"What kind of girl am I really am??" - Roseanne Cash
One way of figuring this out is by taking the Myers- Briggs Personality Type Indicator test http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp . This easy to take test is based on Carl Gustav Jung's work with personality temperaments, has been studied and found to be exceptionally reliable and valid. Validity has to do with how well a test measures what it purports to and reliability has to do with the consistency of it's results over the passing of time.
It features 4 continuums of personality characteristics: introversion versus extroversion; sensing versus intuiting; thinking vs feeling and judging versus perceiving. In combination, they result in 16 personality types that describe all people. Some personality types are relatively common, some are rare. Each of these traits exists in relative degrees in people and the test can tell you how strong you personality is on one trait versus it's opposite. For instance, one can be either mildly extroverted or extremely extroverted. You can get a brief overview of the various personality type descriptions here http://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/mbti-basics/the-16-mbti-types.asp or do a search for your type and read more extensive descriptions
I first became fascinated with this test almost, ummm, well, a long time ago when I took a graduate level course in personality development at James Madison University. It never ceases to amaze me that I have gotten the same personality profile every time I take it with the exception of a few times in my life when the judging- perceiving aspect was reversed. That is because my Judging is closely balanced with perceiving, though most often tests out on the judging side. My profile is INTJ. It's one of the most rare profiles. I'm not sure that is a good thing or a bad thing. I guess it depends on the circumstances. As a woman, it can be off putting to people because it isn't a profile that is associated with traditional femininity, but then again as a transsexual what would it be that is traditional? I'm ok with that, though.
Though this test has been normed, found to be valid and reliable over the many years and used with many different populations, to my knowledge after an exhaustive literature search using medical database search engines, there have been no studies done on transgender people and I'm quite interested in doing a research project about this topic.
I'd invite you to take the test and find out what your personality type is. Please feel free to share with us your personality type and how accurate you think the results are.
So Just what kind of a girl are you anyway? Really?
