A thought about 'cis'

[Fleek]

I was just lying in bed thinking last night and wanted to share what popped into my head with people. I'm sure this has occurred to others (everyone else?) because it's pretty obvious but I haven't seen it written down explicitly anywhere else.

It's about the word 'cis.' Activists are so insistent we use that term ourselves and are labelled that. I've seen women be very articulate about why they hate it and I've nodded along with everything written. All the stuff about how I don't 'identify' as a woman, I am one because of my sexed body, and about how we don't want to be tied to any gender stereotypes that redefine being female as having swishy hair or loving housework or being submissive, etc. etc.

But there is another layer to it. The mantra is transwomen ARE women. If TWAW, then why would this movement want to force a label on us that actually distinguishes us from TW? Surely that's an own goal?

I think actually, it's a way of forcing us into being seen as/taking the position of oppressors. We aren't being branded as 'cis' in order to separate us as just a different type of woman (like the awful way they use 'disabled woman, black woman, trans woman') or just to change the idea of woman into being a gender and not a sex, it's also about firmly telling us we have privilege and are on a higher rung than TW. If we look at oppression Olympics generally, the only way to be a good citizen is to make supplication by publicly labelling your privilege isn't it? Saying 'I'm inadvertently an oppressor but I renounce my sin.' If you are an oppressor it's your job to shut up and sit in the corner. It's your job to hand over your power. You also need punishing, perhaps, if you take this idea to absolute extremes - threatening with violence, assaulting, eliminating, even? Look at Twitter handles. One vocal American actress had on hers for a long while (it might be there still) - 'I punch Nazis'. It's vital we are segregated by this label 'cis' so we can have some of the power we've gained over the last 50 years stripped from us.

It just interested me to think about it.

I was making a point

Originally I said...

Cystitis
Cistern
Cyst...

I loathe the way the activists. Zoom down to specialised things to make points and merrily ignore the massive obvious ones that have been total common knowledge for ever.

Eg.
TWAW! Need to use women spaces
Women spaces are sex segregation. Internal gender irrelevant. It's about bodies. That's the whole point!
Nope look. Hormone wash, clownfish, made up thing about brain scans.
Erm.... Sidetracked into arguing at length that humans aren't clownfish etc.

This is female socialisation isn't it. I do it. I can't help myself.

Listen, engage, explain, etc.

How many times irl have I done that in s topic with a man. And I argue this that. And he just ignored it/ dismissed it/ says you don't understand properly/ you are biased etc etc...

Same dynamic.

Cis is used because they’d get less attention if there were just ‘women’
Everyone needs to know how different and special they are and how cis women just don’t understand how hard it is etc etc

Just as short women and tall women are both women, but the adjective simply describes different sub-categories of women, cis women and trans women are both women, and those adjectives simply describe different sub-categories of women.

That is all fine IF you believe that trans women are women, and in order to believe that you must first believe that womanhood is a mentality or an expression of personality rather than a simple fact of the body.

If you do not believe that, then the assertion above is simply a nonsense. It does nothing to make the case that trans women are women, it simply assumes it and then uses that assumption to "prove" it. Logic fail.

I think the OP's point about the real, as opposed to the stated, reason for gender ideology's concept of "cis", is spot on.

@PurgatoryOfPotholes

The post that I quoted suggested that 'cis' was a "made up bullshit word". I responded to point out that it was not a made-up word, because it is a Latin word, being the opposite of 'trans'.

You keep saying this.

Can you please define the word cis as a Latin word (and if you would, what pronunciation system you use) without, at any point, using the word "trans".

I'm not going to ask you to define it in Latin. English will do. Just without saying the word "trans".

"Cis" means 'on this side of'. In Classical Latin, it was a geographic indicator ("Cisalpine Gaul" ––Gaul on this side of the Alps). I use the system of pronunciation generally accepted by Latinists (i.e. the one proposed by W. Sidney Allen in Vox Latina). I have a degree in Classics.

Now, of course, your retort here will be something along the lines "see! it is just geographical!" – but that is not the point.

Just as 'trans' originally meant 'across' in a geographical sense, it started to be used in English to mean something more figurative, and the present use of 'cis' has accompanied that to be the opposite of whatever 'trans' is used for. Hence trans(gender) women and cis(gender) women.

This idea that the adjective 'cis' is inherently insulting or derogatory is just mystifying to me, honestly. It has no negative connotation. It is literally descriptive like "tall".

@ErrolTheDragon, 'trans' is short for 'transgender', not 'transitioning'.

And I understand it! I understand that for people who deny that trans women can be women, the word 'cis'' seems superfluous and unnecessary, because the word 'woman' will suffice on its own.

But for people who don't share that view, the word 'cis' is just descriptive. I have never understood why anyone thinks it was designed to be an insult or a slur, when 99% of people I see using it just use it to mean, descriptively, "non-transgender people".

The OP isn't saying the reason 'Cis' is being pushed on women is as a mere slur or insult though.

Cis" means 'on this side of'. In Classical Latin, it was a geographic indicator ("Cisalpine Gaul" ––Gaul on this side of the Alps). I use the system of pronunciation generally accepted by Latinists (i.e. the one proposed by W. Sidney Allen in Vox Latina). I have a degree in Classics.

Now, of course, your retort here will be something along the lines "see! it is just geographical!" – but that is not the point.

Just as 'trans' originally meant 'across' in a geographical sense, it started to be used in English to mean something more figurative, and the present use of 'cis' has accompanied that to be the opposite of whatever 'trans' is used for. Hence trans(gender) women and cis(gender) women.

This idea that the adjective 'cis' is inherently insulting or derogatory is just mystifying to me, honestly. It has no negative connotation. It is literally descriptive like "tall".

Au contraire, mon ami.

My retort will be quite simple:

why were you perpetrating over-simplifying information on a forum which allows you 15,000 characters per post, if you have a degree in Classics?

Twice, you said it meant the opposite of trans. Twice. Why? (cūr? ) It is understandable if you would say this if you know it from tumblr or as a technical word in another discipline where trans/cis are used as opposites.

It is incomprehensible that you should do so if you are a classisist, except out of ideological reasons, i.e. intellectual dishonesty.

Also, "adjective"? It was a Latin preposition. It is, today, an accepted prefix of limited usage, and its usage as an "adjective" in one context is the subject of vigorous and impassioned debate. It's hardly in the same class as "tall", is it.

the word 'cis'' seems superfluous and unnecessary, because the word 'woman' will suffice on its own

It's not just "superfluous and unnecessary". To someone who does not buy into gender as a more relevant factor in ones life than sex, being referred to as "cis" is always offensive and very likely also insulting.

Offensive because the word "woman" is being used in a way that does not in fact apply to me, and aligns me against my will with an ideology that I believe is detrimental to female people.

Actively insulting depending on exactly what the person applying the term "cis" actually thinks a woman is, and therefore what I am. Of course, this question - "what do you actually mean by "a woman", what are the intrinsic characteristics that make one a woman rather than a man or non-bimary?" is never answered.

[quote Piapiano]**@JustPassingThrough3* and @DadJoke* if cis women and trans women are both subcategories of woman, how do you categorise woman?[/quote]
I'd love an answer to this

for people who deny that trans women can be women, the word 'cis'' seems superfluous and unnecessary, well you have no idea why I don’t want to be called or use that name for myself, or any other woman. The point is you have no right to categorise me or any other woman. End of.

Also… circular again… trans women are recognising that there are biological women which are different from trans women otherwise they wouldn’t have invented a name for biological women - there would be no need to call anyone else another name at all.

Blibbyblobby

Indeed. Should I decide to define myself according to the tenets of the gender philosophy, I would be "non-binary".

I choose not to, but it's interesting how people tell me I must be "cis". Often while telling me I must respect other people's pronouns, because they choose how they identify. Really? I remember pulling axillary hairs out by the root. Not just there, either.

But that is less important than the lack of reciprocity. I'm still nice enough that my default is to use preferred pronouns out of goodwill, but if you are going to call me "cis" and take it upon yourself to classify what relationship I have had with my body from adolescence up until now, then there is no more goodwill to be had.

I won’t respect anyone who doesn’t respect me. That is the essence. You cannot name and brand other people, according to your definitions. That is what bullies do. Just start using the words men and women and grow up.

Its just obvious.

As with so much else in this movement. The given reason (which is then argued and women end up continually taking at face value and on the defensive. About the entire appropriation, redefinition of words we have had for bloody ever).

Is not the point. Look at the process. Insist on a change. Say it's nothing no impact. Disagreeing is sign of hater because. Not a big deal. In fact. The most innocuous thing ever.

Let that settle.

Push a little further. Same process. Repeat etc.

I have no idea what or why this happened so... Slickly. But what has happened is just true.

My earlier post iterated this progression.

The current point is that seeing
'women and cis women' is not unusual.

Also interestingly some TW ID as cis women.

So.

We were given a label we never asked for, making the words woman girl apply to.. anyone.

And now some see it as othering and to TWAW and deciding to ID that way when they feel like it.

🙄

I’m a woman. I take offence to being called a Cis woman, a category created by male bodied for male bodied purposes.

The idea that the term ‘cis’ includes everyone except trans women seems rather similar to the recent political party statement about women being non-men. Effectively defined by the fact we don’t have a penis.

I’ll stick with woman and female.

And luckily to 99.9999% of the worlds population.

Woman girl female mean what they always did...

@PurgatoryOfPotholes

The post that I quoted suggested that 'cis' was a "made up bullshit word". I responded to point out that it was not a made-up word, because it is a Latin word, being the opposite of 'trans'.

You keep saying this.

Can you please define the word cis as a Latin word (and if you would, what pronunciation system you use) without, at any point, using the word "trans".

I'm not going to ask you to define it in Latin. English will do. Just without saying the word "trans".

This is a very good question, Potholes.

I doubt you'll get an answer.

Oh - the page re-loaded & I see the PP did have a stab at it....

I see we are agreeing that 'cis' is a Latin prefix (not adjective) with a few rather specific applications. Suspect J Caesar would be surprised at the adoption of it to distinguish between women & male people who'd prefer to be women, though.

The good news is that we are both agreed on the pronunciation.

I am curious as to whether he's enough of a purist to scream in anguish when he hears it pronounced as in Sistine Chapel. But that's a discussion point for later this morning.

I think ‘cis’ is meant to religate women further down the hierarchy of oppression, so hat a transwomen can reclaim the position that he had when he was born male, - being above the women in the social hierarchy - It’s a way to retain the male privilege that they have lost through transition.

Use the word if you want to use it

Don't use the word if you don't want to use it

And should an 'Activist' (from whichever side of the fence) criticise you for your choice tell them to (as somebody delightfully said to me last week - can't remember who, but it was a 'delightful moment')

Foxtrot Oscar

Do whatever you choose ...

Important addendum: don't use it about other people without their consent just because you want to use it or they may tell you to Foxtrot Oscar

When it comes to forms, my personal way round the nonsense is -

• To cross out 'gender' and replace with 'sex' on paper forms

• To replace 'cis' with 'real' on paper forms. Surely that eliminates all confusion, fake or otherwise

• If online, and therefore not editable, leave 'gender' blank (and email the organisation to 'educate' them if I can be bothered that day. I particularly enjoy quoting the actual word 'educate' for extra patronising)

@PurgatoryOfPotholes

Absolutely

I probably should have included in my post ...

If someone asks you not to use the word in conversation with them, then be polite and don't use it.

We all get so excited/pissed off about this stuff ... dunno why
You don't want me to use the word in conversation ? say so and I won't use it (although, I don't actually use the word anyway), its that simple.

Surely?