1993
CIA Report
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NOTICE -
TGE makes no claims nor representations about the actual sources of this
document. It is presented here for informational purposes only as it does
contain valid insights on the subject of transgendered behaviour. As much
as possible we have preserved it in the format in which it was presented
to us so that its author may receive appropriate credit. |
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| Analysis
Division - Office of Security |
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| Central
Intelligence Agency - AD-663 - October 1993 |
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| Sexual
Behaviour and Security Risk: Background Information for Security Personnel |
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| By
Richards J. Heuer, Jr. |
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| There
is today no community consensus on value judgments regarding Sexual practices
or how these practices should be evaluated in a national security context.
Conflicting interpretations of sexual behavior that were widely accepted
during earlier time periods continue to influence the public psyche, the
legal code, and organizational practices. |
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| The
record of past espionage cases and the bulk of scientific research suggest
that the connection between sexual behavior and personnel security is more
complex than a simple notion that "normal" sex is acceptable but "nonconforming"
sexual practices are a security risk. Self-control, social maturity, strength
of character, and overall psychological adjustment are more important security
indicators than the specific sexual practices in which people engage. |
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| This
report identifies criteria for relating sexual behavior to security risk.
Specifically, sexual behavior may be of security concern when it is criminal,
when it is compulsive or out of control or indicates a personality disorder,
when it exposes the individual to pressure or coercion, or when it is notorious.
Sexual behavior offers such a significant window into an individual's psyche
that it may also serve as an indicator of broader emotional problems. The
bulk of the report provides background information on the nature, causes,
and prevalence of a wide variety of sexual behaviors. It then discusses
security concerns that may or may not be associated with these behaviors. |
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| Sexual
behavior of any type, including "normal" heterosexual intercourse between
consenting adults, is a security concern if it is compulsive and out of
control. Indicators that sexual behavior may he out of control are seeking
sex as a means of coping with problems of loneliness, stress, anxiety,
low self esteem, pain, or sleeplessness; an obsession with sex that dominates
one's life, including sexual fantasies that interfere with work performance;
so much time devoted to planning sexual activity that it interferes with
other activities; feelings of shame about one's sexual behavior; a feeling
of powerlessness or inability to stop despite predictable adverse consequences;
inability to make a commit went to a loving relationship; extreme dependence
upon a relationship as a basis for feelings of self-worth; or little emotional
satisfaction gained from the sex act. |
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| It
is not the frequency or type of sexual activity or number of partners that
is of greatest significance, but a pattern of out of control behavior that
causes problems for the individual with employment, health, marriage, social
relationships, or the law, or that causes a significant lowering of self
esteem. |
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| The
report discusses the origins of homosexuality and cites research conclusions
that being homosexual does not predispose one to unreliability, disloyalty,
or untrustworthiness. Lifestyles of homosexuals are as varied as heterosexual
lifestyles. Homosexuality does not by definition reflect poor judgment,
nor is it an emotional disorder. To the extent that it is concealed, homosexuality
may cause a person to be vulnerable to threats of exposure, but not necessarily
more so than the adulterer or any other person who conceals an embarrassing
personal secret. |
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| For
these reasons, sexual orientation alone is not an appropriate basis for
security concern. However, the regular "cruising & associated with
some homosexual lifestyles does involve a degree of promiscuity and sexual
indiscretion which is difficult to reconcile with some security requirements,
especially if the individual may travel or be assigned abroad. |
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| To
protect employee rights to privacy and civil liberties, adjudication of
sexual behavior needs to be based on demonstrable security concerns, not
on commonly accepted myths or the personal moral values of individual adjudicators.
This will be aided by improved understanding of the wide diversity of human
sexual behavior and the specific connections between various forms of sexual
behavior and security risk. |
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| Findings
in this report suggest a need to rethink criteria for evaluating a number
of forms of atypical sexual behavior, some of which may be unrelated to
security risk. The report reinforces the importance of case-by-case judgments
rather than automatic disqualification of some categories; this emphasizes
the need for qualified medical expertise in making many of these judgments. |
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| Transsexualism,
literally, means going from one sex to another. A transsexual experiences
strong discomfort with his or her biological sex. There is a conviction
that, mentally, one is a man trapped in a woman's body, or a woman trapped
in a man's body. As with other gender and sexual anomalies, this occurs
with varying degrees of severity. In more extreme cases, it may result
in a request for a sex change operation, which is usually granted only
after the person has spent at least two years living as a member of the
preferred sex. In the United States, several thousand people have undergone
surgery to change (insofar as possible) their external genitalia to that
of the opposite sex. |
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| Transsexuals
generally also suffer from a moderate to severe personality disturbance.
They frequently report anxiety or depression, which they may attribute
to inability to live in the role of the desired sex. Any associated personality
or adjustment problems would be a security concern. Transsexuals sometimes
take strong doses of hormones, and this entails some risk; testosterone,
for example, can cause people to become aggressive. |
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| Prevalence
of transsexualism is estimated at one per 30,000 for males and one per
100,000 for females. The wish to be a member of the opposite sex commonly
dates back to one's earliest childhood memory. The young child may make
very emotional assertions that he or she is the other sex. Cross-dressing
normally begins early in life, as do play which is more typical of the
opposite gender and choice of playmates exclusively of the opposite gender.
Although transsexuals almost invariably report having these gender identity
problems in childhood, most children who report these problems do not grow
up to be transsexuals. The transsexual tends to be asexual and may be so
aversive to the genitals that there is a reluctance to touch them to masturbate.
Attempted self-mutilation is not uncommon. Transsexuals are usually attracted
sexually to members of the same biological gender, but they perceive themselves
as heterosexual as they are themselves in the wrong body. |
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| One
would assume, intuitively, that the U.S. military is the last place one
would find transsexuals. Actually, there are grounds for speculating that
transsexuals may be more common than expected in the military. An Air Force
psychiatrist assigned to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base reported evaluating
11 male transsexuals during his 3-year tour there. Eight were current or
former active duty military personnel, while three were civilians. Of the
eight who had extensive military service, seven had joined the service
voluntarily at a time when no draft existed or other options were readily
available. All were requesting either female hormones or sex reassignment
surgery. |
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| Young
male transsexuals in the throes of adjusting to their situation appear
to go through a hypermasculine phase in which they try to purge the feminine
side of their personality and prove their masculinity both to themselves
and others. Transsexuals pass through this hypermasculine stage during
late adolescence and early adult years, which coincides with the time when
men consider military service. Quotes from taped interviews with military
transsexuals are typical: "I tried to do things to make me feel more masculine,
like joining the Navy and getting married." "I thought it would make a
man out of me." "I joined the Navy hoping maybe the problem would go away."
"I joined the Air Force as a cover. In uniform, my masculinity would not
he questioned." Also typical is the civilian doctor who advised one young
man who had come to him for treatment of feminine feelings to "join the
Army, go to boot camp, and learn how to run over trees with a tank." These
military transsexuals tend to seek out the more macho military specialties.
One who had been assigned as a lab technician volunteered for combat-helicopter
training during the peak of the Vietnam war; his hobbies were mountain
climbing and race car driving. Another became a Green Beret. These are
natural choices for the young transsexual in the hypermasculine phase making
a last ditch effort to adjust to what society expects from a male. This
effort eventually fails in many cases, however, and transsexual urges return,
although transsexuals have had successful military careers of 20 years
or more. |
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| Transvestism
is cross-dressing. The transvestite is almost always a male, and usually
a heterosexual male, who has an obsession for wearing women's clothes,
usually as a means of reducing psychic stress or tension. To the extent
that sexual arousal is a principal motive for wearing female garments,
this is a type of fetish and is mentioned in the next section under fetishism;
it is sometimes called transvestic fetishism. Crossdressing by homosexuals
is the exception rather than the rule. Transvestism takes a number of forms.
It may involve occasional cross-dressing while alone in private, usually
accompanied by masturbation; relaxing in women's attire while at home in-the
evening with a spouse; crossdressing as an erotic turn-on during intercourse
with a partner; wearing on a daily basis a single item of women's attire
such as underwear or stockings under one's masculine clothes; dressing
up in full women's regalia with wig and makeup for the excitement of venturing
out in public alone as a woman; or participating in the subculture of transvestite
support groups or transvestite bars. |
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| The
transvestite should be distinguished from the drag queen and the female
impersonator. A drag queen is a male homosexual who dresses as a woman,
often for the purpose of sexually stimulating other males. Although he
may be a transvestite, in many cases he is not. The female impersonator
is an entertainer. He, too, may also be a transvestite, although in many
cases he is not. The drag queen and female impersonator may have no psychological
dependence on wearing feminine clothing as a form of tension release, nor
do they necessarily gain sexual stimulation from the clothing. |
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| The
transvestite should also he differentiated from the male transsexual who
seeks to change his gender identity. As discussed above, the transsexual
male feels like a woman trapped in a man's body, wishes to live as a woman,
and experiences an insistent urge to change his anatomical sex. Although
some cross-dressers evolve into transsexuals as young adults or in early
middle age, most are quite happy with their gender and feel no urge to
change it. There is also an intermediate condition called gynemimesis in
males and andromimesis in females, where the person dresses and lives continuously
as a person of the opposite sex but does not wish for any change in the
anatomy. |
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| Gynemirnesis
might be more common in the United States if there were not such strong
societal constraints against its expression. Males who live as women are
accepted and have well-defined and in some cases highly respected roles
in a variety of cultures, including India, Burma, Oman, Polynesia, and
among North American Indian tribes. In one small town in Oman where they
were studied, the Xanith, as they are known there, comprised 2% of the
3,000 adult males. |
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| Many
transvestites are married and masculine in appearance. Most assume a female
name and personality while they are cross-dressed. Crossdressing often
starts in childhood or early adolescence. The causes are not known, but
some prenatal biological influence may be involved as well as later experiences
during early childhood. |
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| No
valid statistics are available on the prevalence of transvestism. The Society
for the Second Self is a support and social organization for heterosexual
cross-dressers. The group reports about 1,100 members organized into 27
chapters nationwide, with another 23 chapters in the process of formation.
Other similar organizations also exist The "second self' is the woman that
the society believes "is buried within every man." The group's purpose
is to create a safe environment for the heterosexual male membership "to
express without fear, to speak without shame, and to act out without guilt
the femininity that is within them." Members generally limit their cross-dressing
to the privacy of their homes or cover of night and socialize en femme
only at chapter meetings with their close confidants. |
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| The
largest survey of transvestites was conducted in the late 1960s by V. Prince
and P.M. Bentler. They received survey responses from 504 subscribers to
a magazine for heterosexual cross-dressers. Prince, who was one of the
founders of the Society for the Second Self has almost 1,200 more responses
from recirculating the same survey questionnaire during the past 3 or 4
years. Prince reports that the responses "come out pretty much the same
as the original survey, which indicates that the phenomenon is pretty much
the same over a 25-year period.' |
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| The
findings reported here are from the original Prince and Bentler survey.
In response to a question about how they see themselves, 12% said they
felt like a woman trapped in a male body; in other words, they may be transsexuals
rather than transvestites. Another 12% reported they were a man with just
a sexual fetish for feminine attire, which suggests they should be classified
as transvestic fetishists. The classical transvestite response, that they
feel themselves to he a man who has a feminine side seeking expression,
was given by 69%. Only 28% reported ever having any homosexual experience,
which is less than the 37% reported by Kinsey for the male population as
a whole. |
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| Most
(64%) respondents were currently married, with another 14% either separated,
divorced, or widowed. About one third of the married members described
their wives as either cooperative or understanding, while 20% of the wives
were completely unaware of their husbands' interests. |
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| About
one quarter had a college degree, while another 13% had earned an advanced
degree. A remarkable 17% were either presidents or owners of a company
or business, while 19% had played football in high school or college. |
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| To
some extent, these figures reflect the fact that people who join any type
of support group tend to be well educated. The figures may also say something
about transvestites, however. A separate study of 51 members of the Society
for the Second Self found that many were high achievers, driven to seek
personal success in order to gain a sense of self-worth and positive recognition.
Many sought out particularly masculine occupations as a means of compensation,
that is, to prove their masculinity both to themselves and to others despite
their enjoyment of feminine things. |
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| Cross-dressers
are not dangerous. That is, they generally are not child molesters, voyeurs,
exhibitionists or rapists. The practice does not generally interfere with
work performance. If cross-dressers have difficulties with the law, it
is generally because of society's inability to accept persons who do not
behave in the "normal" way. A book to be published later this year by one
of the principal scholars in this field will argue that gender impersonation
(including cross-dressing) should not be classified as a mental illness
or a pathology unless it becomes a compulsive behavior. Under those circumstances,
it should be considered the same as any other compulsive behavior. |
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| Prince
and Bentler report that 76% of their respondents had never had a psychiatric
consultation for any reason. This is significant, as it indicates that
many transvestites do not experience other emotional problems of sufficient
gravity to require treatment. Some scientific literature on transvestism
is written by psychiatrists based on their clinical experience, and they
tend to see cross-dressing as the tip of the iceberg of other emotional
problems. If the psychiatrists see only those transvestites who are seriously
disturbed by their problems, their impression of the phenomenon as a whole
may be less accurate than the broad survey research. |
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| Because
of lack of public acceptance, crossdressers normally conceal their feelings
and their secret life, and this creates a potential for extortion in exchange
for keeping their secret. On the other hand, secret cross-dressing tends
to be a solitary activity. Unlike homosexuality or adultery, it does not
require a partner, so the risk of discovery and blackmail may be considerably
less. According to the Prince and Bentler study, almost 50% of transvestites
had told either no one or only one other person (often the wife). Most
others were very limited in their disclosure; only 9% had told anyone who
was "antagonistic," showing that transvestites "were quite adept in selecting
individuals to talk with who would not respond negatively to the information." |
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| Transvestism
is similar to homosexuality in that it is not illegal, and there is no
empirical evidence that transvestites are, by nature, less trustworthy
or loyal than other persons. Cross-dressing, by itself and in all circumstances,
does not necessarily indicate poor judgment, unreliability, irresponsibility
or emotional instability, although these disqualifying characteristics
will he present in some cases. There is strong evidence that many cross-dressers
lead successful lives with a high degree of personal and professional achievement.
Each individual should be considered on a case-by-case basis. Appropriate
medical authorities should determine whether there are other associated
emotional problems or evidence of a progression toward other sexual disorders
such as fetishism or transsexualism. |
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| The
DCID 1/14 criteria that may apply to some cases of transvestism are the
public nature of the behavior and susceptibility to blackmail or coercion.
Going out in public dressed as a woman may indicate lack of discretion
and would be an aggravating circumstance that may justify disqualification.
Concealment of current cross-dressing behavior may indicate susceptibility
to pressure. Admission of cross-dressing during a security interview may
eliminate some of this susceptibility but is discouraged by the sanctions
associated with current personnel security policies. |
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