#CisIsNotASlur trending on Twitter

And pigeon I think your definition is really good actually. If people were more honest and less hellbent on winning the argument then I'm sure people on both sides would agree you're broadly right on this

However concluding you don't want to live the stereotypes you've absorbed for your sex isn't as compelling an argument for why a transwomen must be treated exactly as a natal woman in every single situation... In fact concluding you don't want to live those stereotypes an ONLY reasonably be answered with 'OK, cool' which is a bit of a damp squib of an answer. Hence the need for attention seeking middle aged men to evolve this to require a different and special response

It was a good post pigeontown.

I'm sad for those babies. I'm sad for the baby that Jazz Jennings (which is a psuedonym) was and the life this mentally, culturally, personally gender pathway has locked that baby into.

@Wildfart oh bollox I give up!

@Millicispud thanks for the answer, I do appreciate you engaging with me in good faith.

I hope its OK to question you a bit further because IMO we're getting somewhere

You said Essentially, gender is what you are personally, mentally and culturally.
Sex is what you are medically and biologically

That confused me at first because if you asked me 'Who are you culturally?' my answer would include English, British, White, Europhile, and if we discussed further I'd next head to Indie music, mildly rebellious, interested in politics, interested in drug culture. Not really into films or theatre, slightly embarrassed about that, occasionally watch MiC and ditto embarrassed.

That is how I'd describe my cultural self.

Mentally I'd say I'm luckily in good mental health though I do have bursts of various less than ideal behaviours.

Personally I'd talk about how I'm loyal with a strong sense of fairness, I'm a geek, I feel alive around other people.

None of this is anything to do with my gender.

Medically and Biologically I'm female, mother of two, slightly dodgy thyroid, short sighted. The list goes on.

Having read your reply and put it in context I'm pretty sure that what you actually mean is that your gender is how you fit yourself culturally, mentally, personally with respect to men's and women's roles in the society you live in.

You don't mean do you feel more British or more European. I think you mean do you feel more at home culturally among a group of women or a group of men?

And that is very hard indeed to define.

But if I'm honest I think you were either mistaken or disingenuous when you gave a definition of gender which did not once make reference to sex or gender roles.

And I don't see how this alignment cannot make reference to gender stereotypes.

A male who feels more comfortable wearing a dress and heels and putting on a slightly high voice when they are chatting to strangers is getting some kind of fulfillment out of acting out female stereotypes.

A male person wearing baggy jeans with a hairy bumcrack showing, talking about bricks with a group of other men in a low gruff voice would never be thought to be a transwomen.

It is about how comfortable or not a person is acting / being around gender stereotypes.

And we should throw all gender stereotypes in the bin, they're garbage. I am as much a woman in my unsexy denim cut offs with hairy legs, gnarled toenails, talking about maths as I am when I wear make up, heels, and sashay along for cocktails and gossip with my bestest girlfriends.

I'm way more feminine in the second of these, I adhere to female stereotypes and enjoy them in that moment. But I enjoy the freedom to be my true authentic self in the first scenario too. They're both me.

I'm waffling! But you haven't convinced me, and I'd still love to understand what I'm missing here. I'm labour / guardian through and through. Yet tories and the times are the ones being honest about this, which makes my head hurt.

Gender is what you are, not what you do or where.

I am gender?

How am I gender.

Unfortunately pigeontown that all falls down because there's 18 month old babies who are mentally, culturally, personally the opposite sex.

Apparently.

I have waded through Milli's posts and I still have NO idea what gender is beyond a set of stereotypes. Some of those stereotypes fit me. Some of them don't, at all. So they are, IMHO, irrelevant to defining whether I am a woman or not.

Maybe it's a set of feelz, but I don't subscribe to the belief that a set of feelz is what makes you a woman or a man. You are made a woman or a man by your biology. So, since I cannot understand what gender is, I am a gender atheist, and I reject the term cis.

@nauticant it's in the bag.
So diluted now as to be meaningless.

You will note the difference is quite subtle!

I'm currently halfway through the thrread ("Does it turn into Tolstoy halfway through?") and think that for her next T-shirt Posie Parker should go for I don't have a gender identity. It would drive the gender ideologues round the bend. Also, it would be tricky for them to co-opt or subvert.

What this thread tells me is that I'm beginning to think we're going to win.

Ive had a stab at this definition...dont shoot me down (am aged lesbian who didn't even really think about gender identity until recently ..but lifetime 'GNC', who knew. Also probably a TERF)
'A DEFINITION'
Trans - someone who has over a period of time absorbed the world around them (mentally/intellectually) and decided on balance they don't want to perform the current dominant gender identity (i.e. the presentation most commonly seen in their biological sex in their popular culture) and are opting to subvert this. (In a range of ways from mild to extreme).

Not Trans (cis if you like)- everyone else. Can be performing dominant presentation or not, but crucially don't consider their presentation/personality has impact on their biological sex (2 separate issues).

I'm totally ok with these fwiw..as long as:
No one is coerced
The person deciding is deciding for themselves and is of a maturity to do so.
Its completely fluid AND reversible.
Doesn't involve medical interventions to healthy bodies
Is open to each others stance/choice
That people (including those with neurodivergence) understand what they are chosing and the implications. And chose accordingly.
Doesn't take rights from anyone else.
Is seen as a personal choice and not as a collective demand.
Personal choice of all kinds is respected.
Be open to the dominant presentation of gender not being permanent or agreed on or supported by others.
Understand that sexual attraction and 'gender identity' presentation are not connected. But that biological sexual attraction is.

I am not sure it is like a religious faith.

I am not a Buddhist, but I understand the different concepts when they describe them, even if I don’t believe in them. Even the concept of a soul has characteristics.

Every single person who has tried to explain what gender identity is just says meaningless things like gender identity is what you are, your sense of self, a feeling, an inner sense.

What does this feeling feel like? How do you sense this sense? What element of what you are? It isn’t conveying any actual meaning.

I'm getting to the point where I'm starting to think "OK, if everyone's so insistent that gender identity is real and everyone has one, yet I definitey don't personally feel that I can claim to have a "female" gender identity, or a "male" one, but if I have to have one then I guess I must be agender or non-binary or gender fuck or something else not yet defined. Which must certainly fall within the trans umbrella. So I'm not cis."

Surely that's most of us. If we're all trans, does that mean it's not special or desirable or other or different?

I think it's akin to religious faith. Some of us have it, some of us don't.

I live in a majority Muslim country, but I'm not a Muslim. I don't have any other faith either.. not a Christian, not a Buddhist, not a Hindu, not...well, just not, basically.

I'd rather no adherent of any of those beliefs told me 'if you don't share my beliefs, you must belong to one of the designated categories my faith has decided applies to non believers. There's options, you can adhere to a different religion & we will tolerate that & you can pick amongst them, but you can't opt out completely, sorry.'

We don't accept that. We don't support the 'opters out' - atheists - being told that they're infidels or heretics.

We expect people to be allowed to say 'as far as I can see, you religious types, you're all cheeks of the same arse & whilst I absolutely support your right to crack on with expressing whatever you believe, I don't subscribe to ANY of this. I'm an atheist. Leave me out of it.'

This is the same. I'm not 'cis'. I think this entire belief system is nonsense.

Didn't a transwoman claim to be 'cis'?

If the above is true then 'cis' is a meaningless term.

I am not cis, cis means I identify as the gender I am born into, I was born with a sex not a gender. I was born as a female I don't identify with ANY gender because I think 'gender' is nonsense and I always have. I am not part of a chemistry discourse so no cis there either.

If people can label me with impunity against my wishes I don't see why I am not allowed to also label so assuming you want to call me cis can I deadname and misgender to my heart's content then? Or is it one rule for thee and another for me? (As usual)

You can feck off with 'agender' as well it still implies I have some truck with gender. I think it is garbage I am not 'agender' either I am nothing to do with the ideology of gender. The ONLY time gender is connected with me is when I am treated a certain way by people who like to apply stereotypes and rules to me by virtue of my sex and I reject that too.

You have described gender as a "personal sense of self", a phrase which refers to someone's self-image. Which is generally defined as an individual person's perception of all of the characteristics that combine to form their identity. Those characteristics are bodily characteristics, likes and dislikes, beliefs, morals, behavioural traits and last but not least your skills, knowledge and abilities.

So you claim that you know the self image of every woman in your circle. Given how intricate our self image is, and how rare it is that we fully disclose this to even our loved ones and how may parts of our self-image we are not consciously aware of, I am astonished you would claim to know the self image of every woman in your circle.

Furthermore you claim that there is a specific self-image called cis, and that this is the self-image that matches the sex we are.

If I'm to decide whether I have this self-image called cis, there must be something for me to compare the personal sense of self of a typical female person to.

So, could you please give me a non-exhaustive list of the bodily characteristics, likes and dislikes, beliefs, morals, behavioural traits and skills, knowledge and abilities that define a person of the female sex (but not one of the male sex)?

P.S. You claim that "trans" and "cis" are just prefixes, yet throughout your comments you have used them as adjectives.

Just in case you are unaware of the difference, a prefix is a morpheme we add to the beginning of a word or a word stem to make a new word with a new meaning. The prefix itself cannot occur in isolation. (Think un- in unhappy.)

An adjective is a word we use when we want to give extra information about the noun we are referring to. Which is exactly how you are using the words.

@wellbehavedwomen fantastic post 👏🏼

@Millicispud do you believe everyone has a gender identity?

[quote Millicispud]@Waitwhat23

Are you transgender?
No.

Okey so you're cisgender then.

This is quite literally the exact same argument as "I'm normal, I'm not "heterosexual". Sees, you've got them weirdo "homosexuals" and thens ya gots me, a "normal" man".

Except now it's simple "I'm not "cis", I'm a human adult female. Not like them "trans" weirdos, I'm a "normal" woman".

Do enough research and you'll find that pretty much every anti trans argument is just a rehashed homophobic and sexist arguments.[/quote]
Ha, you're funny.

Almost all the women I know who share these beliefs read up on it to disprove the hateful bigots. I wanted to do what you're doing - genuinely, I went away and read up on all the shit the horrible women here were saying, to prove they were wrong. As a good liberal progressive feminist, I knew they had to be! Right?

The problem was that they weren't. All the evidence was on their side.

@wellbehavedwoman

Excellent post.

“Millicispud

@titchy

Then you haven't read 1984 very well then.

They changed language precisely so that nobody could have a discussion about, nor even thinking about individuality.
The aim was to eliminate thoughtcrimes by eliminating independent thoughts and identities entirely.“

@Millicispud
The aim was to eliminate the possibility of thinking altogether by eliminating the meaning of language.

The reason they wanted to eliminate thought was so that the totalitarian state could not be questioned.

An example of eliminating the meaning of language in 2021 is saying that ‘woman’ as a stand alone word really means a man.

[quote Millicispud]@NarcissistsEyebrows

Essentially, gender is what you are personally, mentally and culturally.
Sex is what you are medically and biologically.

How you know is almost exactly how you know your sexuality. The majority of people are straight and cis and don't have to "change" anything or do any real work. Nor do they get asked "so, how do you know you're straight?".

As a lesbian, I found out my sexuality fairly early on, some others didn't discover it until later. They're still lesbians.
Same with trans people. My sis knew when she was 5 or so.

Trans women are women because thats simply what they are mentally, personally and culturally.
they are everything us cis women are except for biology.
My younger sister's trans so I've done a bit of reading about it.

Woman generally refers to gender but is often used interchangeably with female. But obviously you don't call other women "females" unless you have a neck beard / fedora or are a Farengi from star trek.

www.who.int/health-topics/gender#:~:text=Gender%20refers%20to%20the%20characteristics,as%20relationships%20with%20each%20other.[/quote]
Word salad saying absolutely nothing useful.
Give us definitions of
Gender
Gender identity
Woman
Female
Etc etc