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!

Cis is an unnecessary word. Woman is the word that defines a human female adult. It's just another insult by TRAs to try and make women budge over and acknowledge that trans women are something special. They're really not.

"But I don't feel like a woman, I just feel like me".
Me neither really.
If something fits, it doesn't feel like anything. It's only uncomfortable
things that you can feel strongly enough to notice

Or maybe you just follow the definition of things and don't go ascribing other nonsense to a word that defines sex like gender?

I accepted the argument you made in the past and then people who did feel like me started calling themselves non binary or pan gender and I just realise it all falls down.

I don't need a word for "not transexual" like I don't need a word for not transracial.

It doesn't say what I am it says what I am not. I am not a non trans or a non man.

I am a heterosexual and we would still be debating the word if we called straight people "not homosexuals" instead of heterosexual.

I detest this whole ‘assigned gender at birth’ stuff. That to me implies there was a doctor with a clipboard umming and ahhing. I wasn’t assigned a gender at birth, I came out female and they wrote that down accordingly. No one assigned it. It’s what I am.

And surely the argument against cis is that it is redundant. Certainly in respect of the “word which means not trans” definition. I don’t need a word saying I’m not something.

I need a word for a Radult Human Female though ...

It doesn't say what I am it says what I am not. I am not a non trans or a non man.

Yes, this!

Being cis means being not trans.

And this what I object to.

Being a woman is a category for 50-51% of the world's population. It is a biological reality.

Yet you propose defining women by what they are not You can fuck off with that.

WOMEN ARE NOT JUST AN EMPTY CATEGORY FOR PATRIARCHY TO PROJECT ITS FANTASIES INTO.

I suspect the problem with gender non conforming, is that while many trans people suffer discrimination for that reason, it conflicts with the belief that trans people are conforming with their innate gender.

So there is an issue that the language has been created by people who have a certain feeling and they have assumed that everyone has this feeling. But, they don't.

@UpaBitLate brilliant awesome post.

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).

This is exactly how I feel. It would be so easy to ID as non-binary, but it feels like throwing other women under the bus.

As soon as I hear 'cis women', I know women are about to be blamed for something or told to be quiet.

If you're a feminist and a vocal trans rights advocate (like many of the Women's March organisers seem to be), using 'cis' gives you the excuse to mentally disengage from everything you know about sex-based oppression, and, instead, characterize women as a group of oppressors.

I don't believe in souls, or gender identity. I despise gender stereotypes. I call myself a woman because that is the biological reality in my case. How other choose to label their social roles or personalities is up to them - surely there should be as many labels as individuals.

Linguistically cis- indicates a place this side of something, while trans- is the other side. Think Cisjordania and Transylvania. The implication could be that the transwoman has completed a journey and the ciswoman hasn't - that she is somehow inferior, incomplete or lacking. Like many concepts and arguments in the current gender debate, the label cis- makes no sense if you analyse it rationally.

Calling yourself non binary throws women under the bus but it also makes you super right on and more of a victim in the privilege hierarchy.... Win win.

Seer

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.

Sex is already a protected characteristic. Which is why, currently, transactivists are pushing for self identification in terms of rape refuge counsellors. It would grant them a GRC, at which point they will be legally women and entitled to work there.

At the moment gender reassignment is a protected characteristic. Which is fairly meaningless, as you can simply say to your best friend you're thinking of transitioning, and that covers it.

Whereas gender nonconformity, would stop it being broken down into all these individual boxes. Some of which seem to assume the rights of women, the other protected characteristic.

I find the way the equality law is applied incredibly confusing.

Because it appears to only be applicable in few situations.

All women shortlists for Parliamentary candidates, for instance.

They would, on the surface, appear to discriminate against men. But, from what I can tell, the equality law can be invoked using the sex of women as a protected characteristic. To make it legal. Because it redresses the current imbalance.

It always feels a bit back to front to me.

The equality law cannot be invoked in toilets, for instance. Because there is no law that excludes men. It's just protocol and custom.

You do have to provide sanitary disposal. Because if you didn't, it would prevent women from using them. Thereby being discriminatory on the basis of sex.

I was involved in an awful long thread about the way the equality law and the gender recognition act work, and at the end, although I had a better grasp, I still floundered.

I suppose you can't make it a law that the opposite sex can't use each other's toilets. Because there are so many incidences where that would be breached.

Although I think I could have a pretty good stab at it!

And yes I agree about non-binary. Although I appreciate the concept, it's another label with which to 'other' everybody else.

Why is it useful to create a word opposite to trans ? Majority of people (99%) have no problems being referred to as their biological sex so a label is totally unnecessary - it is used out to make a victimhood of trans and cis the oppressors. Also why should i be labelled cis to identify me as different to someone with agp!!

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!

That looks a very interesting and useful idea. As you say, to be used in addition to rather than instead of sex being a protected characteristic.

Maybe there will turn out to be a downside, but definitely seems worth exploring. I think it would puncture a number of balloons nicely.

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

Yes this. Gender to me is an entirely externally imposed concept.

At the park other people guess the gender of my blue clothed daughter at the top of the climbing frame & tell me my boy is so adventurous. Obviously it would be inappropriate for them to check her sex!

The thing about "cis" meaning "not trans" has to take into account the meaning of trans also. "Trans" has become an umbrella term, meaning everything from "(1)someone who has body dysphoria regarding their sex" to "(2)someone who prefers the clothing, hobbies, interests, etc. socially assigned to the opposite sex" to "(3)someone who feels they have an internal 'gender identity' that does not match their assigned sex." If "cis" simply meant "person who does not experience body dysphoria regarding their sex" then that would be one thing. But it doesn't. It can also mean "someone who prefers the socially constructed gender role of their sex" and "someone who feels they have an internal 'gender identity' that matches their sex." Neither of which can accurately describe the majority of women and men who are not perfect stereotypes of femininity and masculinity. As for "gender identity," well, previous posters and previous threads have ripped that one apart pretty well, an internal gender identity is as much an article of faith than anything else. Most people don't seem to have one.

It seems that when people try to defend the use of "cis," they rely strictly on definition #1. This is because it sounds fairly reasonable to say "'cis' just means 'not trans,' how could anybody object to that?" But in practice, that's not how it works. Using "cis" definitely implies that the person is not only "not trans" but that they also are happy with their gender role and have an innate sense of gender identity. Anyway you slice it, it comes back to that.

In practical usage it's become an insult.

I agree perking, sex and gender identity should be considered completely separate characteristics for the purposes of law and policy.

The elision of the two creates enormous problems, muddies the waters and leads to bad law & injustice.

Yes, I really think Datun's onto something here.

It would make explicit that there are competing rights at work, rather than this under-the-radar colonisation of spaces that were created by the protected characteristic, sex.

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.

I think that sounds good. My only concern would be that people with AGP would exploit this for all its worth. And people like the Stephonknee's of this world and the paedophile who recently tried to pretend he was transage when he assaulted a child.

Just reading this and smiling at what amazing women (yes, just 'women'!) there are here.

Thank you so much, I feel like I'm going to dip a toe in the water of questioning the use of 'cis' next time I see it.

I think we should stop using 'ladybrain' in reference to TIMs. The only kind of lady brain is the brain of the physical sex female and there are differences. A biological male cannot have a lady brain.

They can feel like they are a woman, but will still have male genetics and underlying male anatomy and physiology. This is a purely psychological and emotional matter with no basis in physical reality.

There is no cis, there are females of the human species who we call women and there are males, some of whom like to dress as women and by called by a name given to females. A small proportion remove their male genitals and take female hormones in order to grow breast tissue and reduce their male characteristics.

I don't get their argument anyway, on the one hand they shout from the rooftops that they are real women, but then separate themselves by including the cis label for any woman who is an actual biological female, thus identifying themselves as anything but a woman. As a woman I don't need to claim my space as a woman, I simply am.

Seer I also like Datun's point about woman simply being a biological description like mare or ewe, and so not needing anything else.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot today, oddly enough.

A cow is a female bovine. A bull is a male bovine. When you castrate a young bull, it becomes a bullock. Nobody could ever suggest it becomes a cow.

But even as I thought it, I imagined the squeals of outrage that I had dared to compare TIMs to an animal!