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Original poster

Explaining why 'cis' is offensive

54 replies

dianebrewster · 16/04/2019 08:27

Just mulling over the whole thing after a comment on the thread about the Irish author being mauled on Twitter......how do you explain why you reject 'cis' ? etc

I lived in Dublin for a year in 1981-2; went up to NI a lot, The Troubles still very much ongoing. I was doing field work for my MA in the Jewish community in Ireland. I was told a joke about a Jew being stopped by a gang of armed men at the border. Demanding to know who he was, was he Catholic or Protestant? He replied he was a Jew, "but are ye a Catholic Jew or a Protestant Jew?".

I was brought up Catholic (left it 30yrs ago) but had family members who very much saw the the world as Catholic vs Protestant - ie everyone who wasn't a Catholic fell into the category of Protestant.

The TRAs insisting on the trans / cis division, for me, is like asking an atheist whether they're a Catholic or Protestant. I reject the very basis of the original belief system. I cant be Catholic or Protestant because I'm not a Christian, I can't be trans or Cis because I don't believe in gender identity.

Does that make sense to anyone other than me? 🤨

OP posts:
OhHolyJesus · 16/04/2019 08:40

Yes, yes it does. Changing language and meaning is a very clever tactic in any debate but where there is #nodebate and it's an instruction - that we just have to accept without question - then for me, language becomes even more important and central.

Cis, cisheteronormative, cisgender (and TERF)...it's all BS to me but not to others. As a white woman I would never use the N word when calling or referring to a black person, but if a black person used it for another black person and they weren't offended I would understand that. I never used to think this, I thought a word was either offensive or it wasn't but I can see now it's relative and nuanced.

What I find interesting and very frightening is the use of language in the Paedophile Handbook (in Dr Pankhurst's Twitter), where paedophiles use 'kind' from the German 'kinder' and also MAP/NOMAP on Twitter profiles. Sometimes by changing language or the meaning of a word to mean something else it is a subtle and effective way of changing opinions and perspectives, particularly on what is socially acceptable and what isn't.

NellieEllie · 16/04/2019 08:39

2 reasons for me. 1. I am a woman. That needs no qualification. 2. Cis is defined as a person whose gender identity matches their sex.
I don’t feel I HAVE a gender identity.

JellySlice · 16/04/2019 08:33

I have no issue with gender identity. It is like a religion - important to its adherents. But, just like a religion, it should not be enforced upon people.

Insisting that I am 'cis' because I am not 'trans' or 'enbie' or whatever is exactly the same as "Protestant Jew or Catholic Jew?". And as diminishing and offensive to a gender-atheist as insisting that to a Jew that they must be either Catholic or Protestant.

NottonightJosepheen · 16/04/2019 08:33

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.