Could we reclaim "cis"?

[rocketpocket]

I am mainly just thinking out loud here and happy to be told to stop being ridiculous.

I know a lot of the women on here are deeply unhappy with the cis label but I was wondering if it's something we could actually work with.

Cis basically just means a person that identifies as the sex/gender that they were assigned at birth, right?

Wouldn't it be better if we reclaimed the label and had ciswomen only shortlists or ciswomen only refuges or ciswomen only sporting categories?

Perhaps transwomen can be women but they can never be ciswomen.

I think I understand the anger at the definition of "woman" being changed and all the rest. I suppose this is an "if you can't beat them, join them" solution. Is it terrible?

Cis can fuck right off.

Nope.

I'm a woman.

I was born female, I have all my womanly bits (well, apart from one bit that had to be removed, but I WAS perfect at one point) and frankly, woman is good enough for me.

Cis can go fuck itself into next century.

Does anyone else when they read Cis woman immediately think of the word Sissy, ironically which means being effeminate, and derives from the word sister. (Not sure if there’s any point to this post, just an observation)

Socio - younstill are perfect!

No
Just no

Nope.

I am not a sub category within my own sex. I do not identify with the sexist stereotype imposed on me since birth.

Fuck that shit.

No. I am not cis. I don't identify with feminine gender stereotypes, I think they harm women.

I'd be in favour of 'women-born-women only shortlists' if we have to specify that way.

I remember when I first became aware of this sel-ID crap (when I heard about the Jennifer James crowdfunder, to which I donated), and I was genuinely confused about whether I would be eligible to apply to an all-woman shortlist (not that I had any intention of doing so) because I didn't actually self-identify as a woman. I just WAS a woman. I had to read the Labour Party blurb several times, and I still couldn't conclude if just a common-or-garden woman would be eligible to apply.

Giving up 'woman' is my line in the sand. Hella no.

Petalflowers yes, me too! Sissy is an insult which basically means 'weak and girly'. There's also 'sissy porn' which is about AGP and males cross-dressing. Not good associations. I've also seen it spelt cissy, which is even closer to 'cis'

I'm with you Petalflowers - I thought it WAS Sissy for such a long time. I couldn't understand why it seemed to be applied to me. If you knew me, you'd never in a million years describe me as a sissy. Not unless you wanted me to live up to my MN name!!!

Nothing to reclaim - it belongs to the margarine

I like boring men. They are usually much quieter.

To cis - nope. I don't even have a gender identity. It is utterly ridiculous.

A friend and I were discussing a form she had to fill in for work, I think relating to diversity, she told me when she came to the portion that dealt with the participant's gender, she was given several options including "cis", she had no idea what the term meant and whether in fact the term applied to her, and had to seek advice on this point. Apparently she was not alone, many others in her company were baffled by this new pronoun. I wouldn't have known either had I not come on to MN and observed the debate that is now raging around the whole transgender issue. I think many people feel that they should not have to redefine their gender by adding the preceding "cis" to the word that has been used since the beginning of time to describe an adult member of the female sex in order to accommodate a small minority of people who aren't women. I can quite see why many women find the word offensive.

pearl

Could be.

Suggests someone who wants to identify out of a masculinity that hasn't served them well, into something they perceive as much more fun, kind, exciting, whatever.

I am sorry if the gender stereotypes of your sex are crap, but change THAT

We are all individuals

I’m a gender atheist* so I could only pretend to be a ‘ciswoman’ same as I pretended to be a Christian when I accidentally ended up in a church during the Wednesday morning service and the handful of pensioners got so excited to have a ‘young un’ amongst them, I ended up taking communion for the first time in a decade. Pensioner-peer-pressure.

I do kinda get where you are coming from though - there is a group that calls themselves ‘SistersNotCisters’ and I quite fancy arranging a parody called ‘CistersNotMisters’ but that’s as far as I can go with this cis-thing. Soz.

We should insist on the right to define ourselves, just like PoC did to combat the 'post-racial' "I don't see colour" BS that US republicans were all about some years ago. The statistics showing that black people in the US (at least) are disadvantages aren't boosted by a bunch of white dudes calling themselves post-racial^^

YY

I don't see any necessity for this prefix, woman is a word with a firm pedigree in linguistic terms. Not altogether happy with trans woman actually, I preferred the term we are not allowed to use anymore. Occasionally I call myself a real woman or a proper woman, but that's as far as I'll go.

No. Just that really.

Do you know what really is telling with all this cis crap? It is just a way of virtue-signalling. Eventually the people using it to look inclusive will find another crusade and get bored of this one. I've been pretty alarmed to see the word 'cis' scattered through newspapers but I will eat my hat if I ever see an article on a serious subject use it. Would there be a piece on how our cis-woman Prime Minister, Theresa May is managing Brexit? What about something about notable cis-woman Ang Sang Suu Kyi one day dying or continuing to turn a blind eye to her people being massacred?

No? Why? Really. Why?

Not because it would confuse readers but because it's all fucking farce. It's like anything with the trans issue that you shine a light on - penises being lady-penises, it being literal violence to misgender someone.... Go say that to a bunch of 60 year old men in power. They would raise their eyebrows at you, if that, before getting back to serious matters. I kind of feel demeaned that I even engage in any debate over it. 'Yes, dear, of course, now go and tidy your room,' is all the response any of this cis stuff requires if you actually think about it.

We would do well to remember that.

No.

Nope. Don't want it in the first place. I refuse to be coercively assigned.

The entire reason for cis is a kind of linguistic trick. So it goes. You have women come in all different ways:

Black women
Muslim women
Trans women
Gay women
Disabled women
Etc

Who is anyone to say that any sort of woman is not a "real" woman?
Historically many groups of women have been oppressed and had to fight to be seen as "real" women.
...

That is the point of the exercise. It is to position trans women with marginalised groups of women. Ie appropriation.

I typed a long post.

But then remembered that 'no' really is a full sentence, despite my social conditioning.

No.

gendercritter

Do you know what really is telling with all this cis crap? It is just a way of virtue-signalling.

This.

No. I'm not being labelled and defined by angry, misogynist men. Had enough of that in my life.