the female persona, by another person. Factor 3, Alloeroticism, concerns the dimension of sexual attraction vs. sexual indifference toward other persons.

Assignment of items to scales

The 15 items to survive factor analysis were divided into three separate scales, which correspond to the three separate scales, which correspond to the three empirically identified factors. Each scale comprised all items loading higher than .50 on the corresponding factor. (No item had loaded higher than .50 on more than one rotated factor.) The item composition of these three scales (or miniscales) is indicated in the Appendix. Each scale was scored with the same scoring weights used for the factor analysis. The alpha reliability coefficient of the 8-item Core Autogynephilia Scale was .95; that of the 4-item Autogynephilic Interpersonal Fantasy Scale was .86; and the reliability of the 3-item Alloeroticism Scale was .66.

There was a substantial correlation between the Core Autogynephilia and Autogynephilic Interpersonal Fantasy Scales (not factors): r[300] = .55, p < .001 (two-tailed). There was no correlation between the Core Autogynephilia and Alloeroticism Scale: r [300] = -.06, NS. There was a statistically significant but small correlationa between the Alloeroticism and Autogynephilic Interpersonal Fantasy Scales: r[300] = .14, p= .01 (two-tailed).

Between-Group Comparisons

The final phase of the study addressed its central prediction regarding difference in autogynephilic behavior among gender dysphoric types.Between-group differences in other relevant variables were also examined. As with the cluster analysis, the analyses were carried out on transsexuals only.

The four transsexual groups were compared on five dependent measures: Core Autogynpehilia, Autogynpehilic Interpersonal Fantasy, Alloeroticism, Heterosexual Experience, and Cross-Gender Fetishism. Each dependent measure was examined in a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), followed by a Newman-Keuls multiple-range test at the p < .05 level. The Newman-Keuls tests used the harmonic mean of all group sizes (29.9). The results of five ANOVAs are shown in Table 2. All were highly significant. The results of the five Newman-Keuls tests are summarized in Table 3. These results are discussed in greater detail immediately below.

Table 2: Analysis of Variance

Note from GenderPsychology.org: Table formatting changed slightly to match web-style tables

Core Autogynephilia

The mean scores of all three nonhomosexual groups on this variable were significantly higher than the mean score of the homosexual group. This result confirms the central prediction of the present study, name, that autogynephilic behavior will be reported more frequently by nonhomosexual than by homosexual gender dysphorics. The mean score of the bisexual group was significantly higher than that of the analloerotics; the heterosexuals fell in between and did not differ reliably from either.

Autogynephilic Interpersonal Fantasy

The mean score of the bisexual group on this variable was significantly higher than the mean scores of all other groups. There were no reliable differences among the analloerotics, heterosexuals, and homosexuals.

Alloeroticism

The mean score of the analloerotic group on this variable was significantly lower than the means of the other three groups, which did not differ from each other. The low mean of the analloerotic group is largely redundant with the self-report data that determined its membership in the first place. To some extent, however this result validates the analloerotic cluster with a different approach, in that these items, unlike those in the Modified Androphilia or Modified Gynephilia Scales, allow the subject to deny erotic interest in both sexes with a single response.

Heterosexual Experience

On this variable, the mean score of the homosexual group was significantly lower than the means of all three nonhomosexual groups, which did not differ from each other. it should be noted that the analloerotics did not report less heterosexual experience than the other nonhomosexual groups, despite their lower levels of self-reported sexual interest in other persons.

Cross-Gender Fetishism

This variable followed the same pattern as Heterosexual Experience: The mean score of the homosexual group was significantly lower than the means of all three nonhomosexual groups, which did not differ from each other. This result confirms the earlier finding of Blanchard (1985b), which was obtained with a single questionnaire item rather than a multi-item scale; the present result cannot be considered a true replication, however, because the present sample of subjects overlaps that of the earlier study.

Table 3: Newman-Keuls Multiple Range Tests

For every scale, greater mean values indicate higher levels of the relevant attribute. Means sharing a common subscript are not significantly different at p < .05
Note from GenderPsychology.org: Table formatting changed slightly to match web-style tables.

This is page 1 (above links) & 8 (below links) of 9.          [1]   [2]   [3]   [4]   [5]   [6]   [7]   [8]  

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