#CisIsNotASlur trending on Twitter

[Slythermum]

I'm assuming through the garbled wordfuckery I'm seeing on twitter that this is people who don't understand language who are using that this is in response to:

a) The BBC article about Lesbians
b) Women objecting to the word "cis"
c) Shut up women
d) Dinosaurs
e) Shut up Lesbians
f) fannies

Meanwhile, my daughter has said girls in her class are saying "down with the cis bus" "cis people are evil", "cis should die" etc

@Cailleach1

Gender itself is different. It's the personal sense of self, oftentimes this is matching the sex of the person.

Personal sense of self! Sounds like describing a soul.

That is why people who don't believe it are treated like blasphemers. You're not allowed to be an atheist or you are hateful, and there is lobbying against a secular society. Every department and educational establishment must use the catechism.

I think I believe in souls (despite lack of scientific evidence, but hey who cares about that?!). But a soul, or some kind of essence of a person, or a sense of self, can't be male or female because those terms describe the physical body. Its like saying you have a tall soul or sense of self, utterly meaningless.

This is the Stonewall definition of cis:

Cisgender or Cis
Someone whose gender identity is the same as the sex they were assigned at birth.

So in order to be cis, you have to have a gender identity, so it's not everyone who isn't trans, because most people don't have a gender identity. Do you disagree with this definition @Millicispud?

And how can a gender identity be the same as a sex when they're two different things?

I'm with @waterlego. Exactly what questions does one ask oneself, to establish one's gender identity?

Because if it really is all just 'feels', then it sounds very much like a religious belief to me.

[quote WeeBisom]@Millicispud:
You say: "It's important to note that gender does not equal gender roles/stereotypes/expression."
So what is gender then? How can I know what my gender is, and whether it sits comfortably with my sex?[/quote]
👆 It's not just how do I know what my gender is.

How the fuck can anyone else see inside my head, and tell me that my "gender" matches the "biological sex I was assigned at birth"?

If I'm cis, fucking prove it.

Otherwise shut the fuck up with sticking prefixes on me.

Millicispud
Do enough research and you'll find that pretty much every anti trans argument is just a rehashed homophobic and sexist arguments.

Actually, most of us did our research and ended up here in the gender critical position.

Saying there is more to being a woman or man than the physical body is sexism. The concept of gender identity is built on sexism.

[quote Millicispud]@waterlego

Took me a little bit to work out to be honest, and as I said, some people don't discover their sexuality until later in life.

But I mean, I wasn't expecting a "gender critical" cultist to understand or even pretend to care about lesbians.

@BaronessEllarawrosaurus
You know those online quizzes are completely worthless and just there to harvest your data and sell it on to advertises right?
Is that really where you all think you're agender? 🤣🤣[/quote]
Many (most, of those who are high profile), GC feminists are lesbians.

Moving on.

People used to refer to 'sex changes' (you concur that sex is immutable) and 'transsexual' (same). There was no alternative, because gender was a grammar term only. Gender, in the sense you're using it, is a really recent idea. You're saying that you believe that everyone has a personal, and therefore subjective and unprovable, sense of gender, which is detached from their physical and sexed body (even though our brains are, by definition, part of our body - we can have no disembodied thoughts). So effectively, you mean a soul. You think people have soul-genders, and while you don't link that to an external deity, you do link it to an inner essence that nobody else can ever experience, nor prove.

Is 'a personal sense of self' you can't identify, explain or justify in any way worth dismantling women's sport, women's shelters, single sex prisons, and even women's right to collectively organise as a sex? If transwomen have the same violence patterns, collectively, as other males (where 95% of those in prisons, and 99% of those in prisons for sex offences, are male) then why do women have no right to say that male people remain male people, regardless of a personal (and therefore by definition unprovable and subjective) belief and they want single sex spaces to remain that way? You've been very anxious to assure us that you are an educated person. Have you read the above documents? What about the book, Trans? I mean, only an ignorant person would hold a dogmatic position without bothering to understand the opposing case. Dangerous thing, confirmation bias. So what did you find unconvincing?

I respect the sincerity of other people's faith beliefs, even if I can't personally share them. But why should we be forced to live by your faith, or be deemed reprobates? Isn't that the essence of fundamentalism?

You used the phrase 'oftentimes'. That makes me think you are from the States. Did you know that the women who complained at Wi Spa, who were attacked for making it up, for being hateful - in fact were protesting about a known convicted sex offender, with a rap sheet dating back 20 years? Are they owed an apology? What happened to 'believe women'?

I do have one more question. If sex doesn't make someone a man or a woman, and is a completely different thing - then what's all the focus on getting hormones, and complex and dangerous plastic surgeries, to more closely resemble the opposite sex in what can ever be a very superficial way? If gender is a soul-based belief, personal to each person, then why have a surgery that castrates someone and makes them 50% or so likely to have functional incontinence afterwards? Why give children drugs that cause known risks to bone density, brain and social development, and even possibly IQ, when with watchful waiting almost all will grow out of dysphoria, yet with those drugs almost all progress to becoming lifelong patients with those risks and complications?

Can you explain that, as a medical professional?

These people who spend so much time insisting that women accept their religious beliefs all seem such unhinged, regressive, authoritarian idiots.

I don't accept the term 'cis' being applied to me any more than I would accept 'heretic' or 'infidel' from adherents to other religions.

I do genuinely come under the trans umbrella according to stonewall so can not be cis. I'm still waiting for someone to explain what I am

Awesome post @wellbehavedwomen. 👏🏻

[quote Millicispud]@MrsTerryPratchett

Not irony at all, you claim to know all about gender, then start talking about gender expression and roles, two entirely separate things.

Gender is what you are, not what you do or where.[/quote]
Gender is what you are

What is that supposed to mean?

[quote Millicispud]@NarcissistsEyebrows

Essentially, gender is what you are personally, mentally and culturally.
Sex is what you are medically and biologically.

How you know is almost exactly how you know your sexuality. The majority of people are straight and cis and don't have to "change" anything or do any real work. Nor do they get asked "so, how do you know you're straight?".

As a lesbian, I found out my sexuality fairly early on, some others didn't discover it until later. They're still lesbians.
Same with trans people. My sis knew when she was 5 or so.

Trans women are women because thats simply what they are mentally, personally and culturally.
they are everything us cis women are except for biology.
My younger sister's trans so I've done a bit of reading about it.

Woman generally refers to gender but is often used interchangeably with female. But obviously you don't call other women "females" unless you have a neck beard / fedora or are a Farengi from star trek.

www.who.int/health-topics/gender#:~:text=Gender%20refers%20to%20the%20characteristics,as%20relationships%20with%20each%20other.[/quote]
Word salad saying absolutely nothing useful.
Give us definitions of
Gender
Gender identity
Woman
Female
Etc etc

“Millicispud

@titchy

Then you haven't read 1984 very well then.

They changed language precisely so that nobody could have a discussion about, nor even thinking about individuality.
The aim was to eliminate thoughtcrimes by eliminating independent thoughts and identities entirely.“

@Millicispud
The aim was to eliminate the possibility of thinking altogether by eliminating the meaning of language.

The reason they wanted to eliminate thought was so that the totalitarian state could not be questioned.

An example of eliminating the meaning of language in 2021 is saying that ‘woman’ as a stand alone word really means a man.

@wellbehavedwoman

Excellent post.

[quote Millicispud]@Waitwhat23

Are you transgender?
No.

Okey so you're cisgender then.

This is quite literally the exact same argument as "I'm normal, I'm not "heterosexual". Sees, you've got them weirdo "homosexuals" and thens ya gots me, a "normal" man".

Except now it's simple "I'm not "cis", I'm a human adult female. Not like them "trans" weirdos, I'm a "normal" woman".

Do enough research and you'll find that pretty much every anti trans argument is just a rehashed homophobic and sexist arguments.[/quote]
Ha, you're funny.

Almost all the women I know who share these beliefs read up on it to disprove the hateful bigots. I wanted to do what you're doing - genuinely, I went away and read up on all the shit the horrible women here were saying, to prove they were wrong. As a good liberal progressive feminist, I knew they had to be! Right?

The problem was that they weren't. All the evidence was on their side.

@Millicispud do you believe everyone has a gender identity?

@wellbehavedwomen fantastic post 👏🏼

@Millicispud

It's just a descriptor; do people really get bent out of shape by being called cis?

I'm cis, my partners are cis, almost all the women I know are cis.

How do you know?

You have described gender as a "personal sense of self", a phrase which refers to someone's self-image. Which is generally defined as an individual person's perception of all of the characteristics that combine to form their identity. Those characteristics are bodily characteristics, likes and dislikes, beliefs, morals, behavioural traits and last but not least your skills, knowledge and abilities.

So you claim that you know the self image of every woman in your circle. Given how intricate our self image is, and how rare it is that we fully disclose this to even our loved ones and how may parts of our self-image we are not consciously aware of, I am astonished you would claim to know the self image of every woman in your circle.

Furthermore you claim that there is a specific self-image called cis, and that this is the self-image that matches the sex we are.

If I'm to decide whether I have this self-image called cis, there must be something for me to compare the personal sense of self of a typical female person to.

So, could you please give me a non-exhaustive list of the bodily characteristics, likes and dislikes, beliefs, morals, behavioural traits and skills, knowledge and abilities that define a person of the female sex (but not one of the male sex)?

P.S. You claim that "trans" and "cis" are just prefixes, yet throughout your comments you have used them as adjectives.

Just in case you are unaware of the difference, a prefix is a morpheme we add to the beginning of a word or a word stem to make a new word with a new meaning. The prefix itself cannot occur in isolation. (Think un- in unhappy.)

An adjective is a word we use when we want to give extra information about the noun we are referring to. Which is exactly how you are using the words.

@Millicispud

It's just a descriptor; do people really get bent out of shape by being called cis?

I'm cis, my partners are cis, almost all the women I know are cis.

No.

I am not cis, cis means I identify as the gender I am born into, I was born with a sex not a gender. I was born as a female I don't identify with ANY gender because I think 'gender' is nonsense and I always have. I am not part of a chemistry discourse so no cis there either.

If people can label me with impunity against my wishes I don't see why I am not allowed to also label so assuming you want to call me cis can I deadname and misgender to my heart's content then? Or is it one rule for thee and another for me? (As usual)

You can feck off with 'agender' as well it still implies I have some truck with gender. I think it is garbage I am not 'agender' either I am nothing to do with the ideology of gender. The ONLY time gender is connected with me is when I am treated a certain way by people who like to apply stereotypes and rules to me by virtue of my sex and I reject that too.

Didn't a transwoman claim to be 'cis'?

If the above is true then 'cis' is a meaningless term.

I think it's akin to religious faith. Some of us have it, some of us don't.

I live in a majority Muslim country, but I'm not a Muslim. I don't have any other faith either.. not a Christian, not a Buddhist, not a Hindu, not...well, just not, basically.

I'd rather no adherent of any of those beliefs told me 'if you don't share my beliefs, you must belong to one of the designated categories my faith has decided applies to non believers. There's options, you can adhere to a different religion & we will tolerate that & you can pick amongst them, but you can't opt out completely, sorry.'

We don't accept that. We don't support the 'opters out' - atheists - being told that they're infidels or heretics.

We expect people to be allowed to say 'as far as I can see, you religious types, you're all cheeks of the same arse & whilst I absolutely support your right to crack on with expressing whatever you believe, I don't subscribe to ANY of this. I'm an atheist. Leave me out of it.'

This is the same. I'm not 'cis'. I think this entire belief system is nonsense.

I'm getting to the point where I'm starting to think "OK, if everyone's so insistent that gender identity is real and everyone has one, yet I definitey don't personally feel that I can claim to have a "female" gender identity, or a "male" one, but if I have to have one then I guess I must be agender or non-binary or gender fuck or something else not yet defined. Which must certainly fall within the trans umbrella. So I'm not cis."

Surely that's most of us. If we're all trans, does that mean it's not special or desirable or other or different?

I am not sure it is like a religious faith.

I am not a Buddhist, but I understand the different concepts when they describe them, even if I don’t believe in them. Even the concept of a soul has characteristics.

Every single person who has tried to explain what gender identity is just says meaningless things like gender identity is what you are, your sense of self, a feeling, an inner sense.

What does this feeling feel like? How do you sense this sense? What element of what you are? It isn’t conveying any actual meaning.

Ive had a stab at this definition...dont shoot me down (am aged lesbian who didn't even really think about gender identity until recently ..but lifetime 'GNC', who knew. Also probably a TERF)
'A DEFINITION'
Trans - someone who has over a period of time absorbed the world around them (mentally/intellectually) and decided on balance they don't want to perform the current dominant gender identity (i.e. the presentation most commonly seen in their biological sex in their popular culture) and are opting to subvert this. (In a range of ways from mild to extreme).

Not Trans (cis if you like)- everyone else. Can be performing dominant presentation or not, but crucially don't consider their presentation/personality has impact on their biological sex (2 separate issues).

I'm totally ok with these fwiw..as long as:
No one is coerced
The person deciding is deciding for themselves and is of a maturity to do so.
Its completely fluid AND reversible.
Doesn't involve medical interventions to healthy bodies
Is open to each others stance/choice
That people (including those with neurodivergence) understand what they are chosing and the implications. And chose accordingly.
Doesn't take rights from anyone else.
Is seen as a personal choice and not as a collective demand.
Personal choice of all kinds is respected.
Be open to the dominant presentation of gender not being permanent or agreed on or supported by others.
Understand that sexual attraction and 'gender identity' presentation are not connected. But that biological sexual attraction is.

I'm currently halfway through the thrread ("Does it turn into Tolstoy halfway through?") and think that for her next T-shirt Posie Parker should go for I don't have a gender identity. It would drive the gender ideologues round the bend. Also, it would be tricky for them to co-opt or subvert.

What this thread tells me is that I'm beginning to think we're going to win.

You will note the difference is quite subtle!