Prefixes modify and define words. It occurred to me to wonder what is being stated when the prefix cis- is added to words like woman.
To my surprise, I found that the dictionary definition of cis- to be "a prefix denoting relative nearness (this side of) identical or main groups.”
In the case of cis-woman, the main group being referred to is all women. So a cis- woman is someone "near to but this side of a woman". Not a woman.
Which of course I consider myself to be, having been born female, and growing through girlhood to adult womanhood, and using my body to achieve motherhood: all honourable terms once clearly understood. I identified strongly with Helen Reddy’s "I am woman, hear me roar, in numbers too big to ignore". And I do realise, as she did, that there was and still is " a long, long way to go, until I make my brothers understand.”
Now, it would seem that it is some of my sisters who need to understand - that in classifying women into cis- and trans-women, others are in fact insulting those of us who are natal females.
For what does the prefix trans- mean when added to the word ‘woman'?
Trans is "a prefix meaning across or beyond, freely applied in geographical terms, also found attached to stems not used as words, and in figurative meanings such as transcend.” A trans-woman goes across or beyond woman.
This term seems to have developed from the more accurate older term “transsexual", which described going across or beyond one’s natal sex characteristics, and initially involved bodily changes, transformation as far a possible from one set of sexual characteristics to another.
“Transgender” also seems accurate in that the person goes across or beyond the gender usually associated with their natal sexual characteristics. (Cisgender, however, would literally mean close to, but not quite, gendered!)
But trans-women? Cis-women? These prefixes state that neither cis- nor trans- women are women as women were once defined. The cis-group are close to, the trans-group goes beyond, the now erased/obliterated from language main group, which is the now-redundant (biological) “woman" with her characteristic bodily structure and functions.
Or else logically, perhaps there is no normal woman; being a woman is just a social construct open to any person who chooses to adopt the term as descriptive of themselves, for whatever reason. Not a position I accept.
Am I the only logical person who finds this misuse of language ludicrous?
Who exactly was the first person who decided to classify me and all other adult biological females as not a woman, just an entity close to or this side of woman?
Was it a conscious (or simply unconsciously sexist) choice to use an implicitly derogatory prefix for biological females? along with a prefix implying superiority for those natal males who consider that they are women, and who usually claim the right to use that word about themselves without any modifying prefix.
Why did, or does, any woman accept this insulting prefix?
Did no one look up meaning as I have?
Will standard dictionaries come to accept an illogical word because social media uses it, and Wikipedia contains it, in an article possibly written by a person with a vested interest?
By what right does anyone, male or female, try to insist that I should accept their terminology for my own body and self? I don’t.
I am not a cis-woman. Even when bits of me are excised, or no longer function as they once did, I am simply a woman.
And all women need to reject the idea that we are more or less than that.