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Survey at work using the term cis woman

1000 replies

SuzanneRogers · 06/10/2024 13:16

So I filled all the survey, very happy at work, public secror.
Note that this survey is outsourced by another survey organisation.

Then I come to the last bit please describe your role in the organisation, did that, and then how would you describe your sex or gender?

( Can’t remember exactly how the question was phrased )but the only option for women was “cis woman.”

Quite cross about this and I’m not sure how to best articulate this to my managers who, to be fair never use this term and will not have had any input to designing the survey. Any input welcome.

OP posts:
Thread gallery
21
ArabellaScott · 06/10/2024 21:19

SpudleyLass · 06/10/2024 21:18

Ah, you're back. Did you read my question to you asking how we can differentiate between men pretending to be trans and those genuinely trans?

Layla Moran does it. She looks in their souls.

Helleofabore · 06/10/2024 21:20

ArabellaScott · 06/10/2024 21:17

The irony of a man called Dadjoke mansplaining to women on Mumsnet why they should just accept what he's decided to call them is quite something.

It really really is.

And it shows exactly how misogynistic the movement that supports gender identity theory is.

Fordian · 06/10/2024 21:21

Tearsandsmiles · 06/10/2024 13:23

Totally annoys me too - I am happy for anyone to be trans or to use any prefix or pronoun that they wish.

But mine is and will always be ‘women’ or ‘female’. No need to have ‘cis’ attached to it - it is perfectly ok as it is.

I respect everyone’s right to use the gender and pronouns that they wish - but it works both ways… I don’t push my ideas / labels / titles on your gender identity - so don’t push your ‘cis’ label onto me.

Whereas I don't respect 'preferred pronouns'. If you're white, I won't accept that you call yourself black, appropriating all that belongs exclusively to being black, not the 'identify-yourself-out-of-being-white' trope.

In exactly the same way, she/her belongs exclusively to being female.

I won't go along with gat damaging shite.

SinnerBoy · 06/10/2024 21:21

SpudleyLass · Today 20:41

All I can say is, if going to hell means not being near those kind of people for eternity, then they really need to work on their threats.

Newcastle used to be notorious for dreary, Saturday brimstone and Hellfire evangelists. You remind me of a time when I was hanging around at The Monument and a loon set up stall, complete with a P.A. to harangue the pigeons and innocent shoppers.

Before long, he rounded on me to to demand, "Have you accepted Jesus as your personal saviour? For if you have not, you will burn for eternity!"

"Erm, what....?"

Waffle waffle, mad bullshit, specious sophistry etc etc and if not, Satan will burn you for eternity! You will have no hope!

"So you mean that you'll be up there and I'll be down there forever?"

YES!

"Well, thank God for that, I won't have to put up with nuts like you for eternity."

... Further mad rants and dire imprecations as I re-lit my roll up.

Manxexile · 06/10/2024 21:22

DogsAkimbo · 06/10/2024 16:44

It's like complaining about being asked to identify your race and foaming at the mouth because "just because she's a black woman doesn't mean I'm a white woman". It's ludicrous.

No it would be like a white woman identifying as a black woman and enforcing surveys that say ‘cis black woman’ as a category. That sound ok?

I missed this earlier but this is exactly the right analogy and not the meaningless one that @KeyboardMash came up with.

I'm always suspicious of people who seem perfectly happy for men to appropriate the category women for themselves, but are probbaly the first people to throw a fit at any other form of cultural appropriation they see as oppressive

Catiette · 06/10/2024 21:22

Good catch, @TofuTart! After 20 pages and several heartfelt essays standing against your dismissive one-liners, I was careless and attempted to soften my strength of feeling with a gentle aside, uncomfortably conscious that the thread is rapidly devolving into swearing...

...and of course thereby gifted you an easy get-out.

Had you been waiting for this for the last 3 hours? You're shameless, and do yourself no favours. Operation Let Them Speak exists for a reason.

Now I've got your attention at last, I'd love to know your responses to my cumulative pages of argument?

Savingthehedgehogs · 06/10/2024 21:22

Cis will soon be categorised along with other horrendous racial slurs, as it is divisive language that is designed to harm and injure. It is designed to degrade and dehumanise.

DadJoke · 06/10/2024 21:24

throwaway199 · 06/10/2024 21:06

What is offensive about it? It would be very helpful if you could explain why it is offensive as it looks clear and concise to me.

You would find “what was your sex assigned at birth” offensive. I really don’t need to hear why again.

ArabellaScott · 06/10/2024 21:25

Helleofabore · 06/10/2024 21:19

It is a meaningless term. It was repurposed by someone and others used it but the reality is, it was never fit for the purpose that they tried to make it fit.

Plus, it is actually an act of abuse to recategorise society in this way. As I posted just up thread, it is not a neutral act to label someone or groups in society as having a belief that they do not have. That is exactly what 'cis' does. It does not mean 'people who do not have a transgender identity'. It forces philosophical belief.

It forces linguistically, that all of society has a 'gender identity'. When this is false. Most people don't believe in this philosophical belief. Yet, the forced term 'cis' means 'those people whose gender identity matches their sex'.

There are so many issues with the word 'cis'.

Yet, people are labelled all sorts of offensive and derogatory things for rejecting it.

Cis is akin to 'heathen' or the Arabic word for non believer that is also used as an offensive term.

SpudleyLass · 06/10/2024 21:25

DadJoke · 06/10/2024 21:24

You would find “what was your sex assigned at birth” offensive. I really don’t need to hear why again.

I mean, you stand by those who get offended when their natal sex is noted, observed and remarked upon as an advantage in certain areas.

This statement feels a bit hypocritical.

DadJoke · 06/10/2024 21:27

ArabellaScott · 06/10/2024 21:17

The irony of a man called Dadjoke mansplaining to women on Mumsnet why they should just accept what he's decided to call them is quite something.

It would be incredibly patronising of me not to disagree with gender critical people just because they are women.

Hunglikeapolevaulter · 06/10/2024 21:27

Oh, wait, it doesn't. Your objection is because it acknowledges trans people. Can't have that, can we ?🙄

You can have a trans category for them to check without insisting that women or men have a cis prefix.

Catiette · 06/10/2024 21:28

(Chews gum in a corner, watching the debate evolve and hoping that the continuation of such shocking playground analogy will entice back out the righteously indignant and irony-resistant @TofuTart to address my less troubling and lengthier posts, where considered, earnest reflection so consistently failed...)

AgileGreenSeal · 06/10/2024 21:29

Evilartsgrad · 06/10/2024 20:46

As is prejudice.

Where’s the prejudice in saying
“I’m an adult human female. I’m a woman”.

TheHereticalOne · 06/10/2024 21:29

louise9422 · 06/10/2024 14:08

No need to be patronising. Trust me, I really do get it. I’m a very well-educated person in a high paying job.

There is no evil trans-movement trying to eradicate women and women’s spaces. There are people born into the wrong bodies, who are terribly unhappy who, thanks to various means, are able to become who they want they want to be, and that makes them happy.

What impact does it really have on everyone else’s life? Very little. I’d rather people around me be able to be happy and identify as whatever they want than be unhappy all their lives. If that means I have to tick ‘cis woman’ on some poxy form once a year, then so be it.

I respect your opinion, but in my opinion, there really isn’t any risk here.

edited for typo

Edited

With respect, you may be well-educated in the sense of having higher qualifications and still deeply ignorant on many topics. I don't say this to be insulting, as I would absolutely apply that to myself in all sorts of cases. Your level of pay has absolutely nothing to do with the price of fish (again, as someone very nicely paid myself).

With those preliminaries out of the way, the rest of your response reads to me as though your understanding of this topic is roughly, "if you don't do this some people will be sad, I can't see how it affects me, and I can't immediately think how this might affect fundamental mechanisms and safeguards of society. Therefore everyone should just do it. Be kind." It would be like me wading into a topic on the Israel-Palestine conflict, knowing full well that I know only the bare basics of the history and contemporary events (which, I'm slightly embarrassed to say, is very much the case) and confidently stating that people should just not kill other people because war is bad and it's all very sad and therefore [Israel/Palestine] should obviously just stop, while shaking my head and wondering why everyone can't just be as level-headed and kind as me.

You've acknowledged the issues with women's sports. Have you given any thought to men being housed in women's prisons (see sexual assaults that have occurred in the UK and rapes, impregnation and prisons now supplying condoms across the pond)? Have you kept up with the lack of female-only provision in rape crisis centres (see ERCC)? Have you considered the legal issues now faced when transwomen are put forward to perform as appropriate same "gender" medical practitioners for intimate medical exams or strip-searches, and/or insist on women performing these on them? Have you kept up with the now countless successful employment tribunals of women discriminated against, harassed and forced out of employment for stating in the mildest and most reasonable of terms concerns about, for example, safeguarding, LGB rights or data integrity given men identifying as women and being treated for all purposes as such (with or without a GRC)? Have you considered the difficulties thrown into equal pay legislation by including men in the "female" pool for consideration and women in the male "comparator" pool? Have you considered the little girls, let alone women, now expected to share changing rooms with naked men and boys (at school, in leisure centres and so on)? Have you considered that women and girls are now prevented from raising the alarm when a man follows them into the toilet? Have you considered schools that now house boys in south the girls on school trips or in girls tents for Brownies and Guides without informing the girls' parents, thereby contravention standard safeguarding procedures on the basis of sex, while pretending they are not doing so? Have you considered the women and girls who, for religious reasons, must now simply quietly self-exclude from these many areas of public life in order to avoid contravening their religion? Have you considered the rest who self-exclude simply so they don't have to deal with this sort of thing or risk being labelled a bigot? Have you considered how equal opportunities initiatives designed to further the opportunities of women and girls into areas they have traditionally been underrepresented (scholarships, women-only shortlists etc.) are being lost to boys and men who are already overrepresented? Have you considered the effect on public healthcare messaging and the measurable (and measured) difficulty unclear messaging (e.g. around "those with a cervix" rather than "women") has caused those women not lucky enough to be as well educated as the two of us, or who do not speak English as their first language? Have you considered the fact that men's health messaging has not been commensurately altered to include transmen? Have you considered that, in teaching girls (and boys) that there is inherently something more to bring a woman than simply being female and growing up, we are insideously but necessarily entrenching sexist stereotypes we had made great strides towards throwing off just a generation ago?

Have you considered that the distinct, robust language needed to describe these things is being obfuscated beyond any usefulness and that any attempt to meaningfully and frankly distinguish between women and men who consider themselves women is decried as offensive?

If you haven't already, I would highly recommend starting with Kathleen Stock's 'Material Girls', which is an incredibly polite and generous consideration of the basic issues, followed by Helen Joyce's data-heavy 'Trans' if you're interested in thinking about all this more deeply.

Fordian · 06/10/2024 21:30

Scutterbug · 06/10/2024 13:25

There really are bigger hills to die on.

Not if you're female and/or care about the rights of 51% of the population.

It's important to understand that many female 'trans-allies' steeped in #BeKind, don't understand that this means no more female only health care. Sport. Changing rooms. Bra fittings. WI. Girl Guides. And prisons, and rape crisis centres, but only Bad Girls need that, don't they? And who cares about the degenerate lesbians who have no interest in male tackle? Tickle v. Giggle (Aus) showed us that.

Let alone men riffling through the used sanitary bins looking for warm discards. Self-pleasuring in a WC cubicle next to your 14 year old daughter as she wees.

So many young women have NO IDEA of the implications. Because they cannot understand the perversions blokes stumbling upon sissy porn - fetishise.

SuzanneRogers · 06/10/2024 21:31

TheHereticalOne · 06/10/2024 21:29

With respect, you may be well-educated in the sense of having higher qualifications and still deeply ignorant on many topics. I don't say this to be insulting, as I would absolutely apply that to myself in all sorts of cases. Your level of pay has absolutely nothing to do with the price of fish (again, as someone very nicely paid myself).

With those preliminaries out of the way, the rest of your response reads to me as though your understanding of this topic is roughly, "if you don't do this some people will be sad, I can't see how it affects me, and I can't immediately think how this might affect fundamental mechanisms and safeguards of society. Therefore everyone should just do it. Be kind." It would be like me wading into a topic on the Israel-Palestine conflict, knowing full well that I know only the bare basics of the history and contemporary events (which, I'm slightly embarrassed to say, is very much the case) and confidently stating that people should just not kill other people because war is bad and it's all very sad and therefore [Israel/Palestine] should obviously just stop, while shaking my head and wondering why everyone can't just be as level-headed and kind as me.

You've acknowledged the issues with women's sports. Have you given any thought to men being housed in women's prisons (see sexual assaults that have occurred in the UK and rapes, impregnation and prisons now supplying condoms across the pond)? Have you kept up with the lack of female-only provision in rape crisis centres (see ERCC)? Have you considered the legal issues now faced when transwomen are put forward to perform as appropriate same "gender" medical practitioners for intimate medical exams or strip-searches, and/or insist on women performing these on them? Have you kept up with the now countless successful employment tribunals of women discriminated against, harassed and forced out of employment for stating in the mildest and most reasonable of terms concerns about, for example, safeguarding, LGB rights or data integrity given men identifying as women and being treated for all purposes as such (with or without a GRC)? Have you considered the difficulties thrown into equal pay legislation by including men in the "female" pool for consideration and women in the male "comparator" pool? Have you considered the little girls, let alone women, now expected to share changing rooms with naked men and boys (at school, in leisure centres and so on)? Have you considered that women and girls are now prevented from raising the alarm when a man follows them into the toilet? Have you considered schools that now house boys in south the girls on school trips or in girls tents for Brownies and Guides without informing the girls' parents, thereby contravention standard safeguarding procedures on the basis of sex, while pretending they are not doing so? Have you considered the women and girls who, for religious reasons, must now simply quietly self-exclude from these many areas of public life in order to avoid contravening their religion? Have you considered the rest who self-exclude simply so they don't have to deal with this sort of thing or risk being labelled a bigot? Have you considered how equal opportunities initiatives designed to further the opportunities of women and girls into areas they have traditionally been underrepresented (scholarships, women-only shortlists etc.) are being lost to boys and men who are already overrepresented? Have you considered the effect on public healthcare messaging and the measurable (and measured) difficulty unclear messaging (e.g. around "those with a cervix" rather than "women") has caused those women not lucky enough to be as well educated as the two of us, or who do not speak English as their first language? Have you considered the fact that men's health messaging has not been commensurately altered to include transmen? Have you considered that, in teaching girls (and boys) that there is inherently something more to bring a woman than simply being female and growing up, we are insideously but necessarily entrenching sexist stereotypes we had made great strides towards throwing off just a generation ago?

Have you considered that the distinct, robust language needed to describe these things is being obfuscated beyond any usefulness and that any attempt to meaningfully and frankly distinguish between women and men who consider themselves women is decried as offensive?

If you haven't already, I would highly recommend starting with Kathleen Stock's 'Material Girls', which is an incredibly polite and generous consideration of the basic issues, followed by Helen Joyce's data-heavy 'Trans' if you're interested in thinking about all this more deeply.

TLDR

OP posts:
Fordian · 06/10/2024 21:31

Murfmeister · 06/10/2024 13:28

I'm in the civil service and I get loads of these surveys and ALWAYS push back on it.
Usually I frame it in a way that demonstrates I'm not happy about the sex/gender conflation (and bullshit) but also phrase it as it means their survey won't give them any accurate or usable data. I have also said that phrasing things in this way might mean they miss out on important data relating to either sex and /or gender and this could result in some groups not having their needs / issues addressed.
I've never had any negative response and tend to get replies thanking me for feedback and acknowledging that I was not happy with the question and they would look at phrasing in future questionnaires.

Didn't stop the ONS in the last census, though!

Manxexile · 06/10/2024 21:32

PiggleToes · 06/10/2024 16:32

You don’t believe trans women exist? Or that it might be important from a data collection perspective to understand which of the people ticking the “woman” box are trans and which are not?

I think it's very important from a data collection perspective.

But to have an accurate and complete collection of data and subsequent analysis, you really need to know two attributes in this context. One is biological sex and the other is identified gender - if any*.

That would enable comprehensive collection of data and subsequent analysis.

Crucially it would enable the date to be cut by both biological sex and gender identity (if any*). Importnat from both a scientific and medical POV

*I say "if any" because I'm sure that many people - like me - don't have a gender identity - we're just us, who we are, nothing more and nothing less. But we all have a sex that can't be denied

Catiette · 06/10/2024 21:32

TheHereticalOne · 06/10/2024 21:29

With respect, you may be well-educated in the sense of having higher qualifications and still deeply ignorant on many topics. I don't say this to be insulting, as I would absolutely apply that to myself in all sorts of cases. Your level of pay has absolutely nothing to do with the price of fish (again, as someone very nicely paid myself).

With those preliminaries out of the way, the rest of your response reads to me as though your understanding of this topic is roughly, "if you don't do this some people will be sad, I can't see how it affects me, and I can't immediately think how this might affect fundamental mechanisms and safeguards of society. Therefore everyone should just do it. Be kind." It would be like me wading into a topic on the Israel-Palestine conflict, knowing full well that I know only the bare basics of the history and contemporary events (which, I'm slightly embarrassed to say, is very much the case) and confidently stating that people should just not kill other people because war is bad and it's all very sad and therefore [Israel/Palestine] should obviously just stop, while shaking my head and wondering why everyone can't just be as level-headed and kind as me.

You've acknowledged the issues with women's sports. Have you given any thought to men being housed in women's prisons (see sexual assaults that have occurred in the UK and rapes, impregnation and prisons now supplying condoms across the pond)? Have you kept up with the lack of female-only provision in rape crisis centres (see ERCC)? Have you considered the legal issues now faced when transwomen are put forward to perform as appropriate same "gender" medical practitioners for intimate medical exams or strip-searches, and/or insist on women performing these on them? Have you kept up with the now countless successful employment tribunals of women discriminated against, harassed and forced out of employment for stating in the mildest and most reasonable of terms concerns about, for example, safeguarding, LGB rights or data integrity given men identifying as women and being treated for all purposes as such (with or without a GRC)? Have you considered the difficulties thrown into equal pay legislation by including men in the "female" pool for consideration and women in the male "comparator" pool? Have you considered the little girls, let alone women, now expected to share changing rooms with naked men and boys (at school, in leisure centres and so on)? Have you considered that women and girls are now prevented from raising the alarm when a man follows them into the toilet? Have you considered schools that now house boys in south the girls on school trips or in girls tents for Brownies and Guides without informing the girls' parents, thereby contravention standard safeguarding procedures on the basis of sex, while pretending they are not doing so? Have you considered the women and girls who, for religious reasons, must now simply quietly self-exclude from these many areas of public life in order to avoid contravening their religion? Have you considered the rest who self-exclude simply so they don't have to deal with this sort of thing or risk being labelled a bigot? Have you considered how equal opportunities initiatives designed to further the opportunities of women and girls into areas they have traditionally been underrepresented (scholarships, women-only shortlists etc.) are being lost to boys and men who are already overrepresented? Have you considered the effect on public healthcare messaging and the measurable (and measured) difficulty unclear messaging (e.g. around "those with a cervix" rather than "women") has caused those women not lucky enough to be as well educated as the two of us, or who do not speak English as their first language? Have you considered the fact that men's health messaging has not been commensurately altered to include transmen? Have you considered that, in teaching girls (and boys) that there is inherently something more to bring a woman than simply being female and growing up, we are insideously but necessarily entrenching sexist stereotypes we had made great strides towards throwing off just a generation ago?

Have you considered that the distinct, robust language needed to describe these things is being obfuscated beyond any usefulness and that any attempt to meaningfully and frankly distinguish between women and men who consider themselves women is decried as offensive?

If you haven't already, I would highly recommend starting with Kathleen Stock's 'Material Girls', which is an incredibly polite and generous consideration of the basic issues, followed by Helen Joyce's data-heavy 'Trans' if you're interested in thinking about all this more deeply.

I did read.

A powerful and important post worth repeating.

Thank you.

DadJoke · 06/10/2024 21:33

Catiette · 06/10/2024 21:15

Hah! I think it's rather that they've had too much PSHE!

But we are getting somewhere here.

Am I right in understanding that you're arguing for a distinction in which "I'm a woman" is reserved for adult human females sans gender identity, and "I identify as a woman" for trans-identifying males (an offensive term to you, perhaps, but necessary for the sake of clarity)?

I actually think this has some potential.

It still requires one hell of a concession from women, but offers a compromise position for the first time in this thread, perhaps...

I hadn't realised in all your past posts that you were adhering to this subtle distinction, though. Could its subtlety, and the potential for inconsistent use and consequent ambiguity, be an issue?

Edited

No, I am saying both transgender and cisgender women are women and that women are oppressed in Afghanistan.

And you are conflating women with gender critical people.

Runningupthecurtains · 06/10/2024 21:34

Errors · 06/10/2024 21:07

Only up to page 29 and have a real craving for lasagne

Sorry 😉

Fordian · 06/10/2024 21:35

It's entirely the 'Have you stopped bearing your wife?'
'Y/N?' question, isn't it?

If you're not a trans woman, you're a different type of woman, a cis one. Both equally valid, eh?

SinnerBoy · 06/10/2024 21:35

DadJoke · Today 21:24

You would find “what was your sex assigned at birth” offensive. I really don’t need to hear why again.

Tell me now, have you ever visited a planet by the name of "Earth"? On that particular planet, sex is observed and recorded at birth, not assigned.

TheHereticalOne · 06/10/2024 21:35

SuzanneRogers · 06/10/2024 21:31

TLDR

No problem, not obligatory!

I will summarise: I agree with you. And it bloody well does matter.

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