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!

Really 🙄

It means neither transgender nor gender fluid. I am cisgendered and heterosexual and left-handed and blue-eyed. None of these terms are offensive, they are descriptive.

You know exactly what it means. You just don't want trans to be a thing, either through fear or bigotry or both.

It's a non-word to me. I'm not cis either. I'm just a woman. But then I don't ever use the "gender" word either - 99% of times people really mean sex.

I'm currently identifying as human.

I don't object to anyone calling themselves trans anything.

I want them to respect what I want to call myself, something I've done for decades.

And PLEASE can we knock it on the head with this "assigned at birth" bollocks - people were either born male or born female. Nobody assigned them anything.

I've never even heard of it. How do you pronounce it? Is it like 'kiss'? Or 'sis'?

I am not cis as I do not have a gender identity, I am a woman and I have my own personality.

I've never even heard of it. How do you pronounce it? Is it like 'kiss'? Or 'sis'?

**. Have you just signed up to this site?

It's 'cis' as in 'sister'.

If you want to be a bit piss taking subversive, you could pronounce it as 'kiss'.

pisacake

Great post.

I experience the world as a woman

Nicely put, much better than "feel like a woman"
I don't know what "female" feels like. I just am.

saga that's picking two descriptors applying to one class (e.g. class "people" attribute "gay/straight" or "black/Asian"; or class "women" attribute "old/young")

The thing with the "cis" prefix is it totally changes the class because it starts from the position that e.g. trans man and cis man both belong to the same class: men. Using "cis" changes the definition of man from adult human male to some kind of gender identity based class.

As many (most?) of us feel more defined by our physical sex than our gender it's forcing us to accept a label that doesn't apply to us.

Trans/cis could work if the suffix was the sex e.g. using trans woman to mean a female who identified as a man. Because in that case the attribute doesn't change the class.

Hope that makes sense.

I am not cis as I do not have a gender identity, I am a woman and I have my own personality

If someone says they are transsexual, is there a word to describe people who aren't transsexual?

I am not cis as I do not have a gender identity. It is offensive if applied to me without my consent as it makes assumptions about my feelings.

Hope that makes sense

Still doesn't tell me the word that someone who is transsexual can use to describe someone who isn't transsexual though.

I hate the term. I live in fear of being told at work that we have to use these terms as I am not a confrontational person but I would have to say something. Oh well, sufficient unto the day.

Many of the transactivists I've seen in action on Twitter seem to think it is somehow limiting to define someone in terms of their biological sex. It isn't. It's just a fact. It's no more limiting than saying that someone has blue eyes or is left-handed.

What is limiting is saying that gender roles are real and have to be adhered to, so if you have a biological male who doesn't behave like a man is expected to he must really be a woman, and vice versa. That is just such obvious nonsense that I can't understand how anybody's fallen for it other than religious fundamentalists and other extremists.

Why don't we just get rid of the gender stereotypes instead of pushing people down the route of hormones and surgery or turning their lives (and their famililes') upside down so they can live as they feel comfortable?

Why do they need a single word Saga? We don't have a word for 'someone who isn't black' or 'someone who isn't blonde' or 'someone who isn't an amputee'.

I'm a white cis heterosexual woman. There's nothing wrong with any of these descriptors, and the only reason I can see for objecting to its use is that people who don't like it, don't want to be confronted with their relative privilege compared to a marginalised and vilified group of people.

If you don't like the use of cis to denote the opposite of trans, do you also have an issue with straight as opposite of gay?

MrsKCrumpet

Are you serious? Someone who isn't black? Could be described as white (or whatever other ethnicity they have), someone who isn't blonde would be described by the colour of their hair, someone who isn't an amputee - how about able-bodied?

Cis is supposed to mean 'not trans' but it is a lot more loaded than that as it is defined as that you identify with the gender role you were assigned at birth. Plenty of people (myself included) don't identify with the gender role that women are supposed to fulfill but don't think that makes us any less of a woman because of it. Everyone from butch women to camp man are classed as cis but how can they be? The term doesn't make any sense because it confuses sex and gender.

In practice though, I find the term is almost exclusively used to refer to women and has become a shorthand for (natal/biological) 'woman' which puts a different slant on all the slogans like 'smash the cis-tem',

In the same way, TERF has become shorthand for 'any woman who doesn't do/say/think exactly what she's told to and therefore deserves a good punch'.

We don't have a word for 'someone who isn't black' or 'someone who isn't blonde' or 'someone who isn't an amputee

I am transsexual. I am guessing most people on here aren't transsexual. So what are you then?

Don't like cis, but don't like normal either

I don’t mind ciswoman/man being a thing but I am not one as I do not have a gender nor believe in it. If people insist on lableing me then I’d prefer the term “non gendered” I suppose.

There's nothing wrong with any of these descriptors, and the only reason I can see for objecting to its use is that people who don't like it, don't want to be confronted with their relative privilege

Have you read the other posts? I object to being called 'cis' because it is factually incorrect. 'Trans' means doesn't feel that their gender matches their sex' so if 'cis' is 'not trans' it must mean 'does feel that their gender matches their sex'. (Happy to be corrected, of you don't agree with my definition of trans please say).
I certainly do not feel that 'my gender matches my sex' as I don't have a gender identity. Therefore I can't be described as 'cis' and to do so would be offensive because it's not accepting my own view of myself.

I am a natal female, a biological woman, with no gender identity. The word for me used to be 'woman'. Now there is no word. There is no way of describing the group I belong to and that scares me because I'd you can't define my group, how can we be counted and have our needs met?

A friend was banging on about how she likes Scandinavian noir stuff but it has a "very white, cis narrative, which concerns me" I wanted to say WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT but she is very "I am more intelligent than you" so I nodded along....should have called her out on it

I think it's a ridiculous term. But I have never heard it in RL thankfully.