Why 'Cis' is unnecessary

Stella O Malley and Sasha Ayad did a really fascinating podcast on this…

m.youtube.com/watch?v=ni-Ry_XHk1k

Fa afafine from Samoa were males who dressed as women a bit like a cultural transvestite in some cases they were supposedly co-opted to this role by their families who were in need of more girls/women to do the domestic chores.

The above knowledge was from growing up in Aotearoa and having a lot of Samoan friends.

Yep. The 'trans' in 'trans woman' plays a very similar function to the 'rocking' in 'rocking horse'.

@NotTerfNorCis
@JellySaurus

I think the term "cis" is bullshit of the highest order. I rarely get time to post on the boards these days but I've been here a long time under one name or another. I get it. Very much been there, done that.

I'm making the point that we're stuck between a rock and a hard place. Piss enough women off with the word "cis" and then the argument can be made, "you're right actually, people who are what they say they are don't need a marker. Let's dispense with "trans" too because women are simply those who say they are women."

The end goal is for transwomen to simply be called "women".

I think a couple of posters somehow missed the I think some people want us to be ... in GromblesofGrimbledon's post - those other people are the forced-teamers/appropriators not her!

It would be nice if labelling someone cis could be seen as offensive as " misgendering" is perceived to be.

It should be seen as equally offensive to re label people in.ideologies they don't believe in.

And call me.petty but part of me thinks it would be an Interesting experiment to take away all the privileges modern day western women enjoy like driving, bank.accounts, jobs etc gained at the hands of our sisters who fought tirelessly for our rights that we have now, from women who believe in all this cis stuff, until they realise that identifying as a man doesn't get any of it back and it dawns on them that woman.is not an identity but a reality none if us can escape from.

Hi Grombles. I think you were saying that we can't get rid of the word 'cis' because that means we'd also have to get rid of 'trans' and then there'd be no way to distinguish between female and male women?

The point is that 'cis' turns women (females) into a subset of women, alongside trans (males). But women are by definition female, and 'female women' aren't a subset of their own sex. Getting rid of 'cis' makes it more clear that transwomen aren't part of the 'women' group.

@YouSirNeighMmmm
Excellent!! I'm going to do that too!

@JellySaurus

I'm sorry, what?

I think you might think I'm making a different point to the one I am...

Can you clarify what it is you think I'm saying? Because I've no idea what you mean by "force teaming" or why you think I'm being disingenuous.

Women don't need a prefix, Cis is like needing a word for someone who doesn't collect stamps.

Physicist is the word for someone who doesn’t collect stamps.

<I’ll get me coat>

You miss the point. The assumption is Woman = Adult human female.

Cis shouldn't exist, like a word doesn't exist for someone who doesn't collect stamps.

Trans = Stamp collector/Philatelist

Women and transwomen are mutually exclusive groups. There's no such thing as a male woman.

I thoroughly dislike the quote in the OP. I don't think it's true, because I don't think it is the case that people who don't identify as trans do actually generally have a "gender identity that matches their sex". Nobody has ever been able to adequately explain what having a gender identity feels like in a way that can be distinguished from "having been brainwashed with sexist stereotypes". I suspect that there aren't any more genuinely cis people than there are trans people, with the majority not really having any coherent gender identity once all the sexist stereotype nonsense is discounted. So yes the word cis can exist, but it shouldn't be applied by default as a blanket term for anyone not obviously trans. The quote in the OP is labelling me and assuming my gender identity just as much as (incorrectly) calling me cis is.

Transwomen are not women.

Absofuckinglutelythis.

We have to be very careful when we start assigning western ideas to those. Wikipedia is very misleading on it.

Personally I believe that in any of those cultures men who don't fit the particular male stereotype are not allowed to be men and they create a new gender for them.

Listening to people who have researched these groups, it's interesting. The Fa'afafine (in Tonga) know full well they are men (unlike trans in the West where individuals believe they are the opposite sex), and they laugh at the idea of having surgery to become women. Men who have sex with them are not considered gay.

In the West, this whole debate is controlled around the use of language, so good luck with trying to get people to use a different term!

But another interesting development is the people who call themselves "trans", and rather say they are "trans" than the opposite sex. Trans in itself has become an identity.

I don't use the term "cis", just like I don't use the term to say that I don't have six fingers.

Here's another confusing thing about 'cis'. So, on another thread a genderist explained that 'cis' means when your sex and your 'gender' match. So a 'cis woman' is a woman with the female sex and the woman gender (which match, supposedly.) But that surely means that, logically, a 'trans' woman is one with the male sex and the woman gender...but trans women are never happy about being called male. So what does 'cis' and 'trans' actually mean, then? And that's not even getting into the great mystery of what 'gender' is supposed to be, and how one's sex and genders are supposed to 'match'.

I still like this one

Wouldn't people just look at you a bit strangely?

Trans-philatelist

(And very nice one @jeaux90 too!)

If ever we do need a special word I have other candidates. There's "common women" in tribute to the American lesbian poet Judy Grahn and her 1970s sequence "Work of a Common Woman". Or "material women" in tribute to Kathleen Stock. Or there's always "boring old cunty women" in tribute to some fed-up MN posters though I'm not sure who came up with it first and maybe Ricky Gervais has claimed it now? But I'm looking forward to seeing their faces at work when I describe myself as a BOC woman and they ask what it stands for .