To despise being called ‘cis’?

[Ostryga]

I’m not ‘cis’. I’m not ‘cisgendered’. I’m literally a woman. I’ve just read a guardian article that calls women seeking IVF cisgendered.

Why????

There's a good illustration of the dynamic on an FWR thread about pronoun badges. It's not enough just to avoid "misgendering", apparently. Not actually using she/her for a male and getting around using pronouns is transphobic. Because women must mouth the chosen words. They can't conscientiously object in any way.

Just going back to the idea of the sex spectrum (which doesn’t actually exist but say for the sake of argument it does); since proponents of this idea are so keen on stressing that sex isn’t just chromosomal but can be hormonal, physical, social etc., how would that actually work…?

Is the tall gay man with a large penis and broad shoulders but low testosterone who likes wearing kilts further along the spectrum than the tall woman with broad shoulders and high testosterone but who likes to present as nonbinary?

What about the trans man who recently transitioned but had two children as a lesbian woman and can’t grow facial hair? Or the woman with a Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome who really likes dresses?

Do you just line them all up like that Mermaids Barbie to G-I-Joe graphic? Or is it more like a plane with four axes, a bit like the graph they used to use at Political Compass to measure where your politics sit?

If I’m a medium woman then can I shift further long the spectrum to extremely woman woman if I try to live more “as” a woman, like add my pronouns to my emails and always wear a dress?

Does getting fat and having menopause shift me back towards the middle? Cos I’m getting chin hairs and my hormones are getting all mixed up.

If I had to get a double mastectomy (like women I know who have the BRCA genes), is it only top surgery and masculinising if you “identify” that it is?

Personally I don't even like the word 'transwoman'. I mean, they're not a kind of woman, they are male. So I think "women and transwomen" is a massive concession already.

I don't use it for the same reason I don't call myself "cis".

I think sometimes people deliberately derail these types of threads in the hope it will be deleted. If you wanted to shame people into silence by making out they hold a minority view it would be very inconvenient for a poll showing the reverse to remain for all to see.

Yes, I agree it is confusing and can be misleading. But if a male wants to use the self descriptor 'transwoman' then I will accede to that. But by the same token, I am a woman.

Of course, if we are talking about certain situations then our sex is going to be unarguable fact. In situations where we need to distinguish sex, then a male is a male - regardless of what words are used, clothes are worn, and what certificates are held, etc.

@beastlyslumber

Personally I don't even like the word 'transwoman'. I mean, they're not a kind of woman, they are male. So I think "women and transwomen" is a massive concession already.

Changing it so transwomen are women and women are ciswomen is just outrageous, really. No other group would accept that fundamental redefinition of who they are.

Totally agree. I think 'transgendered man' is a far more accurate description of a transwoman. A lot of people think 'transwoman' refers to a woman who identifies as trans and when surveys are done they will change their reply when this is clarified.

@Ereshkigalangcleg

There's a good illustration of the dynamic on an FWR thread about pronoun badges. It's not enough just to avoid "misgendering", apparently. Not actually using she/her for a male and getting around using pronouns is transphobic. Because women must mouth the chosen words. They can't conscientiously object in any way.

Anything else is a micro aggression, right?

@foxgoosefinch

Just going back to the idea of the sex spectrum (which doesn’t actually exist but say for the sake of argument it does); since proponents of this idea are so keen on stressing that sex isn’t just chromosomal but can be hormonal, physical, social etc., how would that actually work…?

Is the tall gay man with a large penis and broad shoulders but low testosterone who likes wearing kilts further along the spectrum than the tall woman with broad shoulders and high testosterone but who likes to present as nonbinary?

What about the trans man who recently transitioned but had two children as a lesbian woman and can’t grow facial hair? Or the woman with a Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome who really likes dresses?

Do you just line them all up like that Mermaids Barbie to G-I-Joe graphic? Or is it more like a plane with four axes, a bit like the graph they used to use at Political Compass to measure where your politics sit?

If I’m a medium woman then can I shift further long the spectrum to extremely woman woman if I try to live more “as” a woman, like add my pronouns to my emails and always wear a dress?

Does getting fat and having menopause shift me back towards the middle? Cos I’m getting chin hairs and my hormones are getting all mixed up.

If I had to get a double mastectomy (like women I know who have the BRCA genes), is it only top surgery and masculinising if you “identify” that it is?

Hence the question about what is measured by each axis on the spectrum.

Who defines and arbitrates the degree of maleness or femaleness? And what about those in the very centre.

The entire 'sex is a spectrum' is based on a false premise because it has no solid foundation in provable science. It has been written about in a scientific blog.

Even one of the early people who has been credited with it, Claire Ainsworth, came back and confirmed that she meant "Two sexes, with a continuum of variation in anatomy/physiology."

I look forward though, to the evidence of how this spectrum works and has been built. I am just waiting....

@FOJN

I think sometimes people deliberately derail these types of threads in the hope it will be deleted. If you wanted to shame people into silence by making out they hold a minority view it would be very inconvenient for a poll showing the reverse to remain for all to see.

Yes. I’ve been periodically screenshotting the poll results just in case.

@foxgoosefinch

Just going back to the idea of the sex spectrum (which doesn’t actually exist but say for the sake of argument it does); since proponents of this idea are so keen on stressing that sex isn’t just chromosomal but can be hormonal, physical, social etc., how would that actually work…?

Is the tall gay man with a large penis and broad shoulders but low testosterone who likes wearing kilts further along the spectrum than the tall woman with broad shoulders and high testosterone but who likes to present as nonbinary?

What about the trans man who recently transitioned but had two children as a lesbian woman and can’t grow facial hair? Or the woman with a Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome who really likes dresses?

Do you just line them all up like that Mermaids Barbie to G-I-Joe graphic? Or is it more like a plane with four axes, a bit like the graph they used to use at Political Compass to measure where your politics sit?

If I’m a medium woman then can I shift further long the spectrum to extremely woman woman if I try to live more “as” a woman, like add my pronouns to my emails and always wear a dress?

Does getting fat and having menopause shift me back towards the middle? Cos I’m getting chin hairs and my hormones are getting all mixed up.

If I had to get a double mastectomy (like women I know who have the BRCA genes), is it only top surgery and masculinising if you “identify” that it is?

Excellent post. The trouble is you pick where you identify now don’t you. Actual sex us irrelevant.

I am not exactly an expert in this area, but do cis men also object to being called that? Of course, they have so much less to lose than women. Transmen aren't trying to enter their spaces or sports.

I can understand why @Helloise would want to challenge posters who are using 'everyone is either xx or xy' as an argument, especially as she has a relevant condition herself.

It is wrong to state that everyone is xx or xy. It's not quite as simple as that. But that doesn't mean that biological sex isn't binary.

Kathleen Stock covers DSDs in her book. She concludes that the existence of rare cases that are hard to classify do not mean that sex is a continuum/spectrum. In fact, it is normal for biological classifications to have borderline cases that are less clear.

I'm still not sure what people with DSDs have to do with gender ideology. Unless everyone who has a trans identity also has a DSD? But I don't think that's the case, so it seems irrelevant here, though an interesting thing to learn about.

MildredsMussaurus

There have been some posters with differences in sex development who do drop in on the Sex and Gender threads and are open to questions when they drop in.

I also interact with several on twitter who are very patient and will answer questions, but generally, I learn through watching them interact with other people with different differences. I read the references that they post too.

It does not seem particularly relevant here though, as you have said.

I don’t think men object to cis but of course they have less to loose.

Also, cancer charities calls women “cervix havers” and men “men”. Someone asked if it shouldn’t be “prostate havers” it the charity rejected that. Only women are asked to be inclusive.

I’m not sure cud would be on the radar for most men

But would reject it if it came up

@Doubletoilandtrouble

I don’t think men object to cis but of course they have less to loose.

Also, cancer charities calls women “cervix havers” and men “men”. Someone asked if it shouldn’t be “prostate havers” it the charity rejected that. Only women are asked to be inclusive.

You are right. I think that was what Lancet did recently as well, calling only women "bodies with vaginas".

I am on Twitter a lot for my job, and "cis men" is certainly used a lot as an insult on there. However, I do not think it has the same implications as " cis woman".

I’ve posted about this before, but it’s the difference between implicit and explicit.

Men’s privileges (and indeed disadvantages other than the disadvantages some feel they have by being excluded from explicitly female provisions) are implicit. No one officially says “Men are to be given better jobs, more cultural credibility, less fear, more consideration”, but it nevertheless happens because of how society is structured. So it doesn’t matter if some female people are also classed as men, unless the subconscious attitudes that empower men are triggered, they are not a threat to men’s social privilege.

Women’s provisions are generally explicitly defined as a response to the implicit privilege of men. They are explicitly women-only spaces, protections and opportunities. So it really matters if some male people are classed as women because that is all that is needed to give them access to everything set up for women.

Plus of course the fact that a female in a male space is unlikely to be able to overpower a male person, whereas the opposite is true of a male in a female space. Even if no one actually plans to overpower anyone, the power dynamic and therefore the whole feeling of the space is affected.

Thats actually quite an impressive poll result isnt it

Over 1.5k voting , thats more than voted for lib dem AND labour in my town

@Helloise

Hello. I’m a woman with “the chromosomes of a man”, as you all love to say. There are lots of us. I only found out when I didn’t start puberty normally and I’ve been on HRT my whole life. I have female external sexual organs (though my vagina is quite shallow) and normal looking breasts. I am XY and 100% a woman. Some people like me produce enough estrogen even with the Y chromosome so they go through puberty normally. There are many variations in chromosomes including XY women and XX men and XYX. Many will never know because they look and function as “expected” and there is no reason to ever be tested as they just don’t try to have children or just accept that it doesn’t happen. And even then - there have been cases of XY people with functional uterus/ovaries AND testicular tissue who have had babies.

You can make whatever stupid arguments you want and I know you will but the idea that chromosomes are an infallible indicator of sex OR gender is misinformed and scientifically inaccurate.

Well they are for 99% of people unless you're saying sex doesn't exist, which is nonsense.

It also doesn't help that cis also sounds rather like cyst. It's just a horrible term. It also reduces women to a biological edifice. It defines women by their biology rather than by their personality/individuality, which ironically runs counter to how trans people wish to be seen. I don't want to be pigeon holed simply by my biological sex. I want to be known simply as me - the person that I am. I know a person who is 'trans' and I avoid using that term in relation to them (but couldn't think of a better alternative on this forum). It is a label but does not tell you anything more about the wonderful individual that they are. In my experience, many trans people don't want a song and dance. They just simply want to lead a normal low profile life without garnering attention. Unfortunately much of this divisive nonsense is dreamt up by woke do gooders, who do more harm than good.

@MildredsMussaurus

I can understand why *@Helloise* would want to challenge posters who are using 'everyone is either xx or xy' as an argument, especially as she has a relevant condition herself.

It is wrong to state that everyone is xx or xy. It's not quite as simple as that. But that doesn't mean that biological sex isn't binary.

Kathleen Stock covers DSDs in her book. She concludes that the existence of rare cases that are hard to classify do not mean that sex is a continuum/spectrum. In fact, it is normal for biological classifications to have borderline cases that are less clear.

I'm still not sure what people with DSDs have to do with gender ideology. Unless everyone who has a trans identity also has a DSD? But I don't think that's the case, so it seems irrelevant here, though an interesting thing to learn about.

I first heard this in law school, and it works for a lot of situations:

"The fact that green exists doesn't mean that there's no difference between blue and yellow."

@Helloise You're the one who is on the wrong side of history. I think in 10 years time you will look back on these posts, and your sneering rudeness and incivility and feel quite ashamed.

As for your condition, it is a very rare anomaly that does not count in the context of this discussion, which is that 99.99999999999% of people are one of either two chromosomes. You take it as read that anomalies don't count in this situation.

Personally, I think they've all gone down the rabbit hole....

Inclouding anti-vaxxers

Can't be bothered with it all actually.

Life is hard enough, never mind the shit-show that is Covid.

Don't let others ruin your peace...

@ShirleyPhallus

Yes, I agree. I really fundamentally disagree being labelled as the opposite to a trans person. There is a word that means “not trans woman”. That word is “woman”.

Funny how everyone is asked to respect pronouns / TWAW but the same respect isn’t given to stopping using the word cis

Absolutely agree.

Funny how no one cared this much when we were called 'Sir' on official letters.

"The fact that green exists doesn't mean that there's no difference between blue and yellow."

Brilliant!