Objections to cis

@durgasarrow It just occurred to me that if a "cis" woman is on the near side of woman, then aren't TRAs admitting that there is an actual thing as a woman?

But I think TRAs absolutely accept that there is an actual thing as a woman, it's just that they would define a woman as "anyone who says they're a woman" which is so meaningless as to be a useless definition.

gender doesn’t really belong to the individual to control and influence, rather is an externally, societally imposed expectation

I think this is why I find the idea of ‘gender identity’ so hard to understand. I am a woman and I have a personality; the way people treat me has to do with both of these but is also massively dictated by external factors. I can’t identify my way out of my body or out of the society in which I live. I don’t ‘identify’ with my sex, it’s just the sex I am. Sometimes I experience a clash between what society expects of me as a woman and sometimes I don’t.

It just occurred to me that if a "cis" woman is on the near side of woman, then aren't TRAs admitting that there is an actual thing as a woman? I certainly object to being called something close to what I actually am. But the flip side is that this means that by definition, anyone trans anything is on the opposite side of the thing that is being defined. These two definitions exist in this way. They are on opposite sides of something. One's near you, and the other is in the opposite direction from you. Although it is still manipulative garbage, it is a testament to the weakness of their case that by using trans/cis as a standard, TRAs reveal that THEY think that the nearest thing to a woman is a biological female and that those who define themselves as women are the opposite of that.

because I would agree with queer theorists that I “belong to the social role of woman”. What I do not agree with them on is that this is because I identify as one.

I belong to the social role of woman because that is imposed upon me by virtue of being identifiable as an adult female human. Similarly anyone who is non-binary it is a non-passing trans man is also subject to the social role of woman, despite not wanting to be so.

Really well put @FWRLurker

As I said on another thread - I don't feel like a woman. I simply am one. Others may feel differently, and that's fine. But we must have social & legal structures that don't value one "feeling" above another's biological reality.

To talk "high theory" (but not queer theory): Louis Althusser (Marxist philosopher & social theorist) talked about the experience of "interpellation" - moments when we are confronted with the ways in which we are pigeon-holed and and positioned by the social structures in which we live. His example (or the one that is usually quoted), is a police officer hailing a man in the street, who responds "Who me?" and in that moment is interpellated (slotted into) into the structure of State power and legal/police authority.

I think my moment of interpellation (and emerging feminist consciousness) was in the First Form at school, when we were choosing subjects for the next year, and I - being provocative at a mixed sex comprehensive - asked about doing technical drawing and woodwork. I was told sternly by the (male) teacher that "Girls in the top set don't do woodwork." Instead of treating me like a human being he treated me like a girl.

Another moment was my (totally sexist) science teacher, who regularly only answered boys' questions, regularly only asked boys questions, and once marked me down because I hadn't covered my exercise book in brown paper - all the work inside my exercise book was 100% correct, but I wasn't performing femininity properly: no neat cover or prettily drawn pictures.

Excellent. This paragraph sums it up for me:
‘Cis’ is the other side of the coin to the ‘transwomen are women’ mantra, in that it ensures the category of women contains both sexes. In this system a ‘transwoman’ is a male woman and a ‘cis woman’ is a female woman, and these are now equal subsets of the category ‘woman’. Cis is doing the job of letting men into the female sex class, and it means you can no longer be just a woman, you have to make a choice over what sex of woman you are.

someone told me that I would be upset if I were to be misgendered, or if I woke up in a male body. If the first were to happen, I wouldn't care, and if the second did, I'd just roll with it.

If the second happened, then I’d know I was in an episode of Doctor Who, and I’d be quite excited to see which Doctor turned up. Fingers crossed David Tennant.

(On a more serious note; debate points based on a ‘Freaky Friday’ premise don’t really need or deserve much countering!)

You can’t identify your way out of gender. It’s attached to you based on how others see you, presently and in the past.
Interesting follow on musing - recognising that gender doesn’t really belong to the individual to control and influence, rather is an externally, societally imposed expectation, strikes me as the core difference between liberal and radical feminism. Liberals accept the gender stereotypes, the status quo, and want to support people to feel ‘empowered’ within them, and believe that attempting to divorce gender from sex will do this. Radicals reject gender full stop, and want to influence society to stop assigning roles, traits, colours, toys and activities based on sex in the first place, whilst recognising that sex does still determine the needs and vulnerabilities of some individuals.

It’s interesting, because I would agree with queer theorists that I “belong to the social role of woman”. What I do not agree with them on is that this is because I identify as one.

I belong to the social role of woman because that is imposed upon me by virtue of being identifiable as an adult female human. Similarly anyone who is non-binary it is a non-passing trans man is also subject to the social role of woman, despite not wanting to be so.

You can’t identify your way out of gender. It’s attached to you based on how others see you, presently and in the past.

People who transition and pass may in my opinion experience some of what it means to be a member of the opposite sex. But gender identity alone does not do this, obviously.

How did we even get here! Who where & why ever thought it was acceptable to pretend that men are women.
Biology is a fact and you cannot simply choose to be a different sex, whether or not you've had bits removed, taken hormonal drugs or put on feminine clothes.
This has always been the case and always will be. How on earth did groups lobbying for lies to be accepted as truth ever get this far with supposedly sensible lawmakers?
The mind boggles.

I'm human, over 18yrs of age, and I'm female. When asked, I say I'm a woman, because that's the name of the biological category of mammals who are human adult females. Not because I like some colours and not others, or because of how I dress, or any other personal preferences or characteristics.

The objective, material reality is that I'm an adult human female. The fact that I don't pretend to be something else, is not a "privilege".

I'm also not going to pretend I don't think the very idea is ridiculous.

Once ‘cis’ has done its job of mixing up the sexes into a new gender-determined classification, a much bigger problem becomes clear. The two subsets of women (cis and trans) turn out to be not so equal after all. Cis is being used to posit an axis of oppression which subverts the usual order of things and places females as the oppressors of males: if women come in both cis and trans varieties it’s the cis ones who have the privilege. Cis privilege means that cis people oppress trans people, so it naturally follows that males are the most oppressed of all women. Once that’s established, then it’s clear that female women, with all their privilege, can no longer be allowed to organise alone without their male ‘sisters’. Groups like ‘Sisters not Cisters’ have sprung up to make sure we can never have anything just for ourselves ever again.

When we are lambasted for ‘excluding’, there is no recognition that we are losing something we are entitled to, and often something we rely on. ‘Women-only’ has meant a place of safety or of sanctuary or of healing ever since second wave feminists fought for our rights as women, decades ago.

This. So, so much this.

"Cis" is meant as a term of abuse. If trans woman want to hold a meeting, fine. If Cis women want to hold a meeting, they would be vilified. But the real reason why cis is not a thing for me is that feminine is the gender form of woman, and I do not identify as being feminine. I have qualities that are feminine, masculine, and just plain human. What cisgender should actually mean is the gender that is on the near side of woman, i.e., the feminine gender. So the so called feminine traits, which are by and large social constructs. If they meant women and wanted to use cis, they should have used cis sex. Not that I would find that acceptable.

Nellodee that's exactly how it is

Venn diagram incoming:

Unless it refers to eggs.

If the use of the word ‘cis’ becomes normalised, then as females we will always be yolked to males.

Yes.
But the word "yoked" has no "l".

Mumoblue exactly, I think this is how a lot of people come to GC points of view because we don’t have a gender identity. If they changed the legal definition of woman to ‘someone with a womanly gender identity’ 3/4 of us would be left wondering how on earth to identify ourselves now as we don’t relate to that at all.

It makes even more sense when they want to change the definition of ‘woman’, for us to be allowed to continue to differentiate ourselves as biological females. A lot of females are not going to relate to that enforced gender identity and need to be able to say ‘well I’m female because I’m female’.

It’s interesting that it goes against everything TRAs say they stand for to force a gender identity onto another person, yet that’s what they want to do to women.

Thanks OP

Excellent blog. Thanks for the link OP.

I was accused of transphobia by an old school friend online literally because I asked not to be called a woman, not a cis woman 🙄

Do you think there will be any protests if GRA reform weakens womens rights further?

I was shocked when I found out that gender identity is supposed to be an abstract feeling not at all based on the actual sex of one's body. If it happens to correlate with the latter, then you are cis and very privileged (more than, say, Caitlyn Jenner), and if it does not, then you are trans or nonbinary and very marginalized and oppressed.

I am quite sure my definition of my gender (identity, if you wish) is very firmly based on the fact that I have a female body and that others treat me a certain way because of that body. But though every person is supposed to be allowed to decide on their own gender identities, this does not extend to me or anyone else who defines their gender on the basis of their sex.

When it is 'people' who menstruate, then clearly my gender identity, based on the female body, is invalidated and I am excluded and so on, but because I am seen as 'cis,' and privileged, none of that matters.

Many seem to think that 'cis' just means 'not-trans' and that it is an ok label to accept, but that is an incorrect interpretation. The cis concept forces you to accept a gender identity not based on sex, and if you don't spot that, you will end up skating on weak ice when it comes to later inclusiveness demands.

I also like Saxby's take.

Don’t care about being misgendered.

I do care about my experiences of having my appearance, behaviours and pastimes viewed and found to be wrong because they didn’t fit in the female gender role that I was supposed to comply with. I never signed up for female gender role. That was assigned to me because of my sex.

Thankfully as a 70s baby with a Dad who encouraged me to do “boy stuff” it never ever made me think I’m not a girl. It made me think being a girl is harder than being a boy, you can’t stop me and you are wrong.

More on the same topic: culturallyboundgender.wordpress.com/2014/06/20/cisgender-cui-bono/

Absolutely. Types of women include women and trans men.

That language is obviously designed to confuse, but apparently that's how some women like to be described.

Trans women are a subset of men.

I object to cis because it implies that I agree with the "social role" of woman, or that if I dont agree with it, that I must not be a woman.

I first understood I didn't really have any concept of gender when someone told me that I would be upset if I were to be misgendered, or if I woke up in a male body. If the first were to happen, I wouldn't care, and if the second did, I'd just roll with it.