How many women (or men) identify as cisgender?

[hallouminatus]

On another forum, I said "Most women don't identify as cisgender, and many feel that describing them as such is disrespectful". Someone has asked me for evidence of this. I think it's probably true, but I haven't seen any statistics or even estimates of numbers. I'm interested in any evidence or arguments which would either support or refute my statement.

*There IS a universally accepted term for a group of adult females. WOMEN.

Services for women. Services for trans women.

There. Not hard, is it?*

You'd think, but it depends on the audience.

@mayjaye

I identify as cisgender by definition.

Roughly speaking when did you first hear the word "cisgender" and may I ask how you "identified" before that?

It wasn’t ‘I am cis woman hear me roar.’

😂

@countingthestarswithmini

I honestly haven't a clue what cisgender means

..and unfortunately the people who claim to know won't tell us.

Weird!

@FrippEnos

I don't know what cis means

I've just looked at stonewall's info page.

Apparently Cis means "not trans", so they seem to think that trans is the norm.

Can't say that I am surprised.

So it's a bit like the disgusting term "non-white"?

You'd think, but it depends on the audience

I’m genuinely confused about when this would apply maybe “We are finding that we need to extend our women’s shoe sizes because trans women have bigger feet” - but then you are still just fundamentally describing a world where some shoes are considered ‘wrong’ for men because of restrictive gender expectations.

Why endorse that?

I view 'woman' as insufficiently clear, and 'cis' as interchangeable with 'biological', 'natal', etc.

This makes no sense.
Everyone has biology of one kind or another, so by that logic everyone is 'cis' including trans and NB people.
If 'cis' were interchangeable with biology or being a natal man or woman, then a trans man would also be a 'cis' woman and a trans woman would also be a 'cis' man, which makes even less sense.

None of these convoluted gender labels makes any sense.
I don't get why saying that humans come in one of two sexes and gender stereotypes aren't real or innate is somehow such a controversial and complicated concept.

If you are looking at needs you are talking about dysphoric/non dysphoric and gender conforming/non gender conforming, but again that doesn’t map onto the Stonewall definition of trans.

XDown, I appreciate both your user name and your patient attempts to explain your point of view, but fundamentally it’s not clear why anyone would use a sexist term like ‘Cis’.

I appreciate the patience too, but it's really coming down to, 'its just too hard work and time consuming to check and care about everyone's views equally so quicker to just impose a political view for our convenience, oh well'.... questionable

And that some groups are much easier to offend than others.

Lazy thinking, lazy practice, it's just polite enforcement of a political view and an apologetic shrug of guess you'll just have to be offended, the computer says no. (And you're not of the group we have to be really scared about offending.)

Which is even more offensive than just the word to start with.

No. Not buying this. If you care about this as genuinely and equally as you claim to then find words all groups can cope with. Third ways. This is just politer waltzing over other people's rights and language and reinforcing inequality in your values.

Bear in mind too this isn't "this is a neutral word neutrally come up with that we need to use", this is an apologetic "This is the label for you that this group insist we have to call you or they'll be offended in loud and very difficult to manage ways. Sorry, our hands are tied. (And ffs don't use any labels or words to them that they don't like.)"

No. Either people have the right to choose their language or they don't. Either everyone gets to choose and discard the words they relate to or they don't. If I have to accept other people inflicting labels on me that I don't agree to, agree with, relate to and see as enforced participation in a quasi religious belief system, then other people are going to have to accept me using my own chosen language and labels for them too.

The contract works both ways or it doesn't work at all.

I'm an adult human female. I'm not a vis anything. My 12 year old DD would know exactly what you meant though.

I am a woman, I am not a cis woman. That term riles me

I appreciate the patience too, but it's really coming down to, 'its just too hard work and time consuming to check and care about everyone's views equally so quicker to just impose a political view for our convenience, oh well'.... questionable

Sorry, but it really isn't that at all, and that suggestion totally ignores the many reasons I gave to you as to why.

It's economy of scale for the most part. We do not set the trends because in the larger scheme of things our organisation is tiny. It caters to less than 0.5% of the UK population. There are much larger organisations who provide much the same service on a far larger scale, and those organisations do indeed carry out much of the legwork that goes into establishing accepted best practice, terms of reference etc. We are not directly subservient to those larger organisations as they are not our commissioners, but we do look to them for guidance, we do have some agreements with them that are more akin to a 'memorandum of understanding'.

If anything we do is simply a question of 'hard work and time', it gets done. Period. People who work in third sector will tell you that there is absolutely no paucity of either in charitable organisations. We are bound by the strictures of our contracts and the terms of our funding, so invariably, what restricts us is funding first and foremost, and remit secondly.

Considering that biological women are 70% (approx) of our entire user base, it would be pretty bloody stupid if we just wrote them off as 'not the group we have to be really scared about offending'. People do not qualify for our service based on sex, but it does have a significant impact on how we can best provide the service to them, it has ramifications for what we can do with them in terms of signposting, referral onwards etc, so to imply that we simply don't care about them because of the fact that one specific term might be used on an infrequent and very limited basis is nonsense, not borne out by the fact that women record an almost universally positive response to our service and voluntarily return over and over as repeat users.

The organisation itself is overwhelmingly staffed by women, guided by a board that is majority female, and commissioned by a panel that is entirely female, so If we simply didn't care about offending women, then I'm pretty bloody sure it would be noted in short order and addressed.

Anyone who refers to me as a 'cis' woman will receive a brief retort or lengthy lecture (depending on available time and inclination) about why I certainly do not identify with the means by which women have been oppressed for centuries.

I don't think most people mean to be offensive in using it (and I do not believe in lambasting people who have good intentions but clumsy delivery) but 5 minutes thought should make it perfectly obvious why many people would take it as such.

Considering that biological women are 70% (approx) of our entire user base, it would be pretty bloody stupid if we just wrote them off as 'not the group we have to be really scared about offending'.

But if you have to differentiate, why not say ‘natal women’ or ‘biological women’?

The use of ‘cis’ excludes women who acknowledge that their sex is female but reject gender on principle.

I am a woman, not a subset of woman.
If anyone calls me cis I take it as an insult.

“The use of ‘cis’ excludes women who acknowledge that their sex is female but reject gender on principle.“

Ask the women you know and you’ll find that pretty much every single one of us acknowledges that we are female but rejects gender on principle. Gender is a social construct, and gender stereotypes for women are restrictive and regressive.

So you might need a better definition of who this language is designed to benefit. But I would suggest that it’s pandering to male egos at the expense of women.

Who was it who recently said 'I don't identify as a woman, I am a woman'?

But I would suggest that it’s pandering to male egos at the expense of women...

I believe that too.

@peak2021

Who was it who recently said 'I don't identify as a woman, I am a woman'?

India Willoughby?

If woman is the set and woman is the sexed description of a member of the female sex of the human species, then it is impossible to be a non transwoman aka cis, as a transwoman is not a member of the female sex.I belong to the subset of women who are wee,fat and Scottish but I also belong to the set that is women because my sex is female. No transwoman is female so they cannot be a subset of women.

You are Susan Calman and I claim my five pounds.

Cisgender? Absolutely not.