The Mary Beard Appreciation Society

Interesting that nobody is suggesting that gender normative men refer to themselves as cis men..........

The cis/trans labelling issue is based on gender which, nowadays, refers to any one of at least four different things: biological sex, gender expression, gender role, gender identity. In other words, gender is a word used for something someone must be for a chance of reproduction, something someone does or something someone feels.

How is a person's cis-ness or trans-ness measured?

Does a person have to be cis or trans for all four aspects of gender, or is it three out of four, or does gender identity trump all the other aspects of gender?

Good link. Anyone lurking who has not read it, it's well worth it. The link is in rivetingrosie's at 14:09:58

If 'cis' means accepting all the societal crap that comes with female biology, then no, I don't buy it. I got so much shit for being a tomboy: how is that a 'privilege'?

I would never use the term cis. I cannot believe how a small minority of trans women have the gall to think they can set the agenda on this.

I don't care what they call themselves, what they do, how they act and how they run their lives, but they sure as hell have no right to try and tell women what we should call ourselves, what we should do, how we should act and how we should run our lives.

Male entitlement at its arrogant best. And we are wasting how many threads indulging their whim?

whatwould that's part of the problem, the issue can't be dragged into the light because even talking about it is deemed transphobic. People are determinedly not listening to what feminists are actually saying and actively telling lies about what women believe. In particular, saying that feminists want transwomen dead. People are (almost literally) putting their fingers in their ears on this topic. The Owen Jones article today does not even say why he thinks it is wrong to say that transwomen are not biological women, he simply says that it will become unacceptable in the future to say this. Sadly, he may well be correct as it is almost unacceptable to say it today.

I think in general we have an assumption that things tend to get better in the future. Certainly for women in the West things are better than in the past. That's not the case, though for women in Afganistan or places like that. Also, before McCarthyism, the US had a strong left wing movement and history that has been almost completely erased since McCarthyism. I seriously believe we are staring into a potential future of intolerance of women's voices on gender issues. Right wing conservatives have a lot to gain from transgenderism and left wing men are abandoning women for the sake of transgenderism.

I cannot imagine circumstances in which I would be prepared to refer myself as a cis woman.

Thanks, Buffy and riveting and everyone else: I will trot off and read the link.

Very interesting thread.

Eurgh, this cis word - I thought I had a handle on it, but now I've just reread the Perez and it's slipped from my grasp

But I think now that it means a lucky, happy, biological woman, delighted to be able to perform all the feminine 50s cliches of dresses, high heels, make-up, etc. without fear of censure. I'm so privileged - can't I see that??

Yes, riveting, I hope so too. As soon as the denial of biology (and therefore lived experience) is dragged into the light, most people will shout BS.

I'm really pleased that MN is a space where people are able to support those who signed this letter. I think that is because of the people running MN and the feminist regulars. But it is also because all over MN there are thousands of women talking about work, pregnancy, raising children, IT, politics and every other subject. This is a place where women are not going to have a definition and rules about what a woman is imposed upon them.

And Buffy - I so hope that doesn't happen!!! I'm hopeful - most people (particularly women) outside the social justice bubble have absolutely no time for the 'penis is female' silliness. I think the tide might turn quite soon actually, now that trans activists have turned on Mary Beard who is a bit of a national treasure. Maybe the mainstream will wake up!

Straight and not gay mean completely different things. It is like saying Scottish means not English.

'Cis' just means 'not trans'. Lots of trans people prefer 'cis' to 'not-trans' for the same reason gay people prefer the use of 'straight ' instead of 'not-gay' - 'not-gay' seems to imply 'normal', when actually 'straight' is just a form of sexual orientation like any other, straight people aren't the default and gay people an aberration.

Sounds reasonable at first! But actually 'cis' is really dodgy from a feminist perspective. Caroline Criado Perez has a good explanation of this...
weekwoman.wordpress.com/2014/08/01/what-does-being-cis-mean-for-a-woman/

Hope that helps!

Where I part company is at the idea that we all therefore have to pretend there is no such thing as male and female biology.
Yes, that. Of course there is male and female biology and to argue/pretend/dogmatise otherwise... flies in the face of reality. That biology profoundly influences upbringing - whether it should or not is another matter, in the set-up we live in it does - which in its turn influences the attitudes of those thus brought up. So yes, a transwoman, whatever else she has gone through, has had the experience of being seen as fully valid merely by virtue of having a penis. Unlike us biological females...

I googled and I thought I'd worked what 'cis' is but reading these last few pages I am again confused. Any chance someone could point me at a short definition?

Once again, I am displaying my Old Crone-ness. But there are similarities to the way gay men interacted with the feminist movement in the 70s. Somehow simultaneously distancing themselves from, and inhabiting male privilege. A clever trick if you can pull it off. Certainly gets the women doing the packed lunches and holding the coats................

Urggghhh the Owen Jones article is so infuriating... he really thinks he's being super duper progressive and open minded, unlike those nasty old feminists. As if feminists were responsible for violence against trans people! Unbelievable!

And you're so right ifyou'rehappyandyouknowit - not a single mention of trans men either. Trans men are systematically excluded from any discussion of trans issues and no one seems to notice. I've even seen trans men shouted down by trans women because they're displaying "male privilege"!!! This topsy turvy gender play results in the same old patriarchal bollocks - males at the top, females at the bottom.

Well yeah. The assumption that women need seperate spaces from men because of male violence but should automatically surrender those spaces to anyone who has reconceptualised their penis as female is bizarre.

We are completely responsible for policing our own safety but also for not making anyone feel excluded by policing our own safety.

I find this very difficult to think about. The one thing I know for certain, however is that women need to be very careful to hold on to their hard won rights and freedoms. We have had them a very short time and they are always under attack. Yes, we must have a care for the rights and freedoms of other groups. But if a woman in a woman only space is going to be intimidated by the presence of a person with a penis then she has a right to not have a person with a penis there. Even if that penis has been re conceptualised as a female sex organ.

"Male violence? Never heard of it." A significant number of transactivists do not recognise male violence as an issue and in fact are in the "women are as bad as men" camp. They really don't like naming the problem. Remind you of anyone?

I'm just getting tired of people misrepresenting what feminists think (or, more accurately, not bothering to find out, only stupid women after all, we can all just guess what they think) and hen using us to demonstrate that they're all open minded while we're bigots based. Look at them! So-called "women"! They're the real problem. Again. Male violence? Never heard of it.

I'm just sick of it.

Regarding the biology thing, I think it smoothly glosses over a genuine issue for women. We don't choose biology as destiny, but all over the world women are abused, enslaved, discriminated against because of our reproductive capacity. To pretend that it's bigotry from women to state that biology forms many women's lives and isn't a matter of choice is astonishing.

And not a single peep about transmen, and how vaginas can now be male and how transmen are now to be classed as biologically male.

Owen Jones in the guardian prefers not to engage with what feminists actually think - it's far more satisfying to write an article about what he reckons we think:

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/18/stonewall-trans-issues-neglected-progressives

It's amazing how interested everyone is in any aspect of this debate except what women are actually saying. Mind you, women are always going to be at the bottom of the pile.