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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Do women like 'cis'?

397 replies

CisMyArse · 19/03/2018 10:03

Bloody gone and tangled myself in a twitter argument.

I don't like the term Cis, not many here do neither. I should have worded it differently, but I can't let it go. Someone has asked me how I can speak for all women and I don't know how to retort Blush

OP posts:
ISaySteadyOn · 19/03/2018 13:45

Cis, to me, is a misogynistic slur designed to put women in their place. So, yes OP, you speak for this woman.

mummyhaschangedhername · 19/03/2018 13:48

I absolutely hate it. I don't need that label because I already have one, I am a woman, simple as that. I really reset the idea having to add another label to identify what my label already does. (I'm not even sure my wording makes sense, but I has the term cis)

ilikebread · 19/03/2018 13:48

DonkeySkin Thank you for this. You have just articulated exactly how I feel about this horrible term.

loopsdefruit · 19/03/2018 13:48

ilike I don't know? It depends on what the conversation is about. Do you mean like in a class discussion about trans experiences? I haven't ever come across that, but you could use more words to mean the thing you're trying to say "a woman with a uterus/vagina" "a woman with a penis".

Obviously you get a lot of people here who don't think that's acceptable because women don't have penises, that's fine, but you'd have to find some way of discussing various experiences without using trans or cis.

It's a "cross that bridge when you get to it" situation, in my experience I haven't ever come across a situation in class where someone has had a problem with the term cis, or with the term trans. Obviously that doesn't mean it hasn't happened, but at this point I don't have a clue what would actually happen because it hasn't happened to me. We don't have an official uni policy as far as I know.

My uni is pretty LGBT+ though, compared to the national average, so my experiences are probably different. I'll find out when I graduate and go live somewhere else.

HairyBallTheorem · 19/03/2018 13:50

'Cis' is a way of displacing women from the subject position of our own category of being. In trans ideology, someone born male has, by virtue of his biology, the right to usurp the position of 'woman' and to speak with unquestioned authority about it, but someone born female, by virtue of her biology, has no right to authority over womanhood. She must apologise, qualify her thoughts and opinions as being those of a mere 'cis' woman, which she acknowledges may be distorted or incorrect and always subject to correction by a male.

When a woman calls herself 'cis', she is signalling her acceptance of her subordinate status, her lack of subject position, in this hierarchy. No wonder so many women instinctively bristle against it.

Donkey - this is an absolutely brilliant analysis. Standing ovation!

ilikebread · 19/03/2018 13:52

loopsdefruit have you ever spoken to a trans person or is this all theory to you?

My trans friends are just my friends we don’t use cis/trans to me they are Dorothy/Lilly/peter/Paul etc...

They are all against GRA btw!

ChiefClerkDrumknott · 19/03/2018 13:52

This woman hates it.

I am biologically female and have no gender identity. I do not believe gender is innate and have no concept of what it 'feels' like to be a woman. I know I'm one because my body is female. I have not and will not ever use 'cis' to describe women as a group.

ilikebread · 19/03/2018 13:53

loopsdefruit I also don’t ask them about thier penis 😂

StickStickStickStick · 19/03/2018 13:53

Wow that's a brilliant thread from lucyloveslife and yes you can see what hell self ID is going to unleash I'm the most vulnerable :(

ChiefClerkDrumknott · 19/03/2018 13:54

Applauds Donkey Beautifully put, thank you

StickStickStickStick · 19/03/2018 13:58

Donkey that's amazing.

Can you imagine "I am trans, so I might be wrong so this is how I see the issue?" Or in everyday life, "apologies, I am male so I might be wrong here is how I see the issue..?!"

We've had multiple threads about women feeling they have to apologise for their thoughts and ideas and men being conditioned to just be assertive.

loopsdefruit · 19/03/2018 14:01

ilike haha of course, I have a lot of trans friends :) I wouldn't generally talk about our gender identities when socialising, just use their names and preferred pronouns if required. I'd refer to them as men/women and myself as a woman. I'd only use cis/trans in the context of an academic discussion and in that instance, I'd use terms that other people in the discussion found acceptable.

The issue is what to do if two people disagreed with what were acceptable terms, I don't know what the procedure would be there because it hasn't ever happened in a class I was a part of.

loopsdefruit · 19/03/2018 14:04

stick weird as it might seem, in the groups I choose to socialise with qualifying your point with a statement of your own position/ignorance is actually really normal. It's just a way of being humble I think.

It isn't a thing everywhere yet, of course, and again I was just explaining how I personally use the term cis.

AssassinatedBeauty · 19/03/2018 14:07

Do your white middle class (natal) male friends all remember to do this as well? Perhaps they never get round to speaking as a result?

FeministBadger · 19/03/2018 14:08

Referring to women as cis-women is the equivalent of calling women non-men - it's causing us to be the other YET again, as if we are a subset of a group rather than a group of our own.

It's offensive that anyone believes that a woman who has not hormonally or surgically changed herself is happy with gender stereotypes. Furthermore the implication that there are female brains or female souls that can align or not align to the body smacks of all harmful stereotypes of female weakness that we have been striving to escape for literally centuries.

loopsdefruit · 19/03/2018 14:18

assassinated the few I have do yes, and within class discussions they do as well, although they do still seem to talk a lot.

Again though, this is just my experience, and it's pretty limited by the fact that my university is full of quite similar people who all ascribe to broadly similar beliefs. We have quite a strong culture that I think comes across at open days and attracts more of the same kinds of people. It's nice, if you agree, but not very conducive to outside perspectives.

It's gonna be very different I think once I leave, although my friends will still be around.

LangCleg · 19/03/2018 14:19

Wow that's a brilliant thread from lucyloveslife and yes you can see what hell self ID is going to unleash I'm the most vulnerable

Isn't it just? And in the name of intersectionality, for gawd's sake, when Crenshaw theorised intersectionality to mean what Lucy is saying, not what these moronic postmodernists are saying.

It's the wilful blindness that really gets my goat. This way of thinking is so bloody Victorian. Those folk that Lucy was talking about might as well just say "Our mission is to improve the poor".

AssassinatedBeauty · 19/03/2018 14:20

I wonder why they still talk a lot, despite acknowledging their many privileges and ignorance of others issues? Odd.

Kneedeepinunicorns · 19/03/2018 14:21

cis is a term of patriarchal oppression imposed on women by class privileged white males

This: (propagated and extended by people innocently thinking 'oh thats the new 'in' or 'right' word and using it without realising they are furthering an anti woman agenda)

When a woman calls herself 'cis', she is signalling her acceptance of her subordinate status, her lack of subject position, in this hierarchy

There's the agenda.

'cis' is about removing the biological category of women as exclusionary: the argument being the class is 'woman' (with no real definition) with subclasses trans women cis women black women disabled women etc. The issue is that all those sub groups have their genes and biology in common except one. If you use the word 'cis' you have already conceded that transwomen are women.

I don't agree transwomen are women: transwomen are transwomen. They are biological males living within feminine gender choices and that's great, but they're not biological women. I can't be a transwoman: why? Because I wasn't born biologically male. The word 'women' is not available for colonisation and redefinition by men.

And even if I was on board with all that, I still wouldn't be 'cis' as I'm certainly not happy with the 'gender' assigned to my biology in terms of stereotypes. (Like putting men first and letting them call me 'cis'.)

LangCleg · 19/03/2018 14:22

Again though, this is just my experience, and it's pretty limited by the fact that my university is full of quite similar people who all ascribe to broadly similar beliefs. We have quite a strong culture that I think comes across at open days and attracts more of the same kinds of people. It's nice, if you agree, but not very conducive to outside perspectives.

Behold, women. This is the system that produces policy makers such as Stella Creasy and the multitude of lefty dudebros. They go out into the real world and impose this nonsense on actually marginalised people. Do not wonder why we are where we are. This is why.

AssassinatedBeauty · 19/03/2018 14:22

What has happened to universities to make them such homogenous, language policing places? When I was at university many years ago now, it was full of people from lots of different places and backgrounds. Lots of different perspectives and cultures.

StickStickStickStick · 19/03/2018 14:24

Sacry isn't it? Brainwashing...

Kneedeepinunicorns · 19/03/2018 14:28

"Our mission is to improve the poor"

Yes, it's that thoughtlessly patronising, except in modern times it comes with a side order of 'and I'm much more marginalised, needy and oppressed than you, so now I've educated you I expect you to immediately centre your service, your attention and your goals all around me. I'm your new priority'. It appropriates resources from the vulnerable and needy, while explaining how socially just and socialist and worthy it is to do so.

ilikebread · 19/03/2018 14:30

Sacry isn't it? Brainwashing

Yes it’s thought police! The definition of fascism

ladyballs · 19/03/2018 14:32

Transwomen are not women, they are men.

Woman does not need a qualifier. I reject the imposition of cis to appease a small subset of the population.

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