Utility of the Gd Scale for the Measurement of Gender-Dysphoria in Males

Abstract

Responses on the 31-item Gender Dysphoria (Gd) scale of the MMPI of 104 primary gender-dysphoric males who had undergone or were about to undergo gender-reassignment surgery, 25 secondary gender-dysphoric patients from the same clinics, and 563 male psychiatric outpatients were tabulated and specificities and sensitivities calculated. The scale had satisfactory specificity, correctly identifying 98.1% of subjects. Sensitivity was unsatisfactory (40%) in distinguishing secondary gender-dysphorics in the Gender Clinic samples but adequate (88.4%) in the combined psychiatric outpatient and Gender Clinic samples. Factor analysis yielded 8 dimensions, but only 2 of these were easily interpretable or had sufficient items to ensure reliability, suggesting that there was little possibility of utilizing subscales. It is concluded that the Gd scale is an appropriate instrument for excluding primary gender dysphoria when used in conjunction with conventional diagnostic assessments.

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