The case against 'cis'

[Seer]

As I'm having conversations on fb recently I'm noticing that using 'Cis' is becoming the norm (obv, only in some circles).

I'd like to be in a position to query its use but realise that I don't have a logical response, and "I really don't like it' won't cut it!

What do you see are arguments against it?

Thank you!

MsBeaujangles

Whilst I agree that non binary is an accurate description of many people, the problem starts occurring when it is assigned rights.

Assigning rights based on a feeling that is objectively unidentifiable and non-verifiable can't possibly work.

Which is how we have seen the issue of self identification explode. It's based purely on what someone says.

An interesting one would be to make gender nonconformity the protected characteristic. So you can't be fired for it, denied housing, medical care, anything - on the basis of it.

But, at the same time, you don't get ceded rights from other protected characteristics like a woman's sex.

It would mean anyone, trans-, agender, femme, non-binary, bitch women, effeminate men, could all be included under the term gender nonconforming.

I haven't heard a downside to that concept. There probably is one, but I can't think of it!

Being cis means being not trans.

NO. No, no, no, no, no.

Calling oneself cis means that one has become a follower of the genderist religion. It means that one no longer thinks gender is an externally imposed system of power relations. It means one sees gender as an innate, subjective personal essence, a soul if you will.

I am an atheist. I do not believe that human beings have souls, gendered or otherwise. I do not believe in dualism of any kind.

Cis is the imposition of religion on me as an atheist just as gender is an imposition of unequal power status on me as a woman.

I am offended by cis. I do not consent to being called cis - and even if I did subscribe to the genderist religion, my genderist caste would be agender. BECAUSE I DON'T BELIEVE IN GENDER.

I think the essay by Rebecca Reilly-Cooper that TerfClub has shared on another thread is an excellent argument against the cis label:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3163402-Rebecca-Reilly-Coopers-article-essay-about-gender?watched=1&msgid=75486220#75486220

I don't understand the need to apply a specific name to everything nowadays.

It feels like people have to have a name for doing anything which doesn't traditionally conform to their gender role. For example you can't just be a man who enjoys dancing, you have to be genderfluid or whatever. It's getting ridiculous.

I am not cis anything. I am just a woman and anyone who says otherwise can fuck off.

I've had blue hair

datun if I'm understanding you correctly, a downside could be that gender non-confirming women (ie most of us on this thread) wouldn't gain access to a women's refuge.

The issue with cis for me regardless of its meaning (which I believe is wrong) is it is a label being applied to people who didn’t ask for it and didn’t want it. It’s disrespectful to do that to people and if it is done to other groups people would be quite rightly up in arms about it. Because it’s women, no one gives a fuck.

My ds was identified as a male at 14 weeks gestation from his dna. It’s not a medical professional who decides what sex you are when you’re born, it’s written into the code that makes you.

And I'm not cis because I am not an isomer. I don't believe that sex and gender can form an isomeric relationship to each other like arrangements in a chemical molecule. One is material, objective and definite, the other is ethereal, subjective and tautological. You can describe an isomeric relationship between physical things or abstact concepts. Gender is an abstact concept that always requires an external concrete referrant - biological sex, otherwise it is circular and meaningless. There's no sex/gender crossover/alignment. Sex is always the fundamental and gender is the superstructure arrangement placed around that to best utilise the sex differences to the benefit of the ruling class.

Seer no I don't think so because being a woman and having access to a women's refuge is based on biology and sex, not gender expectations if the word 'woman'.

Disrespectful, unwanted, unnecessary and of course misgendering and therefore literal violence aimed at women.

gender non-confirming women (ie most of us on this thread) wouldn't gain access to a women's refuge

The solution to this is, yes, protect gender non-conformity, but also maintain sex as a protected category and base current women's protected spaces on sex not gender going forward.

So any woman from big butch lesbians to pink ballerinas would all be welcome at the women's refuge because they are biologically women.

I think it's wrong to conflate the issues facing gay people with those facing trans people.

If people objected to being called straight that was different. Sexual orientation is innate. It's part of who you are. Gay people were fighting for basic rights - the same healthcare as straight people, the ability to marry, etc etc. They seemingly weren't even considered human - they were treated appallingly.

Trans people already have the same rights as everyone else. Being transgendered isn't a sexual orientation. It's a mental illness. It's a dysphoria (literally a profound sense of unease. An inner, private feeling.) I can sympathise enormously with anyone suffering a dysphoria, I can want people who experience such things to be safe and well and happy, but the fact that they suffer it doesn't have to have any bearing on my own identity, especially when it involves a part of my identity which puts me at risk in life (of rape and sexual assault, etc). I don't relabel myself on the basis that someone else has depression or anorexia or wishes they were taller.

I hate cis. I feel very stereotypically feminine. My interests are stereotypically female. I still hate cis though. It's so insulting. The older I get the more angry I am about what women go through. It makes me rage. So on that level I'm not satisfied with saying my gender identity matches my sex. Like fuck it does. Gender is an awful concept which allows women to be oppressed. I don't submit to being treated badly because of gender.

I actually don't like non-binary. I can see why some do but if I acknowledge one person is non-binary, then surely we ALL are? I have a fb friend who is non-binary. I wince every time she talks about it, because it still feels to me like she's saying 'I'm not stereotypically female and if you call yourself a woman then you are.' It feels too similar to cis. It is saying loudly that a woman = not just what sex you are but what you like in life (pink, dolls, cooking).

I played with boys toys as a child. I watched Batman. I liked getting muddy and doing tricks on my bike. I also loved dolls, ballet and babies. Surely everyone was like that to some degree or is as an adult. None of us are 100% stereotypically anything.

macaroon not if ' But, at the same time, you don't get ceded rights from other protected characteristics like a woman's sex. ' (from Datun's post) Again, I might not be reading it right tho!

I really resent having 'cis' imposed upon me.

People can now choose from a range of different gender terms = fine with me. I grew up in the days of people saying 'I'm not gay, I'm normal' so this feels like a lot of progress to me.

But calling me 'cis' not 'woman' takes any choice away from me. How many times has this sort of thing happened in history? A group of people being renamed not by choice.

I will probably be called illogical and privileged though.

It seems that 'non-binary' is only 'acceptable' when it fits into the trans agenda. So people like Travis Alabanza, who is the ultimate 'dude in a dress' but claims to be non binary so that he can use whichever chancing room he feels like that day.

Saying you are non binary because you don't have a gender identity because you don't believe in gender, wouldn't get you listened to because it goes against the trans dogma, which is basically men should be able to do whatever the fuck they want.

Seer I too may be misunderstanding, but I think Datun means you can't take away from women's rights. As a woman, you have those first, therefore are entitled to entry to a shelter. As a GNC woman, you cannot be discriminated again (I guess, not given a job in engineering because you wear twinsets and pearls, for example?) But your women's rights stand, regardless of your being GNC or not.

I think that's right?!

Cis is pure sexism in my opinion and I will be damned if I will allow men to define woman or a woman's reality. They have been doing that for to long already. I understand I take a hard line on it but I am sick of being told that as a woman I must acquiesce as I am responsible for men's feelings. I don't have a ladybrain, I don't conform to sexist stereotypes, my supposed gender does not determine me. Cis is a means to justify women's continued oppression as it claims we identify with things like the second shift that the external source of our oppression (patriarchy) is a natural response to an innate gender.

Elizabeth Hungerford has written a good article on it - liberationcollective.wordpress.com/2012/06/08/a-feminist-critique-of-cisgender/

Rebecca Reilly-Cooper has written another good article on it: rebeccarc.com/2014/08/04/am-i-cisgender/

Totally agree Thisusernamethingistricky

If gender is all on a spectrum, what does one trans from and to? Isn’t the admission of non-binary a sign that it’s all a nonsense. Because non binary can’t exist in a binary system. I feel like (surprisingly) this is not a logical system, and people just got to pick the words they liked best to describe their inner feelings...

Someone on here once said "I don't have a gender. I have a sex and a personality."

Sums it up, I think.

Someone on here once said "I don't have a gender. I have a sex and a personality."

This.

I don't identify as Cis, therefore I'm not. QED.