Banning the term "cis"

[OlennasWimple]

Apologies if this had already been done, but can MNHQ consider banning the term "cis", given how horrifically offensive so many users of MN find it?

I don't think I need to set out the background and reasoning to this request (but can do so if it would help!)

There is also a subtext that the most important aspect of being a woman is conforming to gender expectations.

To be fair to the company, Asprilla, that person hadn't been given permission to use the female bathroom at that stage. They had their own loo, but someone else had gone in it on that occasion and he was desperate apparently. And they were informed never to use the women's bathroom again after I complained.

This was a few years back - now they may well have a right to use the women's loo.

I can't find it in myself to call the person a woman. I got to know them too well for that. They once told me - before we were ignoring each other - that their penis got hard whenever they put on their high heels. That sounds like a fetish to me. Not female brain.

But I try never to refer to that person as male or a man, because it greatly offends them and I don't like offending people.
Just wish I could be afforded the same respect about not being called cis.

Why not any and sick not sock 😊

Discussing common women's bodily functions is not 'transphobia'. Trying to make such things taboo is the 'phobic' behaviour.

Maryz I agree with a lot of what you say, certainly food for thought, but is it really trans-women leading this?

I am a woman, not a cis-woman and don't want to be referred to as a cis-woman, I too have never heard the term cis-man, which makes me question where has this categorisation come from.

If someone goes through (and I can't even imagine the emotional turmoil) changing gender I would like to think they wouldn't want the term cis applied to women, I would have thought the goal is to live life as the gender they feel they should have been born into? I can't imagine that people who have gone through this would want to be referred to as trans-woman, surely they would just want to be referred to as a woman so why would they want to categorise all women. The thought of these women wanting to further put us into categories is really quite horrifying.

I am keen to understand more as I am obviously very niave in this subject.

Sorry, feel like I've derailed a bit from the (excellent) point of this thread.

I tend to avoid threads on this issue because it brings back unpleasant emotions. But this one is actually asking for something to be done, rather than debating in general (which is also good, just not for me) so I wanted to contribute.

I don't think it should be banned because I don't think words should be banned without really serious reasons - and even then ...

But I am another one who will never accept the application of the word cis to my gender. I am a woman. no embellishments needed. I will call people by whatever pronoun or gender or name they want and utterly respect anyone's right to dress or act or feel like a woman. but I completely object to that redefining how I am as a woman.

If the trans community are so clear about the offence that is given by calling people by a gender they do not want, then surely they will be sympathetic to women not wanting to be redefined arbitrarily without their consent.

Somerville

Don't worry it wasn't you that derailed it, it was me!

If this carries on, I will be certainly be discussing my female bodily matters all the more in the workplace. Just to make a point. And woe betide anyone who has a problem with it. Because as women we have enabled this by being so apologetic and thoughtful and discreet and pandering to male distaste of female bodily functions. Thus trans women feel they have a sovereign right to not have to hear about it, as biological reality upsets them, so they call it transphobia. My lucky colleagues!

Why is being a "transwoman" an insult, anyway. I mean, it describes the journey someone has been on. Why are some transWs so afraid to acknowledge that journey and pretend it didn't happen?

This has been a very interesting thread for me. I'm ashamed to admit it, but until quite recently I didn't know what gender meant; I had always regarded it as an alternative word for sex.

The more I read, the more I have come to realise that I don't believe gender exists. I never chose one, at any rate.
What even is the female gender? Wearing dresses and makeup and generally being girly? I don't do any of those things, but I own lots of tools and have laid floors.
If I haven't identified with a gender, then surely I can't, by definition, be described as a cis woman?
Better just call me a woman, then.

I would like "cis" banned on MN until we are allowed to say that a person with (or who had) a cock and balls is a man.

Like these ones, Flora?

Yes. How are we on 50 year old men "identifying" as 6 year old girls? Anyone want to set up a playdate?

sevenoceans wow. That's crazy. All of it.

Isn't it, Etta.

But somehow when the pro-trans memes about toilets etc appear on social media, they only show pretty, passing young MTFs.

Eddie Izzard announced recently that his "girl genes" made him like high heels. Does that mean I have "boy genes" because I only wear flats?

Seriously, surely those examples completely undermine the experiences of trans women who just want to quietly go about their lives, unremarkably.

Getting back to the 'cis' labelling, as a pp pointed out, it does seem to be trans activists (not always trans people themselves), or the more 'out there' trans people who are insistent on this label.

If I don't want to be called a cis-woman (and I don't) can I just be a female, and insist on being referred to as one? If "man" and "woman" are now up for grabs (well, "man" isn't and never will be, but you know what I mean) then do the terms "male" and "female" remain unambiguous?

Just thinking further about this, are unwanted labels for other sections of society actually banned on mn or only if someone objects to being called it? Ie a term that others from that section of society would be offended to be called?

I'm so disappointed in Izzard. I really liked his attitude when I thought his attitude was "I'm an adult human male who doesn't play by gender rules!"

Now it turns out he's just another trans bloke getting his rocks off by wearing ruffles.

I would be quite bewildered by this apparent misconception that women "feel like women" because wearing girly outfits makes us horny. I mean, doesn't every woman cream herself at the very thought of putting her skirt on? No. No, she doesn't. But it's not a misconception at all. Such men know we don't. They know damn fine that "I feel like a woman" is code for "I feel like fucking when I dress up girly".

But nobody else is allowed to say so.

It's a good question, Mrsfrumble. Female is the accurate term for a mammal with the potential to produce young (has internal gonads.) Male is the mammal with the potential to inseminate, and has external gonads.

Woman and man are the respective terms for humans.

When speaking of gender, we should use feminine and masculine. But those two words have acquired specific overtones that don't always apply to what we mean by gender. So people tend to say 'female gender' - which conflates gender with sex.

Gender's a great big, overwhelming, conglomeration of restrictions and expectations - which is tied to one's sex, like it or not. As a woman you can crop your hair and be a bricklayer, swig pints and be a Millwall fan, and you'll still be perceived as female (which you are) and will still suffer gendered oppression of one sort and another.

I think the current fashion for young adults to label themselves with a glittering array of genders & sexualities might be an effort to break down the strictures of gender. It won't work, though, because they're still accepting gender as a fact. 18 is too young to understand how massive it is and how subtle, especially as not many 18-year-olds have been exposed to any proper analysis or critique of gender. Few of them are even relating it to physical sex whereas, in practice, it's undeniably linked.

... This hasn't come out quite right. Hope someone else has posted a more cogent summary!

Very much so, WhereTheFuck. Quite rightly, we can't call people with mobility problems cripples, for instance. Or gay men poofs, or any other race/ability related slang. There are loads of things.