To be uncomfortable that my heterosexual friend is volunteering for lgbt kids charity?

[travellingbird]

My friend has to be the most conscientious person. She is exceptionally engaged with social issues and currently works in a lefty cause (climate change). She told me she was about to start with a work-approved charity for LGBT young people in schools. The aim is to go into schools and address homophobia and gender stereotypes etc. She is hetero and cis. I'm gay, and she has been one of my closest friends even before I came out at 15. She has witnessed and supported me through my battles with homophobic parents. Our mutual best friend is also gay and identifies as agender.
She is well aware of her privilege (in a good way) and has aired her concerns about not being quite right for it, yet is proceeding.

So, am I unreasonable to be uncomfortable with her taking this role? Should I just be happy she is er, "helping us" and being a wonderful ally?

It is up to individuals to decide whether or not they think a label applied to them is derogatory.

You can't biologically identify someone as a gender.

Many people don't identify with a gender at all.

It is none of your business what anyone's internal gender identity is.

And if you reject gender identification as a concept where does that leave you? I would be bundled in with 'cis' as I have no wish to change my body, and have come to terms with being a woman. However I rail against all the stereotyped crap associated with 'gender', in particular rejecting totally the concept of male and female brains, considering it to be an oppressive construct.

So no I am not 'cis', but I am also not 'trans', I'm just a fairly mainstream feminist. That doesn't mean I can't be sympathetic to individuals who struggle with their bodies and their self identification. I just don't want their beliefs about gender to triumph because they are the very ones I reject. Indeed I think that if feminism were to be truly successful the lives of those who do not conform with current stereotypes would be a great deal easier, allowing people to live their lives in however 'masculine' or 'feminine' a way they wish without it having anything to do with the bodies they were born into.

I am happy to accept gender identification as a concept for trans people. There are important legal and sometimes medical situations where they need it.

I am also happy for religious people to have a religious identification. It is important for them and for human rights. But I am not religious. I don't need a special word invented that means not religious, particularly not one invented by religious people and applied to me. I don't need a special word to describe not being something.

Men can't be feminists? White people can't be against racism?
Plenty of men are feminists and anyone is favour if equality is a feminist whether they like it or not.
You are nuts.

I agree that gender identity is voluntary. I definitely don't think that anyone has to be obliged to declare their gender identity or have a fixed gender identity. But that doesn't mean that there should be no terms describing gender identity. Plenty of people don't identify as either a man or a woman. That doesn't mean that the words man and woman are offensive. It just means that it would be offensive to apply the term to someone who did not identify with it and offensive to ask intrusive questions about gender identity. I have a couple of friends who are a-gender - they are neither cis or trans. But that doesn't mean that there are no cis or trans people.

Clearly are some people who were identified as biologically male at birth and who grew up to identify themselves as men, and some people who were identified as biologically female at birth and who grew up to identify themselves as men. Now obviously the term men serves to identify members of both of those groups and in 99.99% of contexts no further clarification is needed or appropriate. But there are times when you need a language in which to talk about the differing experiences of those two groups - hence cis and trans.

It's fine if your experience means you don't fall into either group. But given that there are people who fit that description why try to ban a word that describes them?

Your point that anyone can decide that a term applied to them is derogatory is obviously true - but I'm not sure that that anyone can correctly say that a term applied to them is an insult. I can decide that the word woman or white or straight (all terms applying to social identity that might be applied to me by a stranger) are insults. But I don't think that I would be correct if I did so. I am of course free to say that I don't want to identify as these things. But given that to most people these things are neutral descriptors of social fact it would IMO be a bit strange to say that I consider them derogatory. Same with cis. Fine if you do not think that you are a person who has the same gender identity to that imposed on you by society because of how your body looked when you were born. Fine to challenge or feel frustration at others' assumptions that you are such a person. But I don't think it's fine to say that that identity does not exist simply because it is not your identity.

Yes. There are people who call themselves cis and mean they have an internal gender identity that is male or female.

But most people who call themselves women just mean that when they were born they were identified as being female by sex and now they are adults they are aware that there sex is female. They are saying absolutely nothing whatsoever about their internal gender, have never even asked what their internal gender identity is their internal gender identity has no relevance whatsoever in any legal or medical context and is none of your business.

You can't possibly know how many people are cis gender because there has been almost research into it, and the research that has been done shows it is nowhere near as common as you are assuming.

Stop making assumptions about other people's internal feelings about gender. It is just as sexism and rude.

Sorry, almost no research into it.

Even if some trans people were harming the fight against fgm (one an abstruse post on reddit with 4 up-votes is not evidence of this) how does this discredit the entire trans movement? would it be reasonable to have opposed the civil rights movement in 1960s America on the grounds that the Black Panthers murdered people?

I've seen views dismissed as 'Cis' on Twitter.

It's pretty depressing really. It's another way to tell women to STFU.

Well said, almondcakes.

how does this discredit the entire trans movement?

Did you read CactusAnnie's post? There was no mention of discrediting the trans community.

Ok. It would also be rude and intrusive to make inquiries into people's racial identities. But that doesn't mean that we should get rid of terms describing racial identity. I find the terms white, black and Asian useful to identify real social identities. They are not derogatory or offensive terms. That does not mean that I go around asking or telling people what race they are, and obviously it would be offensive if I did. I have certainly never told anyone that they are cis if that's what you're wondering. But it is still an accurate way of identifying a social group which really does exist. I am really struggling to understand why the existence of language describing social identities can be offensive. why are the words trans and cis more offensive than the words man and woman for example? All of them describe a voluntarily assumed social identity after all.

To me it's also about a form of mental gymnastics that I don't really play or wish to play. I don't 'identify' let alone 'self-identify' as a woman. I am a woman. It's not something I have any real choice about, it just is. In the same way that I am Caucasian or the child of my parents. There were times when I railed against the role that society considers I should perform because I am a woman, but that's a problem of society, not of me.

I am certainly privileged in being content in who I am internally, but that's not really the same thing is it? I'd be fine with a term that described that, that I could adopt if I so chose, but not with one that uses terms I reject.

And it is not the same as being white or straight. Ethnicity and sexual orientation are protected characteristics for everyone so have a legal relevance. Gender identity is not a protected characteristic for people who are not trans.

well to be honest, I think that telling people that there are certain terms they may not use to describe the social reality that effects them you are undermining a movement. where would the feminist movement be if men told them it is wrong to describe people as men and women because it is offensive to men to be defined as men? It would be an aggressive move.

No - sex is a protected characteristic. This covers gender discrimination.

Gender and sex are not the same thing.

And what movement is there by 'cis' people? Why does the trans movement need a term for people who are not part of their movement? Feminists don't have a term for those who are not feminists and I don't see that as a problem do you?

No one is saying that the terms 'men' or 'women' are derogatory or not to be used - not that that would be possible anyway.

Gender and sex are two different things. One is a social construct and one is a biological fact.

People have already explained this several times jello.

Cis means a person whose internal gender identity matches their assigned sex at birth.

A person who was assigned female at birth and knows as an adult their sex is female usually calls themselves a woman, but that does not mean they have an internal gender identity.

I don't have a problem identifying social groups who don't have things. There are loads of people who don't have asthma, who can't drive, who don't live in London. Do they all need special names for you to know they exist?

I appreciate that hobnong but if you look at case law under the EA 2010 no distinction is made between sex and gender.

No. Sex is a protected characteristic and covers sex discrimination, both in the UK and under human rights law.

CEDAW protects people whose sex is female. It is a fundamental part of human rights law that I am protected by a human rights convention on the basis of my sex. One of the way people discriminate against females is by imposing gender stereotypes on them. I don't have to accept people imposing a gender on me to have my sex recognised and protected. It is a basic human right.