The first time I came across the phrase “cis woman”, I had this sudden rush of rage. To me, it was once again a bunch of blokes telling women who they were allowed to be, defining women without regard to women themselves.
It was colonising women in the same way that colonialists would rename, in their own image, the features, even the names, of countries they invaded. Even when those countries already had their own names.
I still can’t read or hear the term without feeling the rage.
Language matters, because naming things is an act of mastery.
In the Bible, Adam’s first task was naming things,
God “brought them to Adam to see what he would call them” and “the man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field” (Gen. 2:19“20)
And apparently now, Adam gets to name women.
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.” “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.” “The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that's all.”