to think Mumsnet should delete posts in which women are called cis

[violetsarentblue]

I (and I imagine quite a lot of women on here) are fed up with being referred to as cis. I find the term deeply insulting.
I'm a woman and prefer to be addressed as a 'woman', not a cis woman.

I noticed MN are quick to delete posts where transgender people are called 'he' instead of 'she', because that group of people find the term insulting and MN don't want to offend.

Generally we delete posts in which people persistently refuse to refer to people by the pronoun (he/she; him/her) by which they’ve asked to be referred, out of respect for that individual’s wishes.

Please - could we have the same depth of consideration for our wishes?

Thank you.

I've always understood the "born in the wrong body" description to be an example of how it feels emotionally, not what people actually think is happening (which to me seems like a bizarre idea drifting into the realm of transabled, otherkin etc.). Do some people think this is a literal thing that happens?

I mean, your sex is one of the first things laid down in stone, the moment the "X sperm" or the "Y sperm" meets the egg.

You are male or female before you even have a brain.

Yes, I think plenty of people think this is an actual, literal thing. They are the ones shouting loudest and handing out the abuse and death threats on social media, the ones with the agenda, but they are also the ignorant people who are saying "be nice to trans people, give them what they want, you have no idea what it's like to be born into the wrong body, you're lucky, you're privileged, what does it cost you?"

@Keepit: There seems to be some confusion nowadays. I always thought transsexuality was a sort of brain problem - that seems increasingly likely now that I read that study about hormone-like drugs increasing the likelihood of sex dysphoria.
Those people are not in the wrong body, their brain developed wrong.

But nowadays, there are men who insist to be adressed with female pronouns, but are completely happy with having a penis, as long as they can convince everyone that it's a female penis. That's just ridiculous. Penises are not female.

I think the trouble is that the extremists are getting listened to. How have we reached a point where people are actively protesting for the "rights" of males to access spaces segregated specifically for protection of females against males.

Gender doesn't even come into the issue. It's irrelevant for female safety. The violence and sexual violence perpetuated against women is not because of how they identify, it's because of the genitals they were born with.

Almondpudding:
That is what a gender role is. It is a set of rules about how a particular society expects people of a particular biological sex to behave

Yes, that is everyone of that particular sex, not the small groups you provided as an example of 'gender' who function in specific roles in cultures that have nothing whatsoever to teach the west anyway.

53rd the problem is that 'getting on with their lives' involves using the girls' changing rooms in high schools in the US, joining the girls' basketball teams, using the women's changing rooms at public pools. All coming soon to a formerly women's and girls' only space near you, if the shrill transactivists get their way and manage to bully lawmakers into pandering to them. There is a huge cost ahead for women and for girls.

I am not one bit surprised that this has already happened in Ireland, where real, biological women are definitely second class citizens, and god forbid that anyone should upset a group of men.

Selfishly, I am less concerned about change rooms than I am about the fact that in some countries MTT who commit crimes are legally females.

So now the stats of women committing things like anything from assault and rape to shoplifting are now, well, wrong

And will no doubt be used to shore up arguments made by MRA along the lines of "women do it too...etc"

I'm especially concerned because research seems to be showing that MTT commit crimes at rates (roughly) the statistical equivalent of men.

Someone did a back of the envelope calculation the other day on the impact that could have on women's crime stats, and it was pretty chilling.

I love your username, Dontcalmecis, and you are right.

I don't think it is appropriate that those born another sex and socialized as a different gender get to tell me what my gender is or label me thanks

This

Lo, onto the scene arrive transpeople telling us gender is real because they feel it is real, and we must all forget about liberation, acknowledge our 'privilege', call ourselves something they tell us to, and focus on their history of victimhood instead of concerns that matter to people with uteruses -- healthcare equality and cost, equal pay, access to education, career expectations when combined with bearing babies, the threat of rape

And this

Some years ago a few of us used to go and goggle at the transvestites (as they were called then) plying their trade in a certain European city. They would display their wares as you drove past, and had breasts and penises and wore women's - well, Pretty Woman-style - clothes.

Now, a) why were they doing this? Had they had operations in order to do this job? and b) I would not fancy being in a cell/dressing room/public lavatory alongside what were essentially blokes. Even leaving aside the possibility of assault, think of sharing a toilet with a strange man - it's bad enough sharing with dh!

If you look in any other part of the animal kingdom females don't have penises...

With the exception (correct me if I'm wrong here) of the hyena. Female hyenas are larger, more powerful and far more aggressive than the male. They have an elongated clitorus that resembles a penis and they have more testosterone running through their system than the males.

No idea what point in making its just an interesting fact that we declare other species male or female with no exceptions and have never once thought to ask if they infect identify as the gender we've assigned to them... Clearly speciesism

I thought cis referred to gender identity rather than sexuality - so anyone who's not trans?

Anyway, yes, I'm a woman.

Lots of animals don't have penises!!

Out of the mammals which humans are part of

Rhondabull. A transvestite has always been someone that dresses as the opposite sex. It has nothing to do with be transgender, gay or anything else (although a yransvestite may be these as well)

Although I assume the word transvestite semantically works both ways, I've never heard it used about a woman dressed as a man.

I am a man who is regularly mistaken for a woman. I don't try to look like a woman. It just happens, probably because I am quite short and very slight and I have a couple of kids in tow.

I do lots of traditionally female things: I cook and clean and look after my kids. I bake cakes. I don't do many traditionally male things. I'm self-effacing in person and I'm not terribly blokey. I have always had as many female friends as male ones. I post on Mumsnet. I grew up reading the Guardian in the 80s and 90s and was left feeling that rather disgusting about maleness, particularly male sexuality. This is just how I am. I've never felt I was in the wrong gender. I've always felt that if masculinity excludes me, it is because societal conceptions of masculinity are incorrectly restrictive. After all, I stand up to urinate like all other men.

I just do what I do and biology dictates that I'm male.

It is not my intention to mansplain. I say all this because it strikes me that I'm just the sort of person who would choose to change gender, particuarly is some well-meaning person had told me at an impressionable age that I should. The truth is that I have no intention of doing anything of the sort, and I think any man who does is making a mistake. First, he is denying an essential part of himself. That's not healthy. Second, there is no denying that it plays into restrictive gender roles. Otherwise there would be no conception of 'woman' to switch too. Third, where is the evidence that men who 'feel' female are subject to discrimination like women have been? It cannot be right for men who decide they're women to get a free victim card. Finally, I totally agree with what others up-thread have said about women's experience of reproduction. I hope I supported DW through hers, and I hope I empathised and supported her properly, but she went through it and had experiences that I was never going to have.

I do feel for men who think they're in the wrong gender. I'm sure that very many of them have a very tough time. I suspect that the way I am means I I have probably missed out on some of the privileges men get. However, the proper solution is for society to be a hell of a lot less prescriptive about what being a man or being a women actually means. The alternative, ie, men and women identifying with the societal construct they think fits them best is very bad for me, because it implicitly denies the biological reality of my being male. Checks down trousers to make sure it's still there - yes it is.

As for myself, I object to the term 'gender' (except in grammar). I don't have a 'gender'. I have a sex, which happens to be male. All the rest is just detail.

Great post, Toad.

Exactly toad

I think that's the problem though, isn't it? Kids are now being told that if they are female but don't like pink and ponies "Hey, you're transgender!", and if they're male but don't like monster trucks and blue, "You're transgender too!".

No. You just haven't been taken in by all this bullshit of gender roles and stereotypes. That's not something to be ashamed of or to try and explain away, or to make yourself fit into a different box instead - that's shaming young people for being who they are, and suggesting they should change the way they look to fit their personality.

I have no doubt that if I was a few years younger, I'd have been taken in by that and convinced that I am transgender and 'feel like a man', whereas I'm actually just a woman who doesn't fit society's expectations of women, and happy like that. I worry for my brother and sister, both of whom are the opposite of what society expects of their sex. At 16 and 14 they're both at the age where they will be taken in by this bullshit and may make decisions they'll regret. I can't imagine many people have found it easy to go back a few years later and say "Actually you know what, I don't really think I want to live as a woman, I'll go back to being Dave".

I worry about my 9 year old son, he is really gentle and caring, never liked trucks, and as neither if his parents do sport he doesn't either. I am working my hardest to make him understand fluidity is the best state.

I'm worried for my younger DD. She is 7, and a year ago went through a stage of wanting to be a boy. She wanted short hair "like a boy" so we let her have it, simply because it's what she wanted. She got teased and teased at school, and has now grown out her hair to be "like a girl".

Perhaps it would be better if she could just be allowed to be herself and not forced into some kind of gender role that she might feel she has to rebel against when she's older.

Happily, her school is too sensible to start mentioning gender dysphoria or whatever.

Toad - what a wonderful post. Really, spot on.

I wanted to be a boy when I was a kid in the 60's. More fun. No stupid dresses, practical short hair. I love being a woman. Just had to find my place in the world.
My son is all over the place. Small, sports-hating... said he wanted to be a girl. Dresses up in his sister's clothes. Is bullied - not for that. Is attracted to girls but is frightened of boys. ??? Can he just be ....

Wtf is cis just going to google it