Really stupid question about the term 'cis'

[Spottybluepyjamas]

I've recently become very vocal about the sex and gender debate amongst some of my friends and family and can normally hold my own when someone is telling me that 'trans women are women' and that it doesn't hurt anyone else for someone to be able to switch sex, so why does it concern me.

However, I can't articulate why I disagree with the word 'cis'. In my mind I shouldn't have to give up the right to use the plain and simple word 'woman' without a prefix just to appease men (men shouldn't be front and centre in feminism), but I think there's more to it than that, something more insidious but I can't put it into words. Can anyone help me please?

For balance as a she/her I’m very happy to be labelled ‘cis’.

I wish I had £1 for every time someone wrote ‘offensive’ in this thread.

OK. Excluding your own use, you'd have £11. That's twice what I won on the lottery to be fair.

@ClaudiaWinkleHam

For balance as a she/her I’m very happy to be labelled ‘cis’.

I wish I had £1 for every time someone wrote ‘offensive’ in this thread.

For balance as a she/her I’m very happy to be labelled ‘cis’.

Of course. Plenty of female people are genderists and those who also identify as women are presumably happy to called cis.

No one wants to stop you having your own beliefs about who you are and where you fit in to the world.

The problem comes when you (generic you meaning "female people with genderist beliefs", not you personally) want to impose that definition of womanhood on to other female people whether they have accepted the genderist definition of woman or not.

Out of genuine interest, what do you, as a genderist female who identifies as cis, recognise as the common quality you share with all trans women but no other males, and with no trans men or non-binary female people?

"I'm a woman. Born and biological. "

Well done, DanceswithTortoises!

"For balance as a she/her I’m very happy to be labelled ‘cis’.

I wish I had £1 for every time someone wrote ‘offensive’ in this thread."

I feel the same way. I just don't get women who feel so fundamentally threatened by transwomen. I can't see how it's any skin off my nose whatsoever. The term 'ciswoman' only comes up in convos with transwomen - and there are so few of them, it just doesn't matter. Absolute waste of time worrying about it.

@Ides

"For balance as a she/her I’m very happy to be labelled ‘cis’.

I wish I had £1 for every time someone wrote ‘offensive’ in this thread."

I feel the same way. I just don't get women who feel so fundamentally threatened by transwomen. I can't see how it's any skin off my nose whatsoever. The term 'ciswoman' only comes up in convos with transwomen - and there are so few of them, it just doesn't matter. Absolute waste of time worrying about it.

But you get that you don’t mind and neither does claudia but other women do mind

Im sure women not wanting to be called cis is no skin off your nose either

@Ides

"For balance as a she/her I’m very happy to be labelled ‘cis’.

I wish I had £1 for every time someone wrote ‘offensive’ in this thread."

I feel the same way. I just don't get women who feel so fundamentally threatened by transwomen. I can't see how it's any skin off my nose whatsoever. The term 'ciswoman' only comes up in convos with transwomen - and there are so few of them, it just doesn't matter. Absolute waste of time worrying about it.

That's fine. As I said to the other poster, no one wants to stop you having your own beliefs about who you are and where you fit in to the world.

The thing to remember is that just because you don't think because it's no skin off your nose to have no female-only spaces, rights, protections, opportunities or indeed even a name, you don't have the right to give them up on behalf of every other female as well.

So adopting the label cis for yourself, please remember that it is only for yourself and that many many female people do not accept that label because of the loss of spaces, rights and protections and name that go with it, so be as careful, considerate and courteous that your own language recognises the existence of all the women who do not accept the label cis in the same way as you no doubt are careful that your own language recognises the existence of trans women.

@Ides

"For balance as a she/her I’m very happy to be labelled ‘cis’.

I wish I had £1 for every time someone wrote ‘offensive’ in this thread."

I feel the same way. I just don't get women who feel so fundamentally threatened by transwomen. I can't see how it's any skin off my nose whatsoever. The term 'ciswoman' only comes up in convos with transwomen - and there are so few of them, it just doesn't matter. Absolute waste of time worrying about it.

The reason women feel threatened by transwomen is because if everyone is a woman, you end up with male rapists in female prisons assaulting vulnerable women who cant escape.

The term 'ciswoman' only comes up in convos with transwomen - and there are so few of them, it just doesn't matter. Absolute waste of time worrying about it.

Your statement that the term 'ciswoman' only comes up in conversations with transwomen is incorrect. As an example, the Scottish Government use it both in their policies and public statements -

www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/dec/17/transgender-reforms-will-not-diminish-womens-rights-scottish-government

There are numerous and repeated uses of the word cisgender and ciswoman in newspaper articles by national papers, in research and organisational policies.

If you don't object to the term, that is your right but it is disingenuous to claim that it is not now in standard use, despite many women's objections to it. It's a change in language which has been imposed on a group of people which seems incongruous given the spirited debate about the space between the words trans and woman or the profileration of preferred pronouns for example.

Offensive offensive offensive offensive offensive offensive offensive offensive offensive

There you go Claudia brought it up to a round £20.

If you're happy to be labelled 'cis', fine. The rest of us here are not.

What is it that 'cis' women represent a subset of? Presumably, women. Now, how do you define "women"? You will need to define this subset of human beings, so it can be clear which subset of humans "cis women" represent a subsubset of and of which "transwomen" constitute another subsubset. Ditto for men and "cis men".

You can't use biological sex in your definitions, e.g. "the gender identity associated by society with [biological sex] men/women", as that will be game over: there will be biological sexes and social gender roles traditionally associated with each sex. Feminists like us accept the former and want to demolish the latter, not reinforce them.

But now you have to do precisely that, rely on social gender identity to create a category called "women". GI has to be all there is to a category: there's one group of socially created and enforced expectations, bearing on appearance, aptitude, attitudes, behaviours, etc. labelled "man" and another labelled "woman", with no explanation as to why we have these particular groups of expectations and not others—say, "likes purple, good at knitting, Capricorn, votes Tory, hates asparagus" for "man" and "fond of early Renaissance art, loves skate-boarding and WOW, vegan" for "woman". In other words, GI now has to do all the heavy lifting but with no firm ground to stand on. In reality there are good historical, economic, etc. explanations as to why the social expectations associated with each sex are the way they are.

Again, if GI is socially constructed, why do some trans people want to adjust their bodies? And even more basically: how do they know which adjustments to make? Obviously, because there really are biological sexes, and they want to resemble the outward appearance of bodies characteristic of the opposite sex.

Some transwomen are happy to keep their bodies the way they are while asserting that women can have penises, etc. (and mut.mut. for transmen). Here "women" obviously isn't biological; but it can't be traditional social GI again, as the traditional GI for women really, really doesn't include "can have a penis". So these transwomen must be constructing another GI for themselves, one that some other women do not have.

Which women, exactly? "Women who don't have penises?" When you call yourself "cis", do you really self-identify as a woman who doesn't have a penis? Obviously not. You are saying, I think, that you accept the GI society has created and labelled "woman". And off we go again: "women are those human beings who accept the GI that a given society has created out of thin air and decided to call 'woman' for no reason whatsoever".

I asked my friend what a woman was and she said, "Whatever a woman decides it means."
I told her I didn't want to be called a ciswoman and she said, "Being a ciswoman is the least of my problems." This bugged the crap out of me. What did that have to do with me, that she wanted to wear the Cone of Shame? I'm not the submissive type. That's her bag.
But the thing is, what she's basically doing is agreeing with me. We both know what a woman is. I call women women because I believe women have the right to define themselves and to own their territory proudly, to reclaim our history despite the fact that we have been historically oppressed because of our sex. She calls women ciswomen because she has unconsciously taken on the mantle of shame and still has a desire to punish and oppress women on the basis of their sex, to prevent them from claiming their identities and their histories, and to make them take up less space, even in their own sex category.

It's compelled speech.

The reason women feel threatened by transwomen is because if everyone is a woman, you end up with male rapists in female prisons assaulting vulnerable women who cant escape.

Typically they just become guards rather than getting a GRC.

What did that have to do with me, that she wanted to wear the Cone of Shame?

Perfect description

@Barheim

The reason women feel threatened by transwomen is because if everyone is a woman, you end up with male rapists in female prisons assaulting vulnerable women who cant escape.

Typically they just become guards rather than getting a GRC.

Do you think they need a GRC to claim to be a woman?

Do you think they need a GRC to claim to be a woman?

Oh, definitely not as GRC's (and the entirity of the GRA, which is why the outcry against it is ridiculous) is solely about birth certificates, but again, they're significantly more likely to become a guard.

They certainly don't need to apply for a GRC - www.keep-prisons-single-sex.org.uk/males-really-held-in-womens-prisons. Scotland's prison service makes no difference at all between a transwoman with or without a GRC.

@Barheim

The reason women feel threatened by transwomen is because if everyone is a woman, you end up with male rapists in female prisons assaulting vulnerable women who cant escape.

Typically they just become guards rather than getting a GRC.

Oh awks. So keen to jump in with stock TRA response no 57 "If men want to rape women there are easier ways than pretending to be trans" that you forgot to read the post properly.

Males convicted of rape do not, in fact, get a choice between serving their sentence or becoming a prison guard. They do however get the choice of serving their sentence in a male or female prison as long as they can make a good enough show of believing they really are a woman deep inside.

And they don't even need a GRC to do it.

And those transwomen who are housed in the female estate have largely been convicted of sexual offences - www.keep-prisons-single-sex.org.uk/who-are-males-in-women-s-prisons

'All but two of them were convicted of violent or sexual offences.'

Never mind though, eh?

And that doesn't include the transwomen with GRC's because in the eyes of the prison service, they are indistinguishable to women.

Oh awks. So keen to jump in with stock TRA response no 57 "If men want to rape women there are easier ways than pretending to be trans" that you forgot to read the post properly.

Oh no, I read it properly, I just didn't care to carry on the lineage of 'hyperfixating on singular incidents, of which at least half wouldn't have occured if the prisons in questions followed their own protocols' versus the systemic issue that inmates face, which is the abuse of powers of prison guards to humiliate, sexually abuse and rape them.

@Barheim

Oh awks. So keen to jump in with stock TRA response no 57 "If men want to rape women there are easier ways than pretending to be trans" that you forgot to read the post properly.

Oh no, I read it properly, I just didn't care to carry on the lineage of 'hyperfixating on singular incidents, of which at least half wouldn't have occured if the prisons in questions followed their own protocols' versus the systemic issue that inmates face, which is the abuse of powers of prison guards to humiliate, sexually abuse and rape them.

Of course you could care about both the systemic issue of abuse by guards and the systemic issue that the increase in risk of sexual assault of females has been explicitly accepted as a price worth paying to make males feel better.

But we both know you don't.

@Barheim

Do you think they need a GRC to claim to be a woman?

Oh, definitely not as GRC's (and the entirity of the GRA, which is why the outcry against it is ridiculous) is solely about birth certificates, but again, they're significantly more likely to become a guard.

So what's the point of the GRA? Why not just scrap it?

@Barheim

The reason women feel threatened by transwomen is because if everyone is a woman, you end up with male rapists in female prisons assaulting vulnerable women who cant escape.

Typically they just become guards rather than getting a GRC.

One of the many reasons I oppose male prisoners in women's prisons is the fact that their male strength advantage over women, including female guards, means more male guards in women's prisons.

I think there should be as few male staff as possible.

@Barheim

Oh awks. So keen to jump in with stock TRA response no 57 "If men want to rape women there are easier ways than pretending to be trans" that you forgot to read the post properly.

Oh no, I read it properly, I just didn't care to carry on the lineage of 'hyperfixating on singular incidents, of which at least half wouldn't have occured if the prisons in questions followed their own protocols' versus the systemic issue that inmates face, which is the abuse of powers of prison guards to humiliate, sexually abuse and rape them.

So your argument is that because some male guards commit sexual offences against female prisoners, we might as well put male prisoners in with the women as well?

They're being raped anyway, so why not put a few more rapists in with them?

Is that really what you're arguing for?