Help me explain to the hard of thinking why the word 'cis' should not be in our public facing document

God, yes.

Thank you for posting that. It's put so well.

'I felt, quite simply, that “cis” allowed no space for those of us who don’t feel particularly comfortable with gender or our sexed bodies, but who still know sex is real and politically important.'

Apologies if someone had already mentioned her, but Victoria Smith has made some really good points about this:

'... “cisness” (that imaginary state of identifying with the sex role stereotypes imposed on one because of one’s sex)...'

'... “cis woman” ... is a way of defining a concept we already know — feminism, woman — because the original term has been co-opted.'

I will edit as I find more!

WhereYouLeftIt that is such a good opinion piece, and sadly will likely be taken more seriously because it's written by a transwoman (i.e. a man).

In particular this bit - so fucking true:

So what about trans people who insist upon the use of ‘cis’ for non-trans people? It’s a special case, fascinating in the attempted inversion of oppression. Transwomen frame themselves as the default. Though they wrap themselves in the mantle of victimization and oppression, they rely on their male privilege to push a narrative which flips the normative. Alterity would suggest that trans and cis are simply oppositional descriptive terms. As a minority, transwomen should lack the power to push a cis label onto anyone. Remember, only the One, the default, can name the Other. Transwomen are not used to being the other. They are uncomfortable being the minority. Male privilege and entitlement has taught them the world is their’s for the taking. ‘Cis’ is a way of claiming the default. As males, they retain the power of naming. Not only will they define what a woman is, but they police who is allowed to call themselves woman.

Including a legal cost citing discrimination against women or gender critical beliefs.

Also, given the way that things are beginning to tumble about gender ideology, a publicly available printed document (if that is what it is) which includes -cis might become out of date quite quickly and there may be cost implications for reprinting it.

This. It is taking a side.

The fact that it is a very widely-acknowledged slur should be enough for it not to be used.

Fair enough if somebody wishes to describe themselves as a cis-woman or cis-man, if they must - same as people who have reclaimed the word 'queer' - but it is not considered in any way acceptable in normal polite society for somebody to make it clear it to you that they find a label grossly offensive and for you to then still insist on using it for them - especially if you yourself are particular about what labels you will or won't accept for yourself. It is the extreme opposite of any kind of pretence of '#bekind'.

Somebody has drawn the excellent comparison with 'Native Americans' - whereby those who identified with a label for centuries before others came along were then forced to yield it to the newcomers, whilst they had to accept a prefix for their long-accepted identity.

Labelling women as 'cis-women' is, in principle, not really any different from 'informing' black people that they will now be referred to as 'cis-black', to help with distinguishing them from the 'other black people', who are actually just white people with sun tans. Grossly, grossly deliberately offensive.

Me too!

Personally if I had the choice I'd avoid using the goods or services of any company that uses the word cis in its literature on principle.

In some african countries it is an insult in line with calling someone a 'cunt'. As a junior doctor found out when he referred to a nurse as 'sis' as in short for sister.

GC views are protected by law. I reject that I have a gender, I have a sex, gender is harmful to all of society but particularly women.

If I was going to engage with your services that would actually make me feel unsafe and I would either find another supplier of the service or just withdraw.

It is a word that has become weaponized. It is not neutral and on social media goes hand in hand with 'Nazi'.

I would be on here also naming and shaming. And on twitter. And facebook.

You might just about get away with 'biologically female' but there is nothing wrong with the word, 'woman'.

So do you want to piss of the majority of your consumers / service users / business?

Here's the thing if you use cis women you by default say transwomen are women.

This is problematic in law in terms of seeing personal characteristics as gender reassignment and sex are separate and in erasing sex you make it harder to spot injustices to women on the basis of their sex.

Best to refer to both categories separately. Therefore no cis.

Was coming to say this, but RainbowShit got there first.

Not sure if it’s the same platform, but “cis”is now considered such an offensive word by many that it is outlawed on Twitter.

Other than that addition, this seems a good summary.

’I think I'd stick to, "Lots of people don't know what this word means, and some of the people who do know what it means find it offensive. I think we should avoid using such politically loaded terminology, especially in the current climate, and stick to clear and factual language. We are talking about women, and a small number of female people who identify as trans men or non binary."’

If transwomen are in a third group, then transmen are presumably in a fourth. And given that transmen are actually women, you’re now back to two types of women again.

Transwomen are just men. No third group necessary.

A little subjunctive counterfactual; conclusion by modus tollens:

• If a cis woman were a kind of woman, it would follow a trans woman is a kind of woman.
• But trans women are men.
• So we shouldn't use "cis" of women.

[If you want to be super-polite and non-confrontational, you could take the second premise instead as "But many people think trans women are men". The conclusion still follows.]

To be cis is to accept TWAW, so that they can be called Transgender Women and I, a regular Version 1 woman, can be called a Cisgender woman. Therefore there is not one type of woman but two, which...most women, including me, rejects.

Transwomen are men who are in their own, third group, in my opinion.

*Are based

The idea of trans and cis women and based on a definition of woman linked to gender stereotypes. It excludes females who do not conform to gender stereotypes or who didn't want to be categorised based on them.

Why should you need to clarify that a woman is… well a woman. Like calling a rock a cis rock (ie it’s not a piece of concrete or blu tac).

people like to jump on the new and shiny to show hot smart they are without actually engaging brain.

you just have to see the ‘women and cis women’ banners held by folks at protests (usually yelling down women) to see where this is going.

hell no.

It's considered a slur and banned on at least one of the big social media platforms.

Several PP have covered this but I would make sure you ask - in writing - what the evidence is for the use of 'cis':

• where's the evidence that those identified in the report as 'cis' identify that way?
• If there is no such evidence of positive identification where's their evidence that it is ok to assign this label to those so assigned in the report? What is the assigning of gender identity based on? Sex? Appearance? Dress? Femininity? How is this measured and who decides?
• what's the evidence that there is a standard definition of 'cis' and what it is?
• where's the evidence that anyone reading the document will understand what it means to a standard definition? (if not they need to explain exactly what it means and the difference between gender and sex and definitions of both.. which will make the report longer)
• where's the evidence that this will not be considered offensive?
• Where's the evidence that categorising women in this way is useful in the context of the report?

This.

It doesn't map to the Equality Act 2010. Most "trans women" are legal men.

Sounds good to me