Language and use of cis

[Rainfallrainbow]

I’m struggling. I do not identify as a cis woman. I am a woman. I can see why many are offended by this prefix.

BUT...

My daughter is currently being assessed for autism. It’s almost a certainty that she will be diagnosed with ASD. As we’ve gone through the diagnostic process, I’ve found my language has changed. When talking about my daughter vs her peers, I now use the term ‘neuro-typical’ to describe those without autism. I’m beginning to hate when people use the term ‘normal’. If I thought anyone was annoyed by me describing them as neuro-typical, I in turn would be annoyed because when comparing them to my daughter, this is what they are.

Isn’t this the same as the use of the word cis?

Are you truly cisgendered though? Have you accepted the feminine gender role? Do you not possessanymasculine traits or performanymasculine activitites?

Yes I do possess some masculine traits. Yes I do perform some masculine activities. But being a 100% feminine woman is not a requirement of being cis gendered. I think it's more helpful to see it as a spectrum. And importantly, I don't have any problem with having female sex characteristics.

I think it's also important to examine which traits are gendered. For example,having long hair is not something that would have mattered to cave people. It's not a psychological thing. That is likely to come from society.

However, what about the fact that women are generally more tidy (I'm not included in this one, right slob!). Perhaps that was useful when maintaining a space for herself and the cave babies.

This is all very simplified. But as I said before, almost every animal displays gendered behaviour. I think we're included in that.

However, men usually are more assertive, women usually are more talkative and emotional. Men usually have better spatial awareness. Women usually are more nurturing.

That's quite a right-wing perspective. Perhaps you should read Cordelia Fine's 'Delusions of Gender'. For instance, it's been shown that women don't have higher natural levels of empathy, it's something that's socialised into them (or not socialised into boys as the case may be). 'Delusions' is also a counter-argument to the book you mentioned, 'Why Men Don't Listen' . I'd recommend you read it if only to test out your traditionalist ideas.

In your opinion, are transwomen more nurturing and emotional than 'cis' men? Do they have less spatial and numerical ability? If so, how do you account for many of them having successful careers in tech - a stereotypically male area? I see two ways to explain it - either they have 'male brains', or gender stereotypes are bullshit.

Of course, almost noone is going to fit every single stereotype.

So if almost no one fits the stereotype then saying that "cis" is people conforming to their supposed gender is clearly going to apply to a tiny tiny tiny minority? And being a tiny tiny tiny number would surely make then unusual and therefore actually not conforming to the norm at all?

A mosaic is a more useful analogy than a spectrum.

But then, on here I'm clearly a minority. I do believe there are differences in men and women's brains.

I'm not a blank slatist either. But here's the thing - brains have plasticity. We do not know - and likely never will - whether any differences found in male and female brains, or gay and straight brains, or any brains of any groups, are innate or a result of socialisation or to what extent it's a mixture of both. We will never be able to create a study with reliable control groups because it would require unacceptable restraints on the environments of individuals. You can't use human beings as lab rats to "prove" nature or nurture once and for all.

cave people.... cave babies

Evo-psych - popular with men's rights activists. You take some social construct as natural and work backwards to 'prove' how it might have evolved.

If this is in general, and many women and men display these same characteristics, how can they possibly be used to determine if someone has somehow got a "opposite sex" brain due to some genetic or developmental issue?

That's a good question, and it's very difficult to determine. Although I still maintain that the innate traits are largely present in most women.
That's perhaps where I say 'let people decide for themselves' . Of course, some women are very masculine indeed. They doesn't mean they have any gender issues or dysphoria. Some transwomen aren't particularly feminine. At its core, I would say that it's a feeling that I can't imagine. It's most of the time a reaction to sex characteristics. And I think that it follows if you're uncomfortable with your biological sex, your brain may be mismatched too.

The trouble is, there are so many combinations of brain configuration and genital dysphoria. It's impossible to find a 'one size fits all' definition. Which is where I think we should be sympathetic and largely trust that they are not lying.

Oh I believe people feel what they feel and believe what they believe. I just don't also think that this then makes them the opposite sex.

There are physical differences between male and female brains: www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/males-and-females-differ-in-specific-brain-structures.

"Specifically, males on average had larger volumes and higher tissue densities in the left amygdala, hippocampus, insular cortex, putamen; higher densities in the right VI lobe of the cerebellum and in the left claustrum; and larger volumes in the bilateral anterior parahippocampal gyri, posterior cingulate gyri, precuneus, temporal poles, and cerebellum, areas in the left posterior and anterior cingulate gyri, and in the right amygdala, hippocampus, and putamen.

By contrast, females on average had higher density in the left frontal pole, and larger volumes in the right frontal pole, inferior and middle frontal gyri, pars triangularis, planum temporale/parietal operculum, anterior cingulate gyrus, insular cortex, and Heschl’s gyrus; bilateral thalami and precuneus; the left parahippocampal gyrus, and lateral occipital cortex.

The results highlight an asymmetric effect of sex on the developing brain. Amber Ruigrok, who carried out the study as part of her PhD, said: “For the first time we can look across the vast literature and confirm that brain size and structure are different in males and females. We should no longer ignore sex in neuroscience research, especially when investigating psychiatric conditions that are more prevalent in either males or females.”

Just a thought re the above - if being a ‘cisgendered’ woman is just being happy with having female anatomy (I.e. no dysphoria) - isn’t that the position often referred to as ‘truscum’? I.e. you can’t be trans without having dysphoria - which is often held to be a transphobic viewpoint?

@ Rainfallrainbow

The period around assessment is awful, it's like living in a shaken snow globe. I hope you and your child find tolerance, kindness even where you don't find understand.

I think it comes down to the approach taken by the communities.

The ASD community, the gay community and the disabled (or differently abled) community all recognise the fact that they are, in an important way, different from the majority of the population. Terms like "neurotypical", "straight" and "able bodied" recognise this, and the fight for equality has been one of a fight to get mainstream society to recognise that they are different but of equal worth. However, the term "cis" does not imply that "cis" people are in the majority, or that "cisgender" can in anyway form a baseline against which divergence can be measured.

In my opinion, the TRA movement is not a fight for equality and recognition. It's a fight to erase society's ability to recognise the real-world differences between the majority and the minority. As the most vocal and militant TRAs are men who believe they are women, this means erasing women. The way "cis" is used by the TRAs implies that "cis" and "trans" are not equivalent to "majority / normal" and "minority / different".

I believe that there's a major post-modernist social movement taking place, especially amongst the young, and it's being spearheaded by the TRAs, or at least the TRAs are riding the wave. Social media has created a situation where conformism is now overwhelming in a way it never has been for young people before. Rather than respond to this by ditching the technology or silencing the bullies, society has instead moved to reject the basic idea that most people are essentially the same, and it's only a few people who are quite different from the norm.

Because young people are going through so many personal changes and lack life experience, what they don't realise is that most "typical" adolescents do not feel normal. They identify with people who really are different under the mistaken belief that they really are different too. This means they champion the idea that there is no "typical". Rather than say "it's normal to feel different" they say "there is no such thing as normal". That's fine, as long as the attitude is restricted to young people and the elders help keep them protected from those who take advantage of their naiveté - but at the moment the politicians are pandering to it (possibly chasing the fictional sudden growth in youth voting).

There are several problems with this. Firstly, a lot of the TRA's arguments simply don't make sense. The most obvious is that TRAs want us to accept that trans is a separate gender, yet also want us to believe that trans and cis women are exactly the same. Secondly, it erases the protected status of women. Thirdly, it allows the terrible social pressure visited upon teens by nastier members of their cohort to go largely unchallenged. Fourthly, and in light of Cambridge Analytica, most worryingly, is that it leaves society wide open to exploitation. We really can be easily divided into large social groups, and our behaviour is largely predictable and easy to influence. Pretending that we're all unique and fully in charge of our own selves opens the door for the propagandists to manipulate politics.

I think what the TRAs have helped achieved, possibly inadvertently, is a society where it's increasingly hard to judge what is real and what is not real. This serves their own personal agenda, but it also serves the agenda of other radical or militant political movements like the Brexit ultras and Momentum / Cobynista brocialists.

I believe that there's a major post-modernist social movement taking place, especially amongst the young, and it's being spearheaded by the TRAs, or at least the TRAs are riding the wave.

Yes. And it only services to reinforce existing power structures and relations, not challenge them. It's bad for women. It's bad for working class people. It's bad for GNC POC working in prostitution. Mostly, it's bad for anyone who isn't posh, white and, preferably, male.

It's sad to see so many young people falling for it.

I really struggle with the term cis and trans in relation to gender. Having a science/chemistry background I immediately relate it to scientific terms for isomers. The word cis relating to a woman really irritates the hell out of me and I would object strongly to being labelled with it.

Isn’t this the same as the use of the word cis?

Absolutely not. No comparison.

There is also the constant use of gender in place of sex. This morning on woman’s hour we had a woman eager to find out the ‘gender’ of her unborn baby. This is the new normal.

Using gender as language takes whether we are male or female away from their primary purpose of reproduction. We are no longer on this earth to have sex and reproduce, but to have sex and have fun and let some other low life do the reproducing.

Changing language from how we reproduce ourselves to how we perform in society may seem inclusive but you can bet your bottom dollar that discrimination against those who still do the biology will still apply. And they will probably be ‘cis’ too.

First post here (hello MN!)

In response to Randomname234

Just wanted to say that "Why Men Don't Listen and Women Can't Read Maps" is a pop-science book that contains 'facts' such as 100% of engineers are male (page 140 of PDF version) The central point of this book is that male & female brains are 'wired differently', and that all observed differences in behaviour are due to this 'wiring' & innate ability. The book is happy to provide many details of observed differences in males/females - but fails to examine or understand WHY there are differences, simply writing this off as innate. In terms of feminism - this is a profoundly misogynist book.

If you want to really understand the reason WHY there are observed differnces in male/female behaviour, then I'd suggest Cordelia Fines 'Delusions of Gender' (clue - socialisation). It's well researched & well referenced. Fine is an academic, psychologist & professor, as opposed to Pease who is a 'body language expert'. Fine dismantles the idea of innate ability & hard wiring with hard evidence & humour. Well worth a read.

I love this idea of Random"s that women are more emotional. What crap.

Which sex exhibits anger most? Men. Anger is an emotion and a very powerful one. It gets lots of people killed. Somehow that gets forgotten in this rush to persuade us that emotional means tears or sulks.

Discribing a women as NT, or white, or tall doesn't change the meaning of the word women. It still means 'adult human female'

Discribing a women as trans or cis does change the meaning of the word women. It is utter nonsense to insist a 'cis women' means 'female adult human female', and a 'trans women' means 'male adult human female'. Therefore 'women' in this case does not mean 'adult human female', but something else.

However, men usually are more assertive, women usually are more talkative and emotional. Men usually have better spatial awareness. Women usually are more nurturing.

But, even the true bits of that are only true in limited circumstances - there are plenty of stereotypical situations where women are assertive and men are submissive - eg. the ever popular hen-pecked husband trope, it's proven that women aren't more talkative, and watch any sporting even to see emotional men plus the number of intimate partner murders and abuse. Spacial awareness - they seem to forget to display that walking down the pavement, and as to nurturing, depends how you define that - I would say women are more likely to take on the responsibility for the emotional wellbeing of people around them, I wouldn't say they do that naturally though, I'd say they just fall into it.

But perhaps there is something in the brain that makes most women want to 'pretty'.

Or it could be that until recently men held the economic and political power so for their own livelihoods women had to make themselves attractive to men.

I have ordered “Delusions of Grandeur”.

OP I know what you mean. I’ve seen discussions about “all the NTs are so oblivious”, etc and it is similar.

I would be ok with “natal woman” or “born woman”.

But “cis” is a word that (non trans) men can use to a woman to silence a woman’s complaint and “gaslight”.

The problem with saying "I'm not neurotypical, I'm normal" or "I'm not straight, I'm normal" is that it sets up other groups (autistic people, LGB people) as abnormal. "I'm not a cis woman" doesn't set up trans woman as an abnormal group of women - it's saying they're not women, because women has a biological definition. They're men, and there's nothing wrong with being men, including men that like do things coded as feminine. They're not freaks if they feel happier wearing makeup - they're just not women.

Agree with this

I don't like cis because it assumes that I 'identify' with feminine stereotypes, and I don't. Some stereotypes yes I guess. It also assumes that I believe in a mystical gendered soul, which I also don't. I am a woman as I am an adult human female, not because of a feeling in my head. Finally, its almost always used in a sneery 'you know nothing, you are cis' or 'die cis scum' type way. And I have heard the term 'cis man' twice, since starting to look into this topic, where 'cis woman' is used constantly, and the twice I have heard cis men, it has been right after someone pointed out that cis is only ever used against women..so I think they used cis man to try and pretend this is not the case. So i wonder why it is only women that have the term applied to them.

I too hate the term cis. I am a woman and that’s that.

Loving this discussion. It's gone off "cis" but got more interesting.

Here's my two penn'orth. I do think there are innate psychological differences between men and women - all of which exist on a continuum, and all of which can be exacerbated by societal conditioning, of course. Sticking to the ones that I know there are statistics for - women are less likely to have car accidents, less likely to commit violent crime, more likely to fancy men, more likely to suffer from Impostor Syndrome and other manifestations of a lack of confidence.

So therefore it doesn't seem impossible to me that a male person could happen to be born with such a female-like psychological profile that he might actually feel more akin to a woman than a man, and that it might be his best option to live as such. That's what I thought being transgender was until pretty recently.

Then it occurred to me that in that case trans women would be a comparatively peaceable lot - risk-averse, non-aggressive, rather unconfident, perhaps rather keen on children. And mostly into men rather than women.

Whereas - that really isn't what the Paris Leeses of this world are.

Some posters here make a distinction between the "old-skool" transsexuals and "new wave" trans women, which is fair enough.

EITHER WAY - nobody tells me "no debate"!

(I mean "keen on children" as in fond of them, not in a dodgy way.)