It's a real cis-privilege to...

[MrsWooster]

Have had periods for 35years.
Have a reduced pension because of two maternity leaves and part time work.
Have suffered crippling post natal depression, still affecting my life when dc is 5.
Have T2 diabetes as a result of gestational diabetes.
Have all the joyous symptoms of menopause and face osteoporosis and other diseases according to how and if I treat the symptoms.
Have a constant awareness, sometimes fear, of men and potential violence when I go out.
Have an awareness of being the object of the gaze. All. The. Time.

I posted a humorous (?) meme on fb about the bastardliness of menopause and suddenly calculated the ways in which female biology has not been a privilege in my life. Of course, as a woman, I have to conciliate and see the other side of the argument so yes, I have the privilege of carrying my children and the tattered fanjo and incontinence that have resulted.

For thirteen years I have been hearing transgender advocates telling women that transgender people are the majority of the population and that cis just means that few stereotypical women whose gender presentation matches their sex.
Then in the next breath they refer to all females as cis.
There are so many logical fallacies in the transgender advocacy arguments that you could fill two bingo cards.

@Icantreachthepretzels I get where you're coming from and I respect your point of view I just want to say that trans people have dysphoria and so calling yourself cis isn't the same as calling yourself non-anorexic etc calling yourself non-dysphoric would probably be on the same level as that though - I just think than cis and trans are to different almost between the types of women? It's like using the terms gay and straight - you're straight and that's a valid sexuality but gay is also and those labels are very much like cis and trans

katsumoto8

Thanks for taking my point of view onboard.
Opting into an oppressed people (women as a sex are an oppressed class) and then telling us we are privileged is incredibly offensive.

I don’t recognise gender, so I would find it hard to have a gender based prefix placed in front of a biological term - woman after all means adult human female.

@KatherinaMinola that word have very different connotations - it has been used as a form of demeaning black people and it is very derogatory unlike cis and trans which have no negative connotations and are not generally seen as offensive since they genuinely are just descriptors.

@AssassinatedBeauty probably - everyone faces discrimination but I guess they'd be treated similarly to butch lesbians in being told they're practically men? I don't really know because I've never experienced this first hand as I'm cis

It's like using the terms gay and straight - you're straight and that's a valid sexuality but gay is also and those labels are very much like cis and trans
Do you mean Lesbians, or are you just talking about men?
You are not up to date with the current transgender advocacy. No dysphoria is necessary to identify as a transgender person.

@CircleSquareCircleSquare yes I definitely find it very offensive when they complain about their oppression (which is definitely real) but ignore our very valid struggles they'll never experience

@thebewilderness I know that but a large majority of trans people do experience dysphoria which is what I was referring to - and I'm not really sure I understand the rest of what you said?

It's rude to say cis.

Technically, most transwomen are not women, they are men. ( strictly all transwomen are men but I have an unwillingness to call a person who has been surgically altered to look like a woman because of their mental health a man )

I am using the terms technically. This is biologically correct, and is how the words are presented in the dictionary and is consistent with the standard English use of the terms. Woman is not a feeling or a gender. It is a term for the female of the species

I think if you showed the average person in the street some pictures of naked transgender people, they would call then transwomen men.

If you refuse to accept that women is the term for a female of our species, then biologically female would be much less offensive to me than cis

very derogatory unlike cis and trans which have no negative connotations and are not generally seen as offensive since they genuinely are just descriptors.

I find it offensive. I find it a derogatory term.
It is not a descriptor. It is a poor and uneducated co-op of high school Latin.

katsumoto8

You will find is a struggle here to have a conversation which is gender ideology based as you are doing so far as most people posting are gender critical. Which means we don't buy into the theory. Mostly because the intention of the theory as applied to the Equality act is to remove sex based protections. Which matter to people, sex matters. We are a bit particular about that.

Have a look here. sexmatters.org.uk/

@midgebabe I'm not really sure what you're getting at here since female is the word to describe the female of a species - you don't go round calling frogs women do you? And cis and biologically female (or male) literally mean the same thing cis is just the shorter version???

@katsumoto8 you've missed my point. Many many women are gender non conforming, without being trans, they are simply women who don't conform to sexist stereotypes. By your use of the word, you would describe them as "cis" because they don't have gender dysphoria and aren't trans. Yet women are often discriminated against and treated poorly by men for not conforming to sexist stereotypes.

I find your insistence that "cis" is not used derogatorily to be odd, when you can easily find thousands of instances of it being used exactly as an insult towards women. Hardly ever towards men.

@CircleSquareCircleSquare I'm not sure if you saw my previous comment but the person was saying that calling someone the n word is the same as calling someone cis which definitely isn't the case - I'm not saying cis can't be found offensive by some people

@AssassinatedBeauty what I was meaning to get across was that calling someone cis isn't the same as using the n word against somebody - not that cis can't be used in the wrong ways

I was about to lose my absolutle shit untill I saw this was on feminism chat . Phew

Yup . All of the above !

@Mouthtrousersafrocknowandthen it's definitely a complicated subject and I don't think it should be as simple as going well I say I'm a women so I'm entitled to use female dressing rooms etc because that definitely shouldn't be the case but I also think that many trans women are genuinely trans and shouldn't be excluded from women's spaces because of some creepy men

And cis and biologically female (or male) literally mean the same thing cis is just the shorter version???

But it isn’t, is it - at least by the people who subscribe to the notion. They say it means someone who agrees with the gender they were born in. That is not synonymous with female.

@AssassinatedBeauty I wasn't meaning to give a label to gender non conforming people I was just trying to say I don't really know because I'm a gender conforming cis woman

We are fine with just female. That works. Anyway pop over to the cis is a slur thread and see whats going on.

It is used as a pejorative therefore it is a pejorative. That is a fact. You are using it here repeatedly and arguing that the people it is used as a pejorative against should not view it as a pejorative. The same argument is used to justify using the word bitch and slut as a pejorative, I am asking you to stop calling women a pejorative. Are you refusing?

I'm not comparing it to other slurs. I'm saying it's majority use is as a slur and as part of aggressive attacks on women. If you think that's a neutral use and a simple descriptor then I'm surprised.

It's also incorrect to refer to women en masse as "cis", because you simply don't know if all/most/some women identify with the gender stereotypes and constructs associated with their sex. According to Stonewall's definition of trans, most people would be trans unless they are a walking stereotype.

the person was saying that calling someone the n word is the same as calling someone cis which definitely isn't the case - I'm not saying cis can't be found offensive by some people

You are being deliberately(?) obtuse now, katsu.

The female of our species is a woman. We will avoid anthropomorphism. Where are my glasses?

No cis does not mean the same thing. Maybes it did once, or does in some communities, but it has been used in derogatory ways, which is why so many of us are each saying it is offensive. It is typically used to say possessing a gender identity that matches the biological sex which is not the same biological sex.

Also, it is obscufating things. It is not a word that everyone understandings in the same way....or we wouldn't be having this debate!

The technically correct word for biologically female human is woman but you don't want to use the word that way. I am trying to suggest something that is not offensive.

@thebewilderness many people do use it as a pejorative I'm not denying that all I'm trying to get across is that it's main use is to identify trans women from people who are biologically female (cis women)