Cis labels

I understand that there are some trans people out there with not a lot of money who perhaps can't spend that much to transform and represent themselves as trans.

Now perhaps I don't know enough about Danielle, but what is someone who was on TV for years as a commentator doing in a shelter and not making any attempt in their appearance to convey themselves as a trans woman? I just don't understand that. On the surface, it appears that they have ulterior motives.

"this idea that trans people can help how they are and that it's a choice. "

When lesbians and gays used this as a 'defence' I have to say I disagreed with it. I much prefer -- Even if I DID chose to be a lesbian (which I would frankly, if given a choice!), what's wrong with that????

So, if a male wants to wear what is typically called 'female' clothing -- what's wrong with that?

If he wants to change his name to a female name -- what's wrong with that??

And so on.

I only have a problem when a male claims that he is thereby a woman and/or female, and should therefore get access to areas formerly reserved for females. Anything else, we'd all be a lot better off if people could just choose stuff (and then we could have a proper look at what best to do as regards people with genuine dysphoria.).

"Danielle Muscato being allowed to register as a trans woman baffles me."
Why does it baffle you?

As long as they retain their penis they are Shrodinger's rapist

BigDeskBob, thank you!

MIOW would be extremely offensive to a trans woman. Imitator/Imitation would go back to this idea that trans people can help how they are and that it's a choice.

I'm not a transactivist, the most I've done is discussed trans on here and fb, and gone to pride twice (didn't even go to the parade the last time, spent most of the weekend in the hotel with my husband). As for the toilets, I have my own experiences of why I would feel concerned about a man being allowed in a ladies toilet, but I still believe that there needs to a solution on compliance and safeguarding that works for everyone. Danielle Muscato being allowed to register as a trans woman baffles me.

You're correct vesuvia. Miow is good, TIM is too. Adult human males would be even better.

Love MIOW!

Frankly anyone who tells me to check my privileged can kiss my arse. It has become SJW shorthand for I'm far superior to you and you must acknowledge this.

I reject cis and refuse to engage with the use of it. I'll be joining many of you in taking back my inch and now using FIM or MTT.

And please don't go down the toilet argument, it is about so much more than that. tRAs use the toilet thing with wide eyed innocence, but we have cubicles why are you mean to us. At best ignoring the real situation where access to toilets leads to the creep into shelters, hospital ward's and the inability of a woman to reasonably say who gives medical treatment.

I think that "MtT" is problematic because male transgender people are not transitioning away from their maleness. Male transgender people were male, are male and will be male.

You have a point there. Perhaps we should say "MT" for Male Trans.

I like it better than "transwoman" because ordinary people who have never heard of this whole nonsense usually assume that a person called a woman must be female.

It even sounds creepy! It's like a snake's hiss!

I think "MtT" is usually used as an abbreviation for "male to trans", isn't it?

I think that "MtT" is problematic because male transgender people are not transitioning away from their maleness. Male transgender people were male, are male and will be male.

How about "MIOW" for "Male Imitator of Womanhood"?

Hi Phyllis's, sorry for doubting how genuine you were on the cj thread.

I've never seen cis used in an innocent way to show genuine differences between women and MTT. At best, its used to give MTT an excuse to tell women to shut up, but mostly its used as a slur.

Cis privilege proves that male egos transcend gender identity - they have to be the best at everything - they even have to be the best at being oppressed.

TalkingintheDark, haha! I think you've all definitely opened my eyes to a lot of things. I don't want to use the term cis ever again. I don't think I'll ever agree on everything with the majority of you, but I'm strongly thinking about how trans are impacting on women's rights.

I still hold my opinion firmly that the majority of trans people (whether male or female) are not wanting access to the toilets because they're sexually perverse. They've been born a certain way that they can't help, and they just want to be able to live their lives as comfortably as the rest of us.

For millennia men have defined what it is to be a woman. They used to call you an "unnatural woman" if you didn't want children, if you didn't want to have sex with them or if you didn't conform to whichever version of womanhood was in vogue at that time.

"Cis" is just the modern version of this. I suspect for some TRAs, the only true women are the ones with a penis.

I really take offence at the term "cis" and will not use it or acknowledge it as a descriptor. I do not need to say what type of woman I am. I am a woman.

I am not bothered if I am called a TERF. I would never describe myself as a radical feminist, and I'm afraid the TRAs are probably right - I am a bit trans exclusionary these days. I never used to be, but the in the last couple of years the trans movement has become so fucking awful I cannot be bothered with any of it now. Well done, TRAs.

Absolutely Venus.

They can fucking cis your arse.

Phyllis... are you starting to see the light?!

Women don't have privilege over men. Any MTT who tried to get me to apologise for being born into the subordinate sex class would get a very sharp answer.

That's why I don't really care about being seen as a TERF. No need to pander to that attitude and entitlement. I'm not going to, so don't even start with me.

Prawn, I don't think women have privilege over men at all. I think I had just spent a lot of time around the LGBT community.

To be honest, though, since my pregnancy, I haven't really seen any of my LGBT friends. Only my straight female friends have come round to see me.

Last year, I was on a night out and there was a trans woman (no longer a friend, not the ones I referenced in Caitlin thread) who blocked me from all social media because I had supposedly been taking the piss out of the term 'cis' by referring to my friends that weren't trans as 'sis' as in sister.

I've just felt overly cautious with terms ever since, like I always feel that I'm the one in the wrong and I'm the one that needs to show respect.

Phyllis, do you not see how arse about face it is that women, who are globally oppressed by and because of our biology, should be instructed to "check our privilege" by biological males, regardless of how such males wish to present themselves?

Women don't have privilege over men. Any MTT who tried to get me to apologise for being born into the subordinate sex class would get a very sharp answer.

I also strongly object to being described as cis. I am not cis. No feminist is ever cis.

As for what I call transgender males, I generally use the word transwomen, always as one word. Using two suggests that trans is just an adjective, like tall or young. However, as time goes by and TRAs get increasingly insane and furious, I find myself less inclined to use transwoman and more comfortable using MTT. However in discussion it's often not individual MTTs I'm referring to, but TRAs, which is a term in itself and probably the one I use most frequently.

ThinkAboutItTomorrow

I don't follow your reasoning. If trans and not trans are both subsets, what are they a subset of?

Is it that you are saying there is a set of people who are gender conforming and therefore trans and not trans are both subsets of that?

Because I don't think you will find a woman on the planet who would agree with that. We're not talking just about superficial gender comformation like dresses.

If you subscribe to your stereotypical gender matching your sex, it means you also subscribe to all the other oppressive gender implications that only apply to women. So female foetuses aborted before they are born, female genital mutilation, honour killings, all of it.

Gender roles are prescribed for a reason. And that reason is oppression.

I didn't like the word cis, but then I was constantly told to check my privilege.

The more I've thought about it the last few days, though, I've come to realise that it isn't the same as minorities taking slurs used against them and then taking ownership of those words. It's entirely different.

I struggle. In a purely binary sense if we look at subsets then if there is a sub set that is trans, there is a sub set that is 'not-trans'. Just as to have disabled you have to recognise that some are able bodied. If we say it is more of a spectrum you still have two ends to the spectrum.
But that doesn't have an impact on me also being a woman. Where the cis descriptor becomes troubling is where it feels as though it changes the descriptor of something that I don't want to have changed about me.

I am not a cis woman.

I am human, a woman and not transgender. That hierarchy of identity makes sense to me and I would have thought to transgender people too.

I am not cis in special snowflake land I'd be non binary but in the real world I'm a normal woman with a personality not a 2 dimesional cardboard cut out of a stepford wife.

I'm going to start using MtT or MIT I'm also taking my inch back.

I don't want the vocal fetishist nobheads to poison me

I know. Miffer. It's not that I don't have every sympathy for genuine transwomen. It's just that I don't believe they're women.

The fact that many transwomen agree with me annihilates the ridiculous rhetoric of the 'ideology'.

Hopefully, at some point down the line, in the dim and distant future, this will all revert back. Genuine trans will be treated for dysphoria in any way that helps, and the rest will go back to their basements.

But in the meantime, I have concluded, politically at least, that you have to pick a side.