Cis labels

BigDeskBob

It's very frustrating. I don't believe in the concept of gender. What's the betting there's a gender for someone who disbelieves in the concept of gender?!

People are trying to create labels and boxes for every single, minute , irrelevant thought that enters someone's head.

The use of the term "cis" functions to create two subsets of woman, "cis" and "trans", with transwomen becoming just another subset of women, like Spanish women or tall women. This is dishonest, as transwomen, by definition, are males. Radical feminism, which analyses the position of women as a sex class, cannot, and never will, centre men.

NotCarylChurchill, you may be a liberal feminist. There are plenty of libfems who support Everyday Feminism, approve of EF's ghastly Riley J Dennis and swallow the claim that "transwomen are women." No one who believes men can be women is a radfem because you cannot do the work of radical feminism without sex based class analysis.

Agreed, Datun. The nearest gender for me is 'agender', meaning I don't have a gender to match my sex, so I can't be cis. Does that mean I'm a transwomen, a transman or something else completely?

Phyllis - do you think that 'transwomen are not women' is the same as saying 'transwomen are deviants'? It's really not the same thing.
Transwomen are not women, because woman is not a feeling in your head, it's a material reality for which the necessary conditions are being adult, human and female.

"I do believe that trans women are women" So, for you, a women is a belief system like religion. If someone believes they are a women, than they are. A women is an adult human? What do you call adult human females?

And even taking the trans own definition of the word 'cis' doesn't work. They apply it against their own definition all the time. They simply apply it to all women who are not trans.

Their definition is it's a woman who is comfortable with her gender identity. But that's not how they apply it.

Furthermore, they have no idea what a woman's gender identity is (if she decides she needs one).

It's just a blanket term for not trans.

Woman is sufficient, thank you.

I do believe that trans women are women. I have taken in everything that you all have said, but I don't believe that trans people either have body dystrophia or are perverts.

I no longer like the term 'cis', though. I also understand the argument regarding toilets, hospitals, etc. I just think we need to find a way to safeguard it so we can all live happily and comfortably with on another.

I do think that a proportion of the transactivists have been beyond horrific with some of their language and threats of violence, but I haven't seen what exactly has been said to them. Still, if you're fighting for rights and campaigning, rise above it and don't go down the path of being abusive.

I didn't like some of the stuff I read in that trans sport discussion on AIBU, but regardless of our differences in opinion, I do like all of you.

Cis slightly offends me as the meaning of it is basically..you are happy with your body and follow sex stereotypes.

I am NOT cis by any definition. However I am female, and a woman.

I am also trans according to stonewall..as I keep pointing out as its ridiculous. I am an adult female, unhappy with my body after pregnancies and such but that does not mean I fancy a surgically created penis either, I do more masculine things than feminine, however I have long hair and wear dresses for special occasions. I have both feminine and masculine interests. I would have thought I was a pretty 'normal' female tbh. But no. I am trans. Only way to be 'cis' is to follow sex stereotypes to a tee. I would bet only a handful of people in the world are actually cis by that definition. the rest of us are trans.

A women is an adult human female.
A MTT is an adult human male.

How can an MTT be a women, without changing the definition of the words women, male and female?

I don't think that I'm using subset in the same way as you seem to be taking it.

Black hair and brown hair are both subsets of 'hair'. It's just describing groups-within-the-group.

"I am a radical feminist and will defend any woman to the last breath in my body.........."
and that includes calling them thick, misogynistic, or transphobic if they dare disagree with trans ideology on a feminist discussion board.

If that is your style of 'defence', frankly I'd prefer an honest attack to this newspeak style nonsense. But that that is what we already know to expect from certain quarters. 'Radical feminists' who are neither radical (nor frankly very feminist), defence that is actually attack, and the old, old favourite phrase 'transwomen are women'.

I haven't said that transwomen would have to be a subset of women, @Pansiesandredrosesandmarigolds. I am simply explaining why I object to the term cis being used to label me.

NotCarylChurchill

Can you give me any definition of woman that includes transwomen?

Er. Transwomen would be a subset of women too.

So....

@Hont1986 - I don't see myself as part of a subset of women - I see myself as a woman. If trans men want to identify as women, that is fine by me - I will respect that choice. But I don't see why I need to be shuffled off into a subset - especially as the prefix 'sub' very clearly implies 'lesser' or 'beneath' to me. I do not wish to be defined as being beneath or less than trans women - that would be male privilege in action.

I do not believe I am superior to trans men, because I was born with XX chromosomes, and a fully functional set of female genitalia, internal and external. But I am not less, either.

Cis- and trans- are terms from chemistry, I believe. Nothing to do with cat hissing.

How does your radical feminism define women in order to examine structural oppression against them due to biology, NotCarylChurchill?

I've just realised that my definition would make more sense if 'transman' was a male-calling-themselves-she', rather than 'transwoman'. Damn. D'you think we can persuade people that they'd like to change the terminology they use for themselves, because I said so?

If not, why not?

I also dislike the sound of the prefix 'cis'. It's very close to 'sissy' or the sound of a cat hissing. I doubt this is unintentional.

Anyway, I'm off to research some concrete.

It doesn't matter what the connotations of the word 'woman' are: the definition is clear.

Well, I'd be OK with 'women-calling-themselves-she' as cis, 'men-calling-themselves-she' as a definition of trans (and vice versa for transmen), all with no extra connotations, but it seems to have become far wider and woollier than than, and involve this mysterious, unknowable inner being, or 'living/acting/thinking like a woman' and all the rest of that 1950s bollocks, hence the objection to cissiness.

The first one - I thought that was the only version to be honest. I've never seen cis used to mean girly/feminine/etc.