What is ‘cis privilege’?

[MissSusanSays]

I’ve seen quite a few of the posters wo come on to make the pro-self id argument rage about ‘cis privilege’

Could one of them actually explain what it is? Because I struggle to see how women, who are oppressed by their sex and forced into gender norms, abused, paid less, over looked for promotions, given shoddy maternity care, suffer post natal depression in silence, suffer miscarriages, fight through the shame and difficulty on infertility, endometriosis, breast cancer, rape, sexual assault, menopause, hysterectomy, groping, belittling etc are privileged.

If someone who believes in ‘cis privilege’ can point out to me what privileged women have then I’d really, really like to know.

Or is it just another way to shame women into not talking about the tragic and terrifying things that happen to them because of the way their bodies function?

I think (someone correct me if I'm way off base) that there are conditions which are not 'illnesses' as such - eg autism.

As I understand it, autism varies from being barely noticeable to being extremely disabling. It's not
subjective. It's measurable. And it's not a condition which involves the rest of us endorsing it, which is a damn good thing as I read it can take ages to get a proper diagnosis let alone appropriate support.

I see gender dysphoria as a psychiatric disorder in the same class as eating disorders. There are also people who are desperate to have a healthy limb amputated or become paraplegic. There is one transwoman who intermittently identifies as paraplegic and uses an entirely unnecessary wheelchair. I assume all these disorders of perception have very similar roots.

If someone believes things about themself that are untrue and can hurt them we don't react to such conditions by endorsing the false beliefs.

But if gender dysphoria is a condition like autism why can't it be measured? Autism spectrum disorders are assessed and can be observed. Gender dysphoria is purely subjective.

I suffer from chronic depression and anxiety. Every so often I see a psychiatrist. I am very aware that people can be very unwell without physical signs. However my MH issues are expressed by my behaviour and in my surroundings. For instance I live in chaos and I have weird quirks like being too anxious to open letters.

But if someone claims to have gender dysphoria and yet takes no steps to relieve it by surgery or hormones I doubt their sincerity. If your sexed body causes terrible distress then you would surely take steps to change it? Ditto if after claiming to have been born in the wrong body you go on to demand PIV sex with lesbians or, if you're a transman, you have a baby. The behaviour and the claims need to align if you want people to believe you.

I'm wary of people labelling health problems as "conditions" ever since we had a spectacularly bad diabetic nurse who described type 1 diabetes as a condition.

I am not ignoring that, I have agreed completely that the way it is being used is wrong at every level and that I, in no way, think that TW should be able to play the victim card in conversations with women.

I just didn't agree that the concept is a complete fabrication, like the first few replies suggested. Then everyone started putting words in my mouth and claiming I had sympathy for TW over women, which is absurd. I was clear that I thought the concept could be real (as per thread title question) but the phrase should be used in a different context than it was being commonly used. I don't think that makes me tone deaf, especially when I'm defending myself over things I clearly didn't say.

If a word is being wrongly used to silence people, that is wrong both from an aggressive POV and from a linguistic POV - just because I argue about the latter, doesn't automatically mean I support the former. I just felt the answers were a getting a little bit close to trying to shame a doctor for using the term spasticity in a medical context, because someone else had used it as an insult in the playground. Does that make sense?

When transwomen say women have cis privilege they're ignoring their own male privilege and their inexcusable appropriation of our material reality as cosplay.

It's also like bitching because X is taller or Y is more intelligent than I am. Plain old envy. Life is unfair, mate.

FWIW I think Paw got it spot on.

Showing empathy for the struggles of another marginalised group is likely to attract empathy in return.

I believe it is possible to be GC and still acknowledge one has certain privileges over someone who is transgender.

Pawsome, not hugely, no, it doesn't make sense in the context of what we are talking about.

The term has been used, repeatedly, to attack women for talking about their periods, abortion access, even, most shamefully of all to try and shut up an FGM survivor who spoke about her FGM.

This is the context in which women are saying the notion does not exist.

Are male bodied trans feminine people at a disadvantage to gender conforming males in our society? Yes. You're on FWR, most of understand that the gender system is a bastard to everyone in it to a certain degree, and it does put gender conforming males at the top of the tree. So the term might have some use there should anyone wish to use it.

But so far, hardly anyone has.

So while I appreciate your attempt at even handedness, I think you've misread almost everything here.

Showing empathy for the struggles of another marginalised group is likely to attract empathy in return.

I applaud your optimism. I direct you to the very, very common testimony of the posters on FWR who were liberal minded trans allies to begin with until they saw their empathy being used as a club to exact more and more concessions from them.

I think most of us feel sympathy with people whose lives are genuinely made a misery by gender dysphoria, Jezebelz. However this is a tiny group.

The TRAs who rant on about cis privilege tend to come from the much larger group who are not dysphoric and who are essentially MRAs in a different guise.

Transsexuals identify with women. The ones I've met or known present inconspicuously. No porn star clothes or make up. They badly want to fit in and try not to cause us any problems or alarm. This is the group most people still think of when they hear about transwomen - the Hayley Croppers of this world.

I think trans women do not benefit from male privilege at all. It’s sad, also, that they are currently suffering so much antipathy from the women they so desperately want to be welcomed by. I’m not sure what their privilege is, because it’s certainly not the fact they are born with male genitalia

I’m not sure what their privilege is

Really? You don’t think males have privilege in this world? Wow.

Prawnofthepatriarchy personally I have no problem accepting I have certain privileges over the Hayley Croppers of this world.

If an individual is not gender dysphoric then I can't see how they can play the cis privilege card.

And by the very nature of being a trans woman a person is sacrificing their male privilege.

the very nature of being a trans woman a person is sacrificing their male privilege.

How do?

And by the very nature of being a trans woman a person is sacrificing their male privilege

Clearly not, as we are so often told, they’re still treated for the most part as males.

If you are asking society to treat you as a woman in every respect you are voluntarily giving up your male privilege.

Jezebelz, that's not how male privilege works. You don't sign up to it and then hand in your membership card and lose all your clubcard points when you tell everyone you are actually a woman despite appearances.

Being a woman is crap and we're certainly not privileged when you list all the things we have to cope with.

Funnily enough, I don't see the trans people rushing to embrace any of the sexism and physical difficulties we have to deal with, or the violence and sexual assault.

If they believe that men are so harmless and we're over reacting, let them prove it by using the men's toilets. Only they won't because they know full well they'll get duffed up.

Yeah? Welcome to our world, only we get sexually harassed and assaulted then duffed up if we don't comply.

FloralBunting I think it does. The very epitome of male privilege is going to Eton or joining the Freemasons, neither would accept a trans woman.

I agree with Jezebelz. What male privilige do trans women have? Can someone answer?

I don’t think you understand what Male privilege is

The concept of cis privilege is a weapon to further an agenda that sets out to harm women.

Transwomen even actually believe that transmen have privilege over TW (they recognise male privilege they just refuse to own it).

Transwomen still have male privilege.
Most gender ideologists (particularly those who identify as non-binary) they are virtually all white, middle class university undergraduates with immense class privilege. Transwomen still have male biology, male advantage, male entitlement and the same male violence-criminality offending patterns.
Transmen still have female biology female socialisation and female behavioural patterns.
Trans does not subvert the power dynamic at all.

Did everyone here see the Stonewall ad in the Metro in support of trans ideology and backing self-ID? It was like the FT100 power list including GCHQ. Doesn't quite sit with the "most opressed" narrative.

How very very attractive for your beta-male to find a way to use gender ideology to gain advantage, not only can you gain access to all women only spaces by uttering some magic words you can also claim to be more opressed and use it to unleash all your pent up misogyny in a frenzy that is pandered to by the entire political class.

Male privilege is having male biology. Taller. Stronger. Faster. Can't fall pregnant. Socialised to be a leader and decision maker. Used your having our opinion listened to. Expecting your sexual needs being fulfilled even if you pay for it. Not seeing sexism towards women. Not understanding sexism because to you've never experienced it to your own detriment. Being paid more. Being promoted more. Being elected to parliament more.... on and on I could go but I won't right now

There are more female undergraduates than male undergraduates. But we digress. A trans woman is marginalised and victimised by society more than most women are. There is no privilige in that. You seem to have very little understanding of the tribulations of trans people.

If you are asking society to treat you as a woman in every respect you are voluntarily giving up your male privilege.
Which part of their male privilege has Pippa Bunce given up?
And before you say that Pippa is just a cross-dresser who was wrongly awarded a place on the list of top 100 FEMALE executives, have you considered the possibility that Pippa is not an outlier among what we now call transgender people?

Jezebelz, well, for a start as I understand it, there are trans identifying members of the Freemasons, so I can't agree with that one.

But there is so much more to 'male privilege' than 'privileged males'.

Pips Bunce, who comes comfortably under the trans umbrella, has faced no disadvantage since his 'coming out'. His comfortable executive career, achieved while presenting as exclusively male, has not been ranked by no longer exclusively identifying as male.

And even in the day to day, a male person, walks through the world very differently to a woman. It doesn't just disappear in a puff of gender magic when that man presents as female. You see it all the time in conversations on news programmes. A man will speak over a woman incessantly unless the presenter is very firm, and the recent programmes with male bodied male presenting trans people show that they still do it when identifying that way.

A trans woman is marginalised and victimised by society more than most women are.

This is false and insulting to women.