What is ‘cis privilege’?

I’m not sure what their privilege is

Really? You don’t think males have privilege in this world? Wow.

I think trans women do not benefit from male privilege at all. It’s sad, also, that they are currently suffering so much antipathy from the women they so desperately want to be welcomed by. I’m not sure what their privilege is, because it’s certainly not the fact they are born with male genitalia

I think most of us feel sympathy with people whose lives are genuinely made a misery by gender dysphoria, Jezebelz. However this is a tiny group.

The TRAs who rant on about cis privilege tend to come from the much larger group who are not dysphoric and who are essentially MRAs in a different guise.

Transsexuals identify with women. The ones I've met or known present inconspicuously. No porn star clothes or make up. They badly want to fit in and try not to cause us any problems or alarm. This is the group most people still think of when they hear about transwomen - the Hayley Croppers of this world.

Showing empathy for the struggles of another marginalised group is likely to attract empathy in return.

I applaud your optimism. I direct you to the very, very common testimony of the posters on FWR who were liberal minded trans allies to begin with until they saw their empathy being used as a club to exact more and more concessions from them.

Pawsome, not hugely, no, it doesn't make sense in the context of what we are talking about.

The term has been used, repeatedly, to attack women for talking about their periods, abortion access, even, most shamefully of all to try and shut up an FGM survivor who spoke about her FGM.

This is the context in which women are saying the notion does not exist.

Are male bodied trans feminine people at a disadvantage to gender conforming males in our society? Yes. You're on FWR, most of understand that the gender system is a bastard to everyone in it to a certain degree, and it does put gender conforming males at the top of the tree. So the term might have some use there should anyone wish to use it.

But so far, hardly anyone has.

So while I appreciate your attempt at even handedness, I think you've misread almost everything here.

FWIW I think Paw got it spot on.

Showing empathy for the struggles of another marginalised group is likely to attract empathy in return.

I believe it is possible to be GC and still acknowledge one has certain privileges over someone who is transgender.

When transwomen say women have cis privilege they're ignoring their own male privilege and their inexcusable appropriation of our material reality as cosplay.

It's also like bitching because X is taller or Y is more intelligent than I am. Plain old envy. Life is unfair, mate.

I am not ignoring that, I have agreed completely that the way it is being used is wrong at every level and that I, in no way, think that TW should be able to play the victim card in conversations with women.

I just didn't agree that the concept is a complete fabrication, like the first few replies suggested. Then everyone started putting words in my mouth and claiming I had sympathy for TW over women, which is absurd. I was clear that I thought the concept could be real (as per thread title question) but the phrase should be used in a different context than it was being commonly used. I don't think that makes me tone deaf, especially when I'm defending myself over things I clearly didn't say.

If a word is being wrongly used to silence people, that is wrong both from an aggressive POV and from a linguistic POV - just because I argue about the latter, doesn't automatically mean I support the former. I just felt the answers were a getting a little bit close to trying to shame a doctor for using the term spasticity in a medical context, because someone else had used it as an insult in the playground. Does that make sense?

I think (someone correct me if I'm way off base) that there are conditions which are not 'illnesses' as such - eg autism.

As I understand it, autism varies from being barely noticeable to being extremely disabling. It's not
subjective. It's measurable. And it's not a condition which involves the rest of us endorsing it, which is a damn good thing as I read it can take ages to get a proper diagnosis let alone appropriate support.

I see gender dysphoria as a psychiatric disorder in the same class as eating disorders. There are also people who are desperate to have a healthy limb amputated or become paraplegic. There is one transwoman who intermittently identifies as paraplegic and uses an entirely unnecessary wheelchair. I assume all these disorders of perception have very similar roots.

If someone believes things about themself that are untrue and can hurt them we don't react to such conditions by endorsing the false beliefs.

But if gender dysphoria is a condition like autism why can't it be measured? Autism spectrum disorders are assessed and can be observed. Gender dysphoria is purely subjective.

I suffer from chronic depression and anxiety. Every so often I see a psychiatrist. I am very aware that people can be very unwell without physical signs. However my MH issues are expressed by my behaviour and in my surroundings. For instance I live in chaos and I have weird quirks like being too anxious to open letters.

But if someone claims to have gender dysphoria and yet takes no steps to relieve it by surgery or hormones I doubt their sincerity. If your sexed body causes terrible distress then you would surely take steps to change it? Ditto if after claiming to have been born in the wrong body you go on to demand PIV sex with lesbians or, if you're a transman, you have a baby. The behaviour and the claims need to align if you want people to believe you.

I'm wary of people labelling health problems as "conditions" ever since we had a spectacularly bad diabetic nurse who described type 1 diabetes as a condition.

I would never start that discussion either, it's just a goady statement trying to start a fight. I have never said a single thing to agree with that approach.
I don't disagree with anything you said, I'm just pointing out that that's how it's used today (I didn't mean you specifically, sorry if it came across that way). It's no longer a conceptual or linguistic discussion.

Pawsome, with respect, discussions about language have been a feature here for a long time, and they are not intellectual discussions for the sake of it, they happen because language matters as it frames our thoughts and shapes attitudes and behaviour.

As much as it might be more appropriate to use the phrase 'cis privilege' in the context of men and feminine presenting trans people, that is not how the term has currency, and when women are telling you that is being used as a tool to get them to shut up about their issues, it's really tone deaf of you to ignore that.

So what I see is a term that is being used to reinforce patriarchal oppression on women and keep them firmly in their gender box by removing their ability to speak about their own oppression because they have been convinced that to do so is a privilege.

Excellently put floral

*Whenever I have seen cis privilege used it has always been transwomen weaponising it against women and it has always come down to “everybody believes you are a woman”

Well yeah they do, because I am, but I’d struggle to see the privilege there. It basically means “you have something I want and it’s not fair” and that’s a very childish idea of privilege*

I agree, perhaps I haven't been in this topic long enough to have seen it regularly used in any context. I thought this was going to be more a conceptual or linguistic discussion than an emotive one. I'm not on twitter and don't know many aggressive TRAs. In fact, all the people I do know transitioning, or transitioning their children, are more like vulnerable people caught up in the suicide fear than the people linked to on here. I see the whole movement has made their lives harder, so I suppose I am coming from a different place. I don't feel any desire to go out and find an aggressive, inarticulate, TRA to argue with though - even if I'd get on better with you lot after a few battle scars!!

I am sorry, but a transwoman who complains about the cis-privilege of a woman (and this is how it almost always plays out) has by their very argument dismissed women and our problems.

I know and agree, all I am saying is that acknowledging the cis privilege of a woman does exist, but only confers an advantage compared to trans men, is a healthier conversation. I would prefer to keep language accurate and be corrective than dismissive and mocking.

I would hope to answer such a TW like: "Yes, I do have cis privilege and I can't therefore understand fully how hard it is for dysphoric women or transmen, however, having grown up with male privilege means there are things you can't understand either. You cannot compare cis and male privilege in this way and it is wrong to suggest you can.

Of course, but when it's framed in terms of "you're ciswomen, we're transwomen, and all of us are women", that discussion is a non-starter for me.

I would never start that discussion either, it's just a goady statement trying to start a fight. I have never said a single thing to agree with that approach.

Whenever I have seen cis privilege used it has always been transwomen weaponising it against women and it has always come down to “everybody believes you are a woman”

Well yeah they do, because I am, but I’d struggle to see the privilege there. It basically means “you have something I want and it’s not fair” and that’s a very childish idea of privilege

You might have a point about 'cis privilege' being an issue wrt to GNC males in relation to males who conform to the gender norms of our society without a thought.

But I have never seen this phrase used in that context. I have seen it used frequently in order to shame women speaking about their biology and the structural disadvantages they deal with that are based in that biology.

So what I see is a term that is being used to reinforce patriarchal oppression on women and keep them firmly in their gender box by removing their ability to speak about their own oppression because they have been convinced that to do so is a privilege.

Essentially 'Cis privilege' is a jargon term for the very old fashioned "Shut up, love, your oppression is irrelevant."

I think (someone correct me if I'm way off base) that there are conditions which are not 'illnesses' as such - eg autism.

That depends who you talk to. My autistic family do not think they have an ‘illness’ and hate that it’s called a disorder, and that ‘neuro typical’ is the default position so they must be ‘disordered’.

'Cis' privilege seems to be based on the assumption that women are universally accepted as women, no questions asked, no abuse for it etc.

However it misses the glaringly obvious fact that women are actually oppressed on this basis. Aside from huge issues such as rape, domestic violence, the pay gap, poor maternity care/maternity impacting life expectancy in some places, FGM etc there are so many other issues that Trans women in particular do not seem to even register.

Cat-calling in the street, anything from 'cheer up love' because you don't have a grin plastered on your face to 'Oi slag' and worse.

Subtle and unsubtle questioning as to whether you have/want children in job interviews.

The recent incontinence mesh issue, causing crippling pain for thousands of women, but went below the radar for years', because it's a women's issue.

Tampon tax, period poverty, austerity impacting women the most, the rise in sexual assaults, extreme porn having a negative impact on teen girls, the rise in anal collapse and injury in young women due to this extreme porn, the absolutely dire rape conviction rates, the shocking rise in young women 'identifying as male'.

All that and more is related to female biology and the oppression of women and girls. TRA's and most Trans Women do not seem to register it, nor give a shit if they do. Some privilege huh?

If it's neither mental or physical illness then why would anyone treat it?

I think (someone correct me if I'm way off base) that there are conditions which are not 'illnesses' as such - eg autism.

Nobody thinks dysphoria is not debilitating: of course it is. But it doesn't confer class-based social privilege when it is absent in a person. Many women suffer dysphoria throughout their lives without it being connected to the religious notion of a gender identity. Where's your special category for them?

I don't actually believe in gender identity or make up these categories. If there was a political debate with tensions running high, about plastic surgery on the NHS for people with body (not gender) dysphoria, and someone invented a linguistic short cut to express than those of us comfortable in our own skin didn't understand the emotional toll - that would be the same in my eyes.

All I have said is that dismissing it outright isn't something I think is helpful, encouraging people to use the term cis privilege correctly (comparing men to TW, not women to TW) would be a healthier discussion.

I do think dismissing it outright simply feeds into someone who thinks they are a victim. It would be much healthier to acknowledge their problems and expect ours acknowledged in return, than to just dismiss them and be dismissed in return.

Of course, but when it's framed in terms of "you're ciswomen, we're transwomen, and all of us are women", that discussion is a non-starter for me.

I didn't make up the term, if someone wanted to explain to me why diabetes or asthma put them at a disadvantage, then I'd listen.

Then listen. Simple as that. How can you not go through life without knowing someone who doesn't have asthma or diabetes?

Most women I know actually suffer enormously because of ‘gender identity’ and gender stereotypes. It is being made far worse by transgender ideology which reinforces stereotypes. Many girls go through difficult and painful times when they go through puberty, I know I found it incredibly distressing to suddenly be sexualised by grown men at aged 12 and to try and feel comfortable in a changing body that got unwanted and completely inappropriate attention from men. I was called a boy regularly by people in our small town because I had short hair, wore ‘boys clothes’ and liked working the farm with my Dad. It was very confusing.

The utter misogyny of someone coming here and claiming females don’t suffer with gender identity issues. The patriarchy uses gender stereotypes as a tool to beat us with in almost every facet of our lives.

Whoever earlier said it’s like rachel dolezal complaining about ‘black privilege’ was bang on the money

Gender dysphoria is a recognised medical condition, for which treatment is sometimes appropriate. It's not a mental illness.

That doesn't make sense. If it's neither mental or physical illness then why would anyone treat it? If they don't have serious MH issues what on earth is the justification for giving this group additional rights which impinge on the rights of women?

It's pretty clear that a lot of men who identify as women do so as a lifestyle choice. If they don't suffer dysphoria, keep their penis and want PIV what else can it be?

And AGPs become aroused by presenting as a woman or doing stereotypically feminine things, like knitting. I can see nothing in that to justify women being asked to relinquish hard won women's rights and spaces. Quite the opposite. Involving unwilling strangers in your fetish is grotesque and abusive.

I'm talking about fantasies where they see themselves as sluts only fit to be treated as such. I'm not inventing any of this. This creepy wankfest misogyny is all over the internet. Men who use us as props, who sexualize us by dehumanising us are the last people who should have access to spaces where women are naked or otherwise vulnerable.

I very much distinguish transsexuals from the now very much larger group that includes fetishists and cross dressers. But they are still not women.