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!)

Could one of the people who accepts the term cis explain what defines a female gender identity? Without recourse to stereotypes such as long hair, dresses, heels and makeup?

I don't find it offensive. At all. As others have said, it serves a similar function to 'straight' or 'neurotypical'.

Not the same at all! You do not 'identify' with being straight or neurotypical, you are BORN that way. My DD doesn't 'identify' with being autistic and she would rather not be. Yet she is.There is no choice.

You're right. I have more important things to worry about than a load of transphobic cis-women bitching on an Internet forum.

This kind of thing shows how the term 'cis' is loaded and not in a way that's helpful for women and why it's therefore out of place on Mumsnet, I think.

Empress I and many others on this thread have asked that question over the last nine pages. As yet, not one explanation!

And another thing I've wondered about, which hopefully someone can address.

I am a woman, but I dress like a man. Jeans and mens' shirts, flat shoes etc.
The last time I wore a dress was when I got married, ditto the last time I wore makeup.
This is acceptable, on the whole I go unjudged and I get on with my life.
Why can trans women not do similar? I mean, they are still men but why can't they dress how they like and fight for that right rather than fighting to be considered women, pushing biological womens' needs (see points about hospitals, rape crisis centres etc) aside?
Is it to do with men not accepting them? Is it threatening to men to have some of their sex not conform to make manliness?

Male manliness not make.

I disagree.

I do not think we should ban the word cis.

I do think we should reprimand people (not perhaps ban them, but indicate that it is not appropriate) for referring to "adult males in frocks" when others are trying to have a civilised discussion.

I also have a growing loathing for the acronym LGBT. And I am a lesbian, so this is not about homophobia.

It's about lesbian as a sexuality being gradually erased, in favour of the idea that lesbians are attracted to anyone with a "female gender identity" and that any lesbian who's not up for this is a creepy vagina fetishist. Organisations which used to support lesbians are completely silent on that issue.

There is no correlation between lesbian rights and trans rights, but too often they get lumped in together.

If cis should be banned then so should the transphobia. I'm talking about the assumption that ALL MTF trans are perverts and are going to rape everyone

i totally support this. i hate the word cis and find it an offensive, unwanted label, yet again forced on women by, in the main, men.

it also stupid if you understand the Latin root of the prefix.

If cis should be banned then so should the transphobia. I'm talking about the assumption that ALL MTF trans are perverts and are going to rape everyone.

Where have you seen "ALL MTF trans are perverts"?

What is usually called transphobia is the assertion that trans women and women are not the same.

Point to an instance where someone said that, speaker GF

You know which thread I am talking about venus :)

Did would you prefer R- and S- women then?

Seriously, the only reason it exists is so we're not stuck having to say 'trans people and not-trans people'.

Or simply 'women & trans women'.
Or 'man & trans man'.

Why does a biological woman (or man) need to be given the pre-fix?

"Trans people are murdered, battered in the street, called names and hounded on a daily basis."

So are women, every single day sodding day for thousands of years.

Trans rights DO NOT trump Women's rights. Campaign for your own safe places DO NOT take over ours.

Yes I do speaker GF

Hi, just my perspective for the people who think this is bigoted nonsense.

Trans is a label used on MN and all over to describe a man in a frock. Trans men, in my experience like women, want to be a woman, feel they are a woman. Let's be kind and let them.

Whereas my husband is a "cross dreamer" he is also a man in a frock, but his motivations are entirely sexual. He is more likely to be the man in the loo, shouting about his rights, and getting turned on by his domination of real women. He believes women are nothing more than a pair of holes, who should be dressed up slutty and submissive. He is a classic autoglynaphiliac.

This is why a prefix can be damaging. He uses Trans, because it suits him to have women fawn over his victim story, how brave he is. It suits him to have evidence to show me how bigoted I am, that I am not cool with this. All the cool liberal women think it's Ok. It suits him to label me CIS because that makes me a subcategory of women, he can play out this fantasy that he is the real deal.

People are people, some are pleasant, some are abusive nightmares.

Hear hear!

Somebody linked to a fantastic website called transgendertrend.com on here a while ago - it's really useful for recent research on the whole 'man brain/lady brain' thing that keeps coming up, and also reassuring to read sensible well-researched articles about these issues. Would strongly recommend a look, for anyone who worries about 'peak trans'.

There are many ways of being a woman or a girl - not one single one of them means you are really a boy, which is why we don't need stupid offensive redundant words like 'cis'.

I don't find 'cis' offensive. There are loads of words that I do find offensive, but cis isn't one of them.

If MN starts banning words that a certain number of people (which proportion?) find offensive, it'd just become an endless discussion of what can and can't be said and why, which would be dull, or it'd become blandy bland 'U Ok, Hun?' Either way, I'd find somewhere more interesting online to lurk.

bakeoffcake you could, you know, work together as humans perhaps?

I also recommend this piece on gender by Rebecca Reilly-Cooper.

Notwhat...

Gynodroid (love the name!) Maybe that's because no-one has yet been able to come up with a definition of female gender ID that doesn't involve stereotypes?

NotWhatIExpected: That sounds really tough. I don't know if you've posted before or how you're coping in such a difficult marriage, but if I were you I'd grab all the help I could, and if possible, start making good plans for a new life.

I agree it shouldn't be banned. But by the same token nor should calling an adult male a man.

OMFG. When I went to sleep last night I'd been trying to make polite and helpful and reasonably compassionate contributions despite evidently disagreeing with much of Mumsnet. I wake up and find:

• trans women are just men in frocks
• trans women are bolshy bathroom predators
• calling someone a cis woman means you're telling them they are a Stepford Wife style slave to the patriarchy
• only trans women 'feel like' women, everyone else just is (and/or doesn't much feel like a woman or rejects notions of gender without, funnily enough, wanting to no longer be referred to as 'she' or a woman)
• 'nobody' ever talks about cis men (yes, yes they really do, just not on Mumsnet with its bizarre obsession with trans women)

I'm horrified. Do any of you have any trans friends? Is this something constructed out of any real experience at all, or is it like what white rural Daily Mail readers think Muslims/immigrants are?