To think that this is out of order, and there's no shame in being cis

[JellyKnockers]

NC as potentially outing.

DD is 17 and gay. She's very active in local LGBT societies and organisations and has campaigned against homophobic bullying in her school. Today she received this email from one of the organisations she's involved with, publicising an event for trans writers.

What's wrong with being cis ffs?! DD has herself been on the receiving end of abuse in the past for being 'transphobic', simply because she's challenged the anti cis opinion which she encounters regularly. This despite the fact that she campaigns for equality and has done since she came out aged 14. She's seriously considering giving up the work she does with various groups because of this attitude, which is all too common. She's even received death threats on Twitter because she's 'evil' enough to think that equality should be just that, and everyone should simply respect everyone else.

I'm livid, she's livid, are we BU?

To me privilege is intersectional. Women generally lack privilege, as do poorer people, black & minority people, and as do (in my opinion) trans people. This is obviously a generalisation. An able-bodied rich white person who has presented as male for most of their life is likely to have experienced some forms of privilege. Equally, I experience some forms of privilege for not being trans. Most trans people I known have had a fairly shit time in ways that I haven't. I really don't think that's a controversial viewpoint.

This thread has now been well and truly hijacked and I'm probably just as guilty of that as anyone else! Goodnight all, I think I might hide this thread and get on with my life.

Aaaaaarrgghhhhhh..

The adult female of the human species (born with two X chromosomes) is called a WOMAN, and likewise the male (born with X and Y chromosomes) is a MAN.

If you yourself choose to be called something else and identify yourself in any way you wish (according to how you perceive your own sex/gender and how you wish other people to relate to you), then that is entirely reasonable. However, those of us who do not wish to be called anything else find the term 'cis' offensive. So it would be nice if people would stop using it.

I don't like the word cis much, but not enough to make a fuss about it in most situations.

However, using "cis" as a sort of insult is pretty rubbish. What does the organization think they are doing, using that kind of phrasing?

"She's seriously considering giving up the work she does with various groups because of this attitude, which is all too common. She's even received death threats on Twitter because she's 'evil' enough to think that equality should be just that, and everyone should simply respect everyone else."

She sounds like an absolutely lovely and very intelligent girl who is now starting to find out the hard way that a lot of people involved in social justice movement stuff are really, really, really not very nice people at all.

For her own safety and sanity's sake, I'd advice her gently to dial back her involvement in these kinds of groups. She is in danger of falling down a rabbit hole.

If she has received death threats and has any idea who has made them, she needs to get the relevant authorities involved.

My daughter is gay and active in LGBT rights and she doesn't impose cis on anyone. She doesn't like penis. She is adamant about that.

Am I missing a point?

vashta put it quite nicely. Read her post and then read the 100s of trans threads there have been.

I've read it and many of the trans thread including all the most recent ones. I do not see any of the fear and hatred you keep referring to. Please can you give me a specific example of what you are referring to?

Ego this is what a lot of transactivists don't get: your problem is not with feminists. It's with oppressive models if masculinity.

I really don't know why transactivists go for feminists with such bile and venom, when tbe real "enemy" is patriarchal masculinity. I suppose that's where the suspicion of masculine privilege comes from: if you've been socialised as masculine, you've been socialised to think of women as less than fully human. And there to serve you, for your convenience.

So it's easier to attack and blame women than the real oppressors.

For clarity ego you are correct; I'm not really interested in hearing what it is like 'growing up trans'. No matter how much trans people hated their bodies or whatever difficulties they faced; it will not shake my belief that males and females are 2 distinct female biological realities. Neither will it change the fact that we live in a patriarchal society and that women need protection from male violence.

Whether you were bullied and beaten up at boarding school for 7 years, you were still raised and socialised as male

You never say you don't understand our POV, but you really really, very clearly don't

OP, your daughter has been getting death threats? That's disgusting and disturbing.

They ABU to be such arses.

YABU to recognise CIS as a valid concept.

It's not really unusual though, TribbleCalledDave. Trans activists and their allies really don't like being challenged. See here:

terfisaslur.com

Those people on that site are seriously mentally disturbed. They should probably be arrested

Ego, you received homophobic abuse as a child for being non gender conforming/trans. Gay children receive similar homophobic abuse, as do straight but non gender conforming children. It's certainly true that people who are gender conforming (plus attractive, it's not enough to be conforming if you are fat, or spotty, or disabled) generally have an easier time of it at school. But the kids that didn't get bullied are surely in the tiny minority?
I'm not going to pretend I was bullied to the point of being beaten up, but I was bullied as a teen for being non conforming to the culture of the school I was at. Friends were bullied for being fat, spotty, disabled, dyslexic, ginger, gay. Childhood bullying is rampant. It doesn't mean you were not socialised as a male, no matter how much you may feel you were not. Teachers may despise the kids, but they will still push boys towards higher achieving careers. There are hundreds of ways in which other people treated you differently because you were male that you don't even know about.

shortcut yet we are supposed to be happy to share our refuges, toilets and changing rooms with them.

I think ObsidianBlackbirdMcNight has absolutely nailed it with

Childhood bullying is rampant. It doesn't mean that you weren't socialised as a male

As girls, we are not just bullied, we are sexually harassed. Our bra straps get snapped, boys look up our skirts, the creepy teacher (every school has one) stares down your blouse. We are shamed for our periods and our breast size (big, small, doesn't matter...whatever you've got, they'll make fun of you). If you don't put out, you're frigid. If you do, you're a slag. Boys find the nastiest online porn they can and flash it on their smartphones at you when you pass them to shock you. You get sexually harassed by adult men walking home, or at the bus stop. Most of us can recall being flashed or groped by them at one point or another. If you're really unlucky, you get raped by a male relative or family friend.

Girls are taught to be quiet, polite, courteous. Not to hurt other peoples feelings. To not take up too much space on the pavement or on public transport. To laugh off abusive behaviour to show that you're cool and have a sense of humour. To distrust our own emotional reactions - and those of other women - and dismiss them as overdramatic or erratic (cos, you know, periods make us bitches crazy, amiright?)

When we are insulted, it is because of our either our biology our our sexuality. We are cunts, pussies, slits, bitches, whores, slags, frigid. And if we really piss the boys off, we're lesbians.

And then we grow up, and the real oppression begins!

I'm not saying this to get into the Oppression Olympics. I completely understand that non gender confirming boys have an awful time (my brother is a very effeminate gay man, so I have seen it first hand) and my heart aches for any boy who has to put up with being bullied or made to feel shame for being different. But I cannot accept it when trans activists claim to have always felt like a woman, and they have been socialised as female from birth. Women are not socialised this way because of some inner feeling of gender, but because of our biology, our sex. Being raised as a woman is more than wearing pink and playing with dolls.

surely cis is just the equivalent of definining someone as straight. You only really say it as a comparison.
Its a word only used in certain contexts, like when you are discussing trans and gender issues. You are not now a ciswoman, unless youre actively comparing to a transwoman.
Most of the time youll be just a woman

branleuse I'm 'just a woman' all the time.

Branleuse

We already have a word for non trans women. It's 'women'.

Brilliant post, Edeline you've nsiled all the invisible stuff that is "normal" for girls and women.

Now everyone has refreshed the same points about various terms - I'd like to go back to the OP and the situation with an email for a trans group being sent to a wider group with 'be there or be cis' on it.

I feel this is offensive on two points aside from the term itself: firstly, given that the writer clearly accepts the use of the word as 'not trans', replacing the word 'square' with 'cis' seems to be clearly intended to mean being 'cis' (which if people have no choice to be trans, then don't others have no choice to be cis?) is inferior, uncool, implying you should want to avoid being cis. I can't imagine a lesbian writers group advertising "be there or be straight", or a black writers group "be there or be white". It seems intended to offend. Is that the image that the organisers want to be putting out into the world?

Secondly, as the 11 pages of this thread and others evidences, 'cis' is simply not a widely accepted term and a significant proportion of women consistently state that they find the term itself offensive. Those who accept it as a term really need to be aware of it's potential to be heard offensively and expect to offend people if they use it widely; if they're ok with going around offending people like that then fair enough. I have a relative who uses the word 'paki' as shorthand for Pakistani, and despite being informed repeatedly that it is an offensive term, they insist that they are not using it offensively - simply descriptively- so it's not offensive. Doesn't stop people being offended.

Great post ed, although it made me shudder

Yeah, I'm menopausal now, so I'd forgotten most of that shit.
Having said that ,there has been a couple of occassions since I turned 50 where men have made me feel uncomfortable outside, to the extent that I changed my regular route for a few weeks to avoid one of them. My MIL was even kerb crawled one evening and she was in her 60's.

Edeline I'm printing out your post to throw at people next time this discussion comes up.

Nicely put, BubsandMoo. I feel for the OP's daughter as she seems to be intelligent, brave and proactive in standing up for her rights and the rights of others. Yet gets treated like shit by one of the groups she has supported and abused and threatened for her opinions.

Jelly Have you spoken to your daughter about this thread? Has she decided whether or not she wants to respond to the email? I completely understand if she feels like she can't as no doubt she will receive further abuse and should not be subject to that.

I was curious about the venues holding this event for trans writers.
The first result on google came up with a place that has a detailed safe space policy, and says it won't tolerate harassment including "use of derogatory language intended to undermine or insult".