To wonder what the point of cisgender is?

[Squatternutbosh]

I’ve just read an article where cisgender is described as “someone who identifies as the sex they were assigned at birth”. Is this an actual thing? Why is this even given a label? Surely if you were born male or female and you live as a male or female then this is what you “identify” as. (If you even feel the need to identify as anything, rather than just living your life as you).

It seems like everything must be given a label these days. The worlds gone fucking mad.

Is Cis used for men too?
Not that I have ever heard anyone used it in real life. I imagine it's present in lots of Council and Healthcare documents, drawn up by committees though..

I am not massively offended by it, it's just that it can't be an accurate term.
It's not the same as saying "straight/gay";

If I say my friend Bob is gay, I'm saying Bob is attracted to men not women. If I say Bob is a cis man I am saying Bob is comfortable that his likes and dislikes match his genitals..? Or that Bob is happy to be defined by masculine gender norms...
Well, if Bob is my friend I probably know he doesn't have gender dysphoria but those other things are quite an assumption.
Quite different from saying Bob prefers snails to oysters.

“It’s just made up, unnecessary bollocks.”

It is unnecessary TO YOU. For other people it is a useful term.

By the way, all terminology is “made up”.

The term "cisgender" is a crock of shit for a number of reasons.

• It assumes everyone has an internal gender identity, and that this is a real thing. Many people don't have any internal gender identity at all, and many reject the idea of gender identity altogether as a sexist and homophobic social construct.

• "Cisgender" is there to normalise the idea that women and girls have some sort of innate structural privilege over men, if those men are gender nonconforming. This is obviously ludicrous.

Some terminology is more made up than others..

- "Cisgender" is there to normalise the idea that women and girls have some sort of innate structural privilege over men, if those men are gender nonconforming. This is obviously ludicrous.

Yes. See the way that terms like 'cis privilege' are spat at women who dare to want to discuss their boundaries and rights.

Another nonsenicle term, to add to the many out there.

No point to me. I've always been fine with being a woman. Im uninterested in any new label so I don't use the C one or buy into whatever it's supposed to mean

I mean what better way to reinforce damaging gender stereotypes than by having 'cis gender' as a 'sexual orientation' akin to being straight?

But what is 'feeling like a woman'?

Fortunately for myself, I am a cis woman. My body doesn't feel wrong, female pronouns don't make me feel uncomfortable, I've never experienced dysphoria. For that I am extremely lucky. It's not really a picnic even once you take out the discrimination.

Being cis does not, and has never, meant that I exactly fit the gender stereotypes attached to a "woman". Gender stereotypes are BS. If I got a buzz cut and threw out all my skirts and got a high-ranking office job, I wouldn't stop being a woman. Being a trans woman is the same; it means that they identify as a woman, not that they identify as someone who wears high heeled shoes and likes pink. They have the strong conviction that they are indeed a woman, even if their sex doesn't correlate with that.

As a cis woman, I can't tell you how it feels to have that conviction, because I don't know. A trans person might have a better answer as to what it feels like, but there aren't many on Mumsnet, oddly.

All I do know is that I will never be able to feel how they feel, so it's stupid for me to try and understand. All I can really do is exercise my human decency; be compassionate and respectful and when they want to talk about it, listen.

That probably doesn't help you at all when it comes to a direct response to your question. But I can tell you that when I was still struggling with the concept of being trans or genderfluid or agender, my turning point was realising that your question doesn't really matter that much.

I would never be able to understand what they felt like, and that's just the way it is. The ability to realise the world is wider than your own experiences is an important one, and someone else's gender will always be outside of your experience. The fact that I do not understand their experience of gender means that my understanding is limited, not that their experience is invalid. I cannot say that their gender is not real, because I cannot feel or understand it.

Maybe you'll get some good answers on here about what it actually feels like. If not, I daresay trans people have posted about their experiences elsewhere online.

And ok - if gender (not sex) and it’s unpleasant stereotypes and society’s rules for how each sex should look, behave etc are assigned at birth - then I’m definitely not cis as i have never understood, wanted or embraced the gender rules expected of females.

The whole “cis” nonsense arose because trans activists are born men, with Y chromosomes and male genitalia. The only way they can model “womanness” is by adopting all the tired old feminine stereotypes that we feminists have been rejecting for decades. They try to insist that being a woman has nothing to do with X chromosomes and is all about submitting to patriarchal “gender norms” of dresses, make up, heels, giggling, a preference for pink over blue, dolls over trucks.
The term cis is therefore an insult, labelling all real women as accepting the “gender identity” of these crap old stereotypes. Like hell will we be pushed back to the 1950’s.

I'm pretty sure there are trans people on here.

Fortunately for myself, I am a cis woman. My body doesn't feel wrong, female pronouns don't make me feel uncomfortable, I've never experienced dysphoria.

So being cis means you dont have gender dysphoria? Isn't that a transphobic thing to say?

I would never be able to understand what they felt like, and that's just the way it is.

rosesandflowers1 you can speak for yourself, but that's not true of everyone else. How about all the people who have thought of themselves as trans, or potentially trans, then have come to a rejection of gender identity as a thing entirely?

And you don't appear to be aware of the very many transwomen who have loudly declared that they are entirely comfortable with their bodies, thanks, including their working male genitalia, but that they feel like a woman so they are one. Indeed, in many circles, to assume one has to be dysphoric ro be trans is considered transphobic.

See the way that terms like 'cis privilege' are spat at women who dare to want to discuss their boundaries and rights.

Well, in comparison to being trans, being cis is a privilege.

You can't really do a structure as to which marginalised group is the worst. If you're white, you are privileged in comparison to a POC. However, a straight POC has some privilege that a gay white person won't. It's far too complex and would probably lead to people trying to quantify oppression - exceedingly difficult and probably damaging.

Instead of trying to work out some kind of oppression hierarchy, we should be trying to eradicate all kinds of oppression. However, like I said up thread, if I was told I had cis privilege I wouldn't be upset. For one thing, I do. But more importantly, it's probably being used in one of these two scenarios:

1. I'm forgetting that in this context I live a very privileged life and I'm being offensive, shouting over trans people's actual experiences or failing to recognise the limitations of my own understanding. In which case I should be reminded that in this discussion, I am not the expert.

2. They're actually saying it as an insult or in a derogatory way. Like I said up thread, not nice, but not nice like I might have "rich woman" spat at me. The other day a woman called me "straight girl" as an insult. It wasn't kind of her to do that, but I would be a twat to be offended by it. Because what that communicates is my life might be better than someone else's in that context, and they're pissed at the injustice or pissed that they feel I'm not recognising it.

So, even when cis transfers itself from being a descriptor to being an insult, no, I don't find it offensive.

I’m just waiting for some idiot to call me a cis woman, I will give a classic mn tinkly laugh and reply “oh you are funny! No need for the cis at all thanks.”

Fortunately for myself, I am a cis woman. My body doesn't feel wrong, female pronouns don't make me feel uncomfortable, I've never experienced dysphoria.

Funny that, I feel the same. Because I am a woman.

I also have a big problem with the use of "assigned at birth". Sex is not assigned, it's merely observed and noted.

roses the actual condition of gender dysphoria must be very difficult to cope with, but it's existence does not mean that everyone who doesn't have it gets a new label. Are we going to label people without eating disorders as non-anorexics because it's shit to be anorexic?

It makes no sense. Not everyone who "identifies" as "trans" has GD, and not everyone who doesn't is "comfortable" in the "assigned" gender.
You can try and be as kind and understanding as possible, we all should, but we don't have to compromise our own personal boundaries because some other people might feel hurt.

Gender stereotypes are BS. If I got a buzz cut and threw out all my skirts and got a high-ranking office job, I wouldn't stop being a woman. Being a trans woman is the same; it means that they identify as a woman, not that they identify as someone who wears high heeled shoes and likes pink. They have the strong conviction that they are indeed a woman, even if their sex doesn't correlate with that.

So what is it that transwomen have in common with women then? What is it?! This is a very important question that needs a very clear answer, in the current state we are in. Just 'oh ask a transwoman about their feelz' doesn't cut the mustard when we are talking about social policy, it just doesn't.

I know nothing about any trans movement but I hear more about it from the people opposed to it than from "trans activists" themselves. Who the hell cares if someone invented a word that you don't think is useful? I couldn't care less if someone called me not trans or cisgendered. It makes no difference to my life. Why not just get over it?

Well, in comparison to being trans, being cis is a privilege.

How is it a privilege?

(I mean, if you take the working assumption that "cis" is a real thing, which I absolutely do not, but for the sake of argument I will try.)

Well, in comparison to being trans, being cis is a privilege.

Oh yes, I forgot, the most oppressed of all the oppressed. Women's oppression pales into comparison when it comes to transgender people, and sure, women could have just 'identified' out of that oppression anyway if womanhood is something you can identify into anyway.

I wonder how privileged Pip Bunce feels?

“Cis” is necessary to change the definition of woman from how it has been understood - well, forever really as simply meaning an adult female and completely linked to female biology. Without cis “woman” cannot be changed to now mean a feeling, something that either male or female people identify. So you have “woman” as nothing more than an identity made up of subsets of trans women and cis women - both groups equal and valid as “women”.

I reject the definition of women being changed to mean nothing really, just a feeling, an identity that can be changed or switched about from day to day. Especially as this change is pushed by a tiny group of men for a tiny group of men.

Well, in comparison to being trans, being cis is a privilege

In what way?

A white, middle class, university educated, straight man in his early twenties, brought up with all the privilege that entails. He’s a bit of a lad, not adverse to a bit of “banter”..

Then...he decides he is a woman.

He has a girlfriend, he is propelled to the front in politics and given places on all women shortlist, ahead of women. He is fawned over and given power - at the expense, actually, of a lesbian of huge political and life experience.

Hypothetical, of course...