Being silenced/feeling voiceless

No, Microferret, I don't believe that. I just said the exact opposite.

^Outside of gender politic internet wars have such people even noticed they are "cis" ?
I'm not trying to minimise your objection but would it help to bear in mind that for the vast majority of people it is meaningless^

But, lass, that's exactly what I'm thinking about… I'm new to the internet (well, except Facebook), so my feeling was, ok, who cares, it's meaningless… until you see here things about changes in law that are not being flagged and think… er, hang on...

So I found it difficult to understand how changing the legal definition of marriage affected pre-existing marriages. And thus my question was: does the attachment of cis to gender/sex/sexuality affect me and other people to whom cis is supposed to apply?

Outside of gender politic internet wars have such people even noticed they are "cis" ?
I'm not trying to minimise your objection but would it help to bear in mind that for the vast majority of people it is meaningless.

Hate was a strong word to use there, sorry! I meant frustrated, upset, or something like that. Not being able to ask questions is a really worrying thing for me. All part of the 'silencing' theme I suppose.

lass I really hate that people are afraid of asking questions about religion! I can't speak for everyone, but afaik the Catholic Church teaches that all sexual relations outside of religious marriage are wrong. But it also teaches that judging others is even worse, because that is assuming God's rightful place as the ultimate judge.

For me, I simply don't see that I get to make judgements on the moral characters of other people, particularly as I do so many things wrong myself. Most Catholics I know (particularly those of my generation) feel the same. There are groups within the Catholic church actively campaigning for gay marriage to be allowed within the church.

ah, two posts in between my posts that I was too slow with… (hence starting my latter one with 'so')

So I found it difficult to understand how changing the legal definition of marriage affected pre-existing marriages. And thus my question was: does the attachment of cis to gender/sex/sexuality affect me and other people to whom cis is supposed to apply? I certainly feel it affects me because it's a label being attached to me that I don't really understand for a start...

many people I know do feel that the state extending the definition of marriage to include same sex unions did impact them

I always wanted to ask , but never did , whether those who objected to gay marriage actually think secular heterosexual couples who did not have a religious ceremony aren't really married .

I had a civil marriage, and it was absolutely forbidden to have any religious references at the marriage at all (I was married before the legalisation of gay marriage) and any readings/music with lyrics had to be submitted in advance to make sure there were no religious references. Secular civil marriage hadn't had an effect on religious marriages prior to the expanding of marriage to include the union between woman and woman or man and man.

micro, many people I know do feel that the state extending the definition of marriage to include same sex unions did impact them. Because they see marriage as a religious sacrament and don't think the state has a right to redefine it. If there were separate words for 'civil marriage' and 'religious marriage' then it wouldn't have been a problem.

(I disagree btw, and I'm massively pro gay marriage.)

I can see the analogy though, because I think of one thing when I hear the word 'woman' and other people think 'woman' means something else entirely. It's the problem, really, with language. It means different things to different people even though it's supposed to be a way to communicate ideas.

hang on almondcakes - does that mean that you think that secular gay marriage has an actual effect on the marriages of straight Christian couples just because it's called marriage and not a civil union?

Everyone isn't really free to define their own marriage. The nature of civil marriage is defined by the state and the nature of religious marriage is defined by the church.

The law around marriage equality has extended the range of people who can get married. It hasn't changed the rules that apply to an individual if they are married.

For example, if the government were to reintroduce rape and sexual assault being legal in marriage, I would consider them to be redefining marriage in such a way that married people should be able to object to the redefinition. If government mandated that all public sector organisations referred to men in religious (anyone married in church) marriages as being protective, I would consider religious people objecting to such a definition to have a valid point.

Whether or not they are conservative heterosexual Western Christians is neither here nor there. You shouldn't be able to define someone else's feelings and characteristics or rules that apply only to them without their consent.

I think that using the language you want to define yourself is really important. To accept labels of trans, cis, agender, gender fluid etc, I'd have to accept that I have a 'gender identity'. But I don't have one, so why should I accept a label which doesn't accurately express how I feel?

My concern now (and maybe I'm not supposed to express it but I'm sick of feeling voiceless) is that I'm not actually allowed to reject the label cis. That to do that would be offensive to some people, but I'm not trying to make a comment on how they feel, I just want to be allowed to define myself as I choose.

Hi Laurie - that's an interesting point and certainly worth thinking about; however I'd disagree that the two are really equivalent for a couple of reasons; conservative, heterosexual western Christians aren't a disadvantaged group. They represent the establishment, with all its privileges intact. Legalising gay marriage doesn't infringe upon their rights, and it doesn't change their marriages, because everyone is free to define their own marriage - it just extends those rights to non-heterosexual people. Conversely, women are a disadvantaged group, and asking us to both acknowledge the idea of "female brains" and call ourselves "cis" women is asking us to redefine our own identities and ideologies in a way that is harmful to us. It's also asking us to assert that we are privileged as women, when we vehemently challenge the idea that such a privilege exists. It's asking us to swallow the very idea (that women and men have innate behavioural differences rooted in our neurological makeup) that we, as feminists, have spent our entire lives battling, the very idea which has been used to justify female oppression for millennia. We can accept that other people feel differently and will respect their right to define themselves, but in return I for one would like to have that same right to define myself on my own terms, and part of that is being free to choose the language I use to describe myself.

I think that trans woman or trans man is a perfect way to describe transgendered people. They were once something else but they have transitioned to something new, and that's great. Rather than trying to use language as a magic wand to create a new reality, isn't it just better to be okay with reality as it is?

bolleaux, thanks for that. I'm naturally a people-pleaser and it annoys me (a bit) that I seem unable to put my own needs first. It helps knowing where it comes from so I can start to address it. I know part of it comes from other places too, but I've been wondering if it was something other women had experienced too.

YYY to your last paragraph, Beach - very sadly.

Thanks microferret and a couple of other people who have been kind enough to say that they got something from my posts.

I have a desire to help transmen (because they are female and therefore part of the sisterhood of feminism) and it hurts my soul to hear of butch lesbians having their breasts cut off and other damaging stuff. I don't have a particular desire to help transwomen any more than I do ordinary men.

When it comes to categories, to my mind, it is transphobic to insist that transmen are male/men and transwomen are female/women. Like there is something so wrong with being trans that the person must be shoehorned into another actual sex category. As I have said before, I also find such insistence homophobic, lesbophobic and misogynistic.

I think that the insistence that transwomen are women comes from a place of deeply internalized hypermasculinity (or homophobia). It is so not ok for a boy or a man to take on the trappings of the lower sex caste (girls and women) and any man who does must actually not be a man - and that means that he is a woman because we all know that woman equals not a man.

Jessica my experience has been that woman are expected to be people pleasers so being a woman and a people pleaser are the same thing, and yes it is silencing because we are afraid to speak for fear of offence/disapproval.

almond, that's a good point. Being labelled without your consent is bad.

When you don't understand the label, and can't ask because it's offensive, it's even worse.

I would like to add that years back I spent quite a lot of time with a woman who's now very prominent in the LGBT rights movement. She sometimes made assumptions about my attitudes, beliefs etc. based on my "heteronormativity" and we had some good-natured and very interesting exchanges because I felt that she was boxing me in a bit too.

Yes, almond, thanks, I think that helps - the problem is I still have to keep going back and checking what cissexual/cisgender mean before I remember I'm being labelled as something that doesn't make sense to me, that I don't identify with, without my consent, and that it changes the way in which I'm supposed to refer to myself and others. If I can't keep a grasp of the meaning of a label I'm supposed to be applying to myself, then I really don't feel I can apply it to myself. As Jessica says, and as I said to ego earlier in the thread, sources and interpretations vary.

Laurie, in the marriage analogy, wouldn't the similar situation be if you went around telling people in other kinds of relationship that they were married, regardless of whether or not those other kinds of relationship wanted to be married?

I would object to that, other people telling me they had just decided that I was married under their new definition, and were going to treat me as married or refer to me as married without my consent.

Okay, I've done a bit more research. Turns out, depending on the source / definition I am transgender and cisgender. According to Stonewall and OED I am actually transgender. So, can I be transgender, biologically a woman, happy being a biological woman and referred to as 'she'?! Maybe that's why I don't want to be called 'cis'. Because I'm not!

I really think I just don't understand the rules.