To not really know what 'cis' means?

[BinarySearchTree]

I mean, of course I've looked it up, and I nod along whenever anyone describes me as cis.

But I don't really know what it means. I am a woman. I experience the world as a woman. I look like a woman and I am happy to be described as a woman. I could not be described as a tomboy. I support women's rights and equality.

But I wouldn't say I 'identify' with the female gender. I find it quite constraining and oppressive. But I would say I am a woman. Am I cis? Am I not? I don't understand!

I have told ds if he refers to me as 'cis' again, he won't like the consequences.

Adara, if I were boss of LGB, I'd probably include asexuality.
None of the others though.

Trans is identity related, intersex is medical related, queer...well the less said about that the better

LGBA. I might even start using that. One, both or none.

(And if we're using Q as Questioning, then you're either L/G, het or bi. Not a mysterious "other")

Beyond but, apart from fundamentalist religions where you are supposed to get married and push out kids, nobody is oppressed for not holding another person's hand on the street.

I get that asexuality is a thing, and that asexuals may want a community, but they aren't and shouldn't be under the LGB umbrella, because it's a different thing. There's also a bit of a streak in younger asexual discourse about dirty allosexuals (ie people who aren't asexual) and their dirty allosexual sex, and I think most LGB people, and certainly us older ones, have already had enough people in our lives telling us that gay sex is dirty, so that's unlikely to go down well.

I mean, I'm already so very tired of straight couples where the woman cuts her hair short, declares she's nonbinary, and BINGO they are a very brave queer couple transgressing patriarchal norms who should totally be centred in the queer community, no thank you aaaaaaaargh.

That's a very fair point Annie. Bit of underthinking by me there - forgive me, it's early(ish)
You're right, I was only thinking of it being a 'thing' and not of the actual point of LGB communities

Thank you, Beyond!

Why does sexuality need to be included in LGBT? Are people discriminated against on the basis of being asexual?
From that perspective I can see why T is in with LGB, but the direction it's gone in over the years is shocking. Overegging the discrimination and risks they face whereas historically I think the risks to gay people have been underestimated (and probably still are).
In general I think when an oppressed class tries to talk about that oppression it is minimised/disbelieved/dismissed. Presumably to uphold that oppression.

The fact the opposite happens with some trans issues is telling I think.

I don't see why T is included. And also don't see what discrimination anyone would suffer for being asexual?

LGB people have enough of their own problems without being expected to sort out everyone elses. And what they (especially lesbians) are being asked to do it put aside their own issues completely to support an ideology that actually says their own sexuality is transphobic!

I regard "cis" as an arrogant assumption that some people make about other people, often strangers. It is an assumption that is particularly harmful to women and girls (i.e. female people). "Cis" is used to pigeon-hole the following sections of society:

(a) any person assumed to not feel any unease about their body's sexual parts (i.e. their anatomical primary and secondary sexual characteristics) - BUT many girls and women who are NOT transgendered DO feel unease or even distress about their female body parts

and/or

(b) any person assumed to not feel any unease about their gender identity (i.e. their feeling that they are either a girl, boy, man or woman, or their absense of any such feeling)

and/or

(c) any person assumed to not feel any unease about their gender role or, more accurately, their sex role (i.e. the sex-segregated expectations of behavour that society places on people) - BUT many girls and women who are NOT transgendered DO dislike such expectations.

Examples of people who have been assumed to be "cis":
a) people who are not transgendered but who have kept this information private
b) some transmen and transwomen who pass well in their desired gender role but who do not publicly declare to strangers that they happen to be transgendered.

The users of "cis" usually claim that it is just an inoffensive, factual, objective, accurate, neutral term to harmlessly and ever-so-helpfully distinguish between people who are not transgendered ("cis") and people who are transgendered (i.e. trans).

I do not accept that "cis" is these innocent harmless things because when someone labels another person as "cis", they are showing their support for transgenderism ( the patriarchy-supporting political ideology behind gender identity politics, transsexuality, and male crossdressing fetishism). They are buying into a political agenda. They are not primarily showing their support for the lovely transwomen they know who "just want to get on with life".

"Cis woman" and "cis lesbian" are important parts of misogynistic and homophobic transgenderism political ideology and the "cis" prefix is deliberately used to further transgenderism's aim of relegating women to "cis women" and relegating lesbians to "cis lesbians", mere subsets of women and lesbians. Women is becoming a category that women must share with transwomen, whether women like it or not. Lesbian is becoming a category that lesbians must share with "trans lesbians" (i.e. transgender-identifying males who want sexual intercourse with females), whether lesbians like it or not. This relegation of women in patriarchy's gender hierarchy is causing a reduction in women's rights.

One reason why almost all men don't worry about being called "cis men" is because it carries no risk of loss of rights for them.

I think (following discussion on another thread) the fundamental issue is using the term woman in any way to refer to males with gender identity issues.

Unfortunately to say you won't call a trans identified male a woman seems really really horrible and exclusionary against e.g. Jane from Accounts who used to be Jason.

So we are in a confusing catch 22. I think the answer for me is probably to use the term "females" even though it's slightly dehumanizing.

It is very important to me to be clear in what I'm saying so I do need some way to separate trans from non trans on occasion.

@QuentinSummers

The words you are searching for are 'women' and 'trans women'.

I don't want to be referred to as a 'female' unless you are qualifying that with 'adult human' because I'm not a female cat or a female horse.

Cis is just so trans activists can claim women as their own. Because if trans women are women then women have to be something else.

You also seem to be confused about sexuality. Lesbian, gay and bisexual are sexual orientations. Trans is not. It is about gender expression and stereotypes. And, if you think about how many people are not heterosexual, yet how slowly legislation is pushed through - compared to how many trans people there are how quickly theirs is being pushed through, you must be able to see why people are upset? LGB is being co-opted as the closest bandwagon to jump on. And it's not fair.

QuentinSummers

It is very important to me to be clear in what I'm saying
Good. As it is for many of us. We agree. So let's start with such shared, agreed clarity.

Unfortunately to say you won't call a trans identified male a woman seems really really horrible and exclusionary against e.g. Jane from Accounts who used to be Jason.
It's not horrible to not wish to not be clear. Man who believes they are a woman is not a woman. They are a man who believes they are a woman. Or a trans. That's the clear noun.
It is not exclusionary to not refer to someone by a noun they are not. If I do not refer to a cat as a dog, I am not being exclusionary or horrible to cats. I am being accurate.
If Jane from accounts used to be Jason, if I refer to Jane from accounts who used to be Jason I am being factually correct and accurate again. If Jane from accounts used to have long hair, but now she has short hair and I'm describing her to a colleague for them to find her, describing the change in name is no different to describing the change in hair.

So we are in a confusing catch 22.
I don't think we are.

I think the answer for me is probably to use the term "females" even though it's slightly dehumanizing.
I prefer to use men, women and trans.

so I do need some way to separate trans from non trans on occasion.
Agreed. Men, women and trans is a perfect way to separate them.

Cis means fuck all it is a load of made up tripe

You also seem to be confused about sexuality. Lesbian, gay and bisexual are sexual orientations.
I'm not at all confused about sexuality, thanks very much. I think you are talking about another thread too

It's not horrible to not wish to not be clear. Man who believes they are a woman is not a woman. They are a man who believes they are a woman. Or a trans. That's the clear noun.
For many people, if they were to refer to Jane from Accounts as "a trans" they would be subject to disciplinary at work.

Also, if I used the term "a trans" or "trans identified males and the pronoun "she" (female pronoun) is that not similarly allowing trans identified males to appropriate woman hood? Use of preferred pronouns seems to be a courtesy most people extend and I'm wondering why that's deemed appropriate when other terminology isn't?

QuentinSummers
It's not horrible to not wish to not be clear. Man who believes they are a woman is not a woman. They are a man who believes they are a woman. Or a trans. That's the clear noun.
For many people, if they were to refer to Jane from Accounts as "a trans" they would be subject to disciplinary at work.

But that is not what you said. You did not say it was unacceptable because of how the legal system is currently set up in matters like this (which none of us have to agree with, by the way).

You sad that it was horrible and exclusionary to refer to "Jane from accounts who used to be called Jason" as "Jane from accounts who used to be Jason".

How so?

Also, if I used the term "a trans" or "trans identified males and the pronoun "she" (female pronoun) is that not similarly allowing trans identified males to appropriate woman hood? Use of preferred pronouns seems to be a courtesy most people extend and I'm wondering why that's deemed appropriate when other terminology isn't?
Sorry, genuinely don't understand this part to respond!

None of it is acceptable. None of it. Pronouns, cis.

If you’re going to get fired, then obviously you have to use them, though.

I’m sure everybody wishes that wasn’t the case.

But, in an arena where your job is not in jeopardy, we should use the correct terminology.

Gradually, the issue will be highlighted and, hopefully, at some point debate will be had.

At DHs school one teenage boy decided he is a girl and wanted to be treated as a girl. He would not follow the uniform policy and wanted to wear micro mini skirts-the girls are not allowed to do so. He was wearing crop tops which no on3 is allowed to. He said he wanted to get changed for PE with the girls and use the girls toilets. His social worker said they had to let him. It ended up at School Gvs who agreed with the Head that a private changing room and toilet would be made available. They were both refurbished at silly cost. He then said on a trip abroad he wanted to stay in the room with the girls. Parents were up in arms and girls were upset. They found him a single room in the end which he refused and when he was told he would not be able to go said he would take it but his parents refused to pay and the school had to pay for that.
6 months later he has decided he is a boy after all.

I said "seems really really horrible and exclusionary"
Because to most people, who aren't as read up on this stuff and haven't though about it, if I went to work and called Jane a trans, he, and refused to call them a woman, they would think I was being unfair and I could be in big trouble for being "transphobic

And that's where we are. For people who dont get the issues, calling trans women "trans identified males" and refusing to call them women goes against their diversity training and very probably against their own values. So it's not going to help introduce them to the debate.

I don’t t want to be dehumanised at all, not even ‘slightly’. Not just because I think it’s a slippery slope to full dehumanisation. I’ve just been watching the handmaid’s tale.

Lulu I think that is one of the femanism arguments. Man wants to be woman but dresses in a very overtly sexual way, and could be argued a very male view of what women should wear. Iv personally experienced this in work.

Datun, I've been busy most of the day and I'm out ATM. Have seen your comment, but can't really reply properly tonight.

I refer to myself as cis, I don't find it offensive (I feel I have an innate gender identity of female and was born with a uterus/ovaries/probably xx chromosomes). IMO cis has little to do with gender stereotypes, but I understand that isn't the case for many people here.

If people don't want to be called cis then they can ask not to be, although in the case of mass publication or legislation that might be tricky.

I also think A should be in LGBTA, because Asexuals in same-sex relationships face the same discrimination that other same-sex relationships face even if they are not having sex. Asexuals in different sex/gender relationships are different, but then we welcome bisexuals in different sex/gender relationships in the community because their current relationship doesn't define their bisexuality. But yeh, not quite what the thread is about.

Asexuals in same-sex relationships face the same discrimination that other same-sex relationships face even if they are not having sex
But that's homophobia. They are already covered by LGBT by virtue of being in a same sex relationship