Transsexualism and connection with reality: Rorschach data

AB Presents 12 various types of responses to the Rorschach that indicate a distinctive connection with reality that seems to resemble the inability of transsexuals to resign themselves as easily to perceived reality as to symbolic satisfactions (desired reality). The authors then compare the frequency of such responses in the Rorschach protocols of transsexuals and control subject in order to test the validity of this hypothesis. The research to be reported here involved an initial sample of 36 transsexuals, 24 men and 12 women (with the designated sex determined by the original anatomical sex). These subjects had consulted a psychologist for an evaluation that was required prior to a medical decision to perform an anatomical sex-change operation. Clinical observation indicates that transsexuals (a) correctly perceive the anatomical reality of their sex; (b) do not modify their conviction (that of belonging to the other sex) in accord with this perception; and (c) seek to resolve the resulting dissonance by changing their anatomy rather than their conviction (gender identity). On the basis of this observation, we have inferred that transsexuals should maintain a characteristic relationship with reality that we have formulated in terms of indices to be identified during Rorschach testing.