One liner as to why "cis" is objectionable please!

[3timeslucky]

I hate the term. I hate to see women blithely reduce themselves to being a subset of women.

But I know I've read more reasons as to why it is not an ok term to use. So can you share your one liners or even two liners (they need to be simple enough that I can remember and re-use them).

Thanks!

Because it suggests that there is more than one sort of woman. Women are born created.

Respect for pronouns cuts both ways.

Unless you're a woman apparently

Born NOT created.

Not a one liner, but these are my thoughts on the matter

1. I was born female and, for most of my life, felt like an impostor and unable to know what it is like to "feel like a woman".

1. I was groomed, trafficked, tortured and beaten by a pimp who pretty much every day told me "You're not a real woman".

1. I later discovered that other trafficked women were also told by their exploiters that "you are not a real woman". I realised that this denial of women's gender identity is a central theme of the modus operandi of pimps and traffickers.

1. I discovered a huge number of cults involved in human trafficking (including sex trafficking) that offered training courses in how to become a real woman - typical wording would be to do with "womb yoga", "yoni activation", "awaken your inner goddess". Female dissidents in these cults are routinely accused of "not being a real woman" or "having a problem with your femininity".

1. I noticed that many, if not all, of these cults promote a definition of femininity that involves stuff like "learning to surrender to men", "worshipping the king / Shiva / God in a man" and rejecting "manly" concepts and identifications such as "women are strong" or "women should aspire to follow a career".

1. I am absolutely sick to the back teeth of men telling women what it means to be a woman and how to be a "real woman" and I am not going to surrender to the policing of language that dictates that I use the prefix "cis".

1. I am still discovering what it means to be a woman. Apart from brief moments listening to Aretha Franklin I don't usually "feel like a woman" however the only people I have met who claim to know what it feels like to be a woman are people who were born male.

1. The times when I have been aware of being a woman have included times when I had fibroids and bled for weeks at a time, times when I was raped, the countless times men groped and grabbed me in the street the time when I endured a colposcopy. "There are no nerve endings in the cervix" explained the doctor cheerfully as she cut a lump from my cervix. I lay there in agonising pain as she dropped a little piece if me into a specimen pot and as it drifted downwards, leaving a little spiral of blood in its wake I really knew what it means to be a woman.

1. What it means to be a woman is not something written in words it is something we bleed. We live it, we breathe it, it is in our blood and our tears.

10. Nobody has been able to steal my womanhood, not by rape, trafficking, torture, surgical procedures and nobody will steal it from me with the prefix "cis".

It’s a completely unnecessary prefix. Just “woman” is fine.

Saying this to a wokebro at a party was enough for him to swirl out of the room in a rage muttering about my transphobia so it obviously did the job.

Because CIS implies that I am human and I identify as an omnipotent goddess.

It is not just women who are being told that they must use the prefix "cis".

A male friend working in the public sector was sent on a work training course recently where he was told that his gender was "cis male".

He said that nobody in his team took it seriously but that nobody was able to say anything without risking their jobs.

The situation is insane

Because any definitive does not require qualification.

We might speak of a black leopard, but a yellow leopard with spots is just a leopard.

I don't identify, I just am.

I am a woman.

I hate the fact that someone is trying to take that away from me and make me feel like I am a 'type' of woman.

Nope, I'm a woman. In the full, biological and proper sense of the word.

Because I do not have a "gender identity", which is just a concept in one's head and not real. I am a woman.

hoodathunkit

Torturous to read but I get it.

Sorry for your pain, you beautiful woman.

Because straight people don't have to identify as non-gay.

Because I don’t need a wanky, made up prefix; I’m just a woman not the opposite of something.

Why do I have to 'respect' transwomens pronouns or 'gender' but they doesn't have to respect my wish to be known only as a woman. Not cis?

Hooda. That made me cry

hoodathunkit Great post, that's a perfect example of defining what a woman is

1. I don't believe in gender so I can't possibly identify with a gender.

1. If you respect people who are non binary, respect my disbelief in the gender-binary.

1. I don't like it so why would you do it?

Because 'cis' is a belief system not a material reality. I don't subscribe to that particular belief system.

hooda

I echo your sentiment that the times I have really known I was a woman are often the painful or humiliating times. There's nothing dainty and ladylike about sexual assaults, abortion and childbirth (the blood and the shit and the grunts and the sweat! My god!). But these are female experiences if not stereotypically feminine.

I reject cis for all the good reasons already put, especially as its plain inaccurate. And also especially as it is used to create a false heirachy of oppression where so called cis people oppress trans people. This is used as a clever cloak to obscure the rampant misogyny at the heart of this movement and the fact it is top down, not grass roots.

I don't doubt some trans people experience actual oppression (as opposed to disagreement) but this is homophobia and /or misogyny. Two things we can't actually tackle if we accept "cis".

It is claimed that if you are not trans your are 'cis' because you identify with the gender imposed on you through socialisation. I do not identify with being paid less and treated as a second-class citizen!

Plus, what everyone else said.

I don't want anyone making assumptions about my gender when referring to my sex.

I'm trying to think if there's any other adjective applied to people without their consent which simultaneously is supposed to denote privilege yet clearly implies their utter inferiority.

Oh, you had me worried with this CIS thing, I just check, nope I still have no penis, so just female will do.

I don't mind an identifier to distinguish what type of women I am. Don't like cis though (where did it even come from?) I would suggest-

Female woman / male women.

Perfectly clear, easily understandable, who could object to that?

I'll object to that, Kenn. A woman is an adult human female and always has been. There has never been a male woman.