Irrationally annoyed about educated women who should know better peddling Cis bollox

[Farmageddon]

I didn't know what to title this, but is anyone else feeling like this lately? In the last few weeks/ months I have been majorly turned off people I follow on podcasts or youtube when I hear them refer to 'cis women' as though it's totally normal. These are well educated women, who in any other context would apply rational thinking, but why do they have to undermine their credibility with this shit?

Abbey Sharp - dietician on youtube who sort of dissects other people's diets, and usually uses research papers to back up her claims on nutrition and health. Also mocks people who follow faddy diets (that's sort of her style). And yet, when I was watching a video a while ago on the best diet for menstruation, underneath she had written the following grovelling apology:
NOTE EXCLUSIVE LANGUAGE- Gah I am so sorry, I was not thinking inclusively. This is something I have been actively working on (this video was shot months ago), and in fact, I just shot another video related to PCOS and was really careful to constantly say "people" and not "women". Will continue to try harder and do better!

Nice bit of self flagellation there...

Suzanna Lipscomb - I really loved the 'Not just the Tudors' podcast and had been listening to random episodes over the last few months, only when I got to an episode on menstruation in Tudor times, of course it was made clear this is about 'cis women'. FFS. What's even more annoying is in a previous episode her and the guest had been making fun of the ridiculous things that used to be believed about health in Tudor times (the four humours of the body).

Stacy Sims - Exercise Psychologist and Nutritional Scientist, has a PHD, I was watching her on a recent interview with Katie Couric about women's health in menopause. In the first few minutes, she talks about 'cis women' and I want to throw something at the screen.

Anyone else have examples, or shares my frustration?

https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095652799;jsessionid=E4B7FF6680FED17460BE0BCBAF82625D
You see it on MN all the time. People using their socio-economic position and connections to increase their social standing or that of their children. In this context it's about aligning with 'the oppressed' not in any meaningful way but because of the benefits they personally derive from adopting such a position. It signifies to others of a similar mind that they are part of the same group and that group membership in turn increases their individual power and influence (cultural capital). It's a club.

I'm not quite sure why it bothers me more than the average celebrity. Maybe irrational was the wrong word, I suppose usually i'm not that bothered by people I disagree with, I suppose I'm more disappointed that they are peddling this crap.

Possibly because like I said these are women in the media who are not these because of their looks, but rather their profession and experience (which was gained through education) and they were women I admired in a way.

And the fact that like I said, in other ways these are women who apply rigorous critical thinking, but just not for this one topic. The inconsistency bugs me.

Sort of the same as people at work who have added pronouns into their email signatures at work when we are not asked to do this, and they are not deviating from gender norms in their presentation in any way

Yes, with my colleague who does it, I almost feel like she is appropriating something that doesn't belong to her. She's very clearly female, with a female name. It feels like she is appropriating it to increase her cultural capital, whilst telling herself and others that it's being inclusive and kind.

She genuinely is a lovely person with an amazing intellect, but as a PP said, a blind spot around this. She's also in her 20s and I think a lot of her peers are on the same page as her. I know it's not just an age thing but those of us who are 10+ years older than her all think it's damaging nonsense.

I think in the case of Abbey Sharpe, it seems from the grovelling apology that she put up the original video and was then hounded and criticised for it. So maybe it's just self preservation.

I think these women fall into two categories. There are the fluffy-brained type who are not good at logical reasoning. They genuinely think that pointing out high rates of male-pattern violence among trans women is exactly the same, for example, as suggesting that black people are more violent than white people. They really believe that saying that only biological women are women "reduces" women to a biological category. These women might have degrees in PPE or English, but they can't grasp fairly simple mathematical ideas.

Then you have the type who, I think, know all this stuff is nonsense but go along with it because they're more frightened of being cancelled than they are of talking bollocks. The type of scientist who will come up with a long-winded explanation of why sex is a spectrum, or that there are multiple sexes, or that gender might not be aligned to biological sex, falls into this category. They use sophistry to try to dazzle their opponents. Who knows? They might even convince themselves. I've never been able to work it out.

It's the unthinking, unquestioning acceptance of nonsense by women who would not accept this lack of academic rigour in their professional lives.

It's unfair of me I know, but any expert who includes gender woo bollox such as 'cis' or 'person' when they mean 'woman' in their lectures/programmes etc. immediately goes down in my estimation: as in, if they can be so wrong about this what else are they wrong about? Or, if they can be so cowed they are afraid to be honest, how can I trust them to be honest about anything else?

When educated, intelligent women - particularly those outside the rainbow community - use the word “cis”, I shudder inwardly. I am frightened at how easily people have been brainwashed. These women, who really ought to know better, are complicit in their own erasure.

It’s the ‘Be kind, kindness costs nothing, it doesn’t affect me’ attitude. There are so many women with this mentality. They will likely never go to prison, or need a rape crisis centre or domestic violence refuge, so they have very little skin in the game. But who are they to throw others under the bus?

This is why sport may be the only thing that wakes people up. It would break my heart if I had a young daughter whose dream of excelling in women’s sport was crushed by being forced to compete with males. Once all these fawning she/hers are directly affected by the unfairness in mixed-sex sport, they might realise that biology matters after all.

And when it comes to medical matters, clear language is essential. I don’t see why separate trans-centred leaflets and literature can’t be handed out by doctors if patients request it. Everybody else needs clarity, not muddied language for the sake of pandering to a tiny minority.

TL:DR - anyone using “cis” uncritically has been brainwashed.

Yes, this!!

I just stop listening / reading immediately.

I'm a lowly therapist in my field. Earning an honest living, actually having GC conversations with many patients.

Imagine I'm called up by the BBC to take part in a panel discussion, and the dreaded Trans rears its ugly head.

Can you imagine the internal pressure to conform, the fear of potential cancelling if I don't.

Now extrapolate that to those who's media careers are predicated on this bollox.

And where the pressures are myriad and ongoing.

I'm really unsure how I'd react, how I'd navigate all this.

There are advantages to being a lowly therapist...

I think many genuinely DO lack critical thinking skills though. Unfortunately, these theories are very, very fashionable in many academic settings right now. (esp the humanities) and aren't getting challenged enough in that setting, if at all. People are getting hounded out of their jobs if they don't follow the party line or have what is deemed 'the correct' thinking.

Many, and I know quite a few, honestly seem to think that they're displaying superior intellectual capabilities to those even in other fields with a mere materialist analysis. Whereas it seems to me that they've let that fuzzy but fashionable style of thinking lead them into gaslighting themselves into believing the naked emperor is wearing a new and cutting edge style of clothing and they're doing something that is of course naturally intelligent.

It's kind of like how super intelligent people are more likely to be drawn into cults, and not less. They think they're understanding something at a higher level and of course are personally far too smart to get sucked in to something as negative as a cult. And of course, then do. It's paradoxical, but there we go.

When was the last time you heard cismen? Interesting how it only goes one way.

I saw someone in that Tshirt and thought it meant they rejected the term CIS and were on our side. Sometimes the messages and arguments go full circle. Just like 'not being reduced to genitals' then calling women 'vagina havers'

I immediately class anyone who uses cis or 'preferred' pronouns as -
a) credulous
b) severely lacking in critical thinking skills
and c) the kind of person who would be very easily led into scams/MLM's and similar.

This friend has previously posted asking how to make their church more LGBTQ+ inclusive (and honestly I love that about her and think church should be inclusive of all sexualities and gender identities) so I already knew she was on team "be kind". And I guess in a way it's more logical for someone who believes in God and Jesus and heaven and the resurrection so also believe in sexed souls, despite what the trans activists say about gender critical feminism being hand in hand with religious conservatism.

But I wish we could just all agree that trans women should absolutely be included in church, but not in women's communal showers, sports or rape crisis groups.

Thing is though that even within the ideology, using cis woman in the context of menstuation/menopause/ diet is wrong anyway, because it's excluding NBs, trans men etc.

Which highlights two things:

1. The reason we need a word that simply means adult human females regardless of their gender or any other social identity

1. That when these women tried to "do better", "better" was entirely framed by accommodating male people's identity choices.

@douglasadamswasright - that's exactly what I would think if I saw that T shirt - that the wearer was on our side. That's the premise of my user name too :)

education itself doesn't cure social problems.

But scientific education ought to cure scientific illiteracy and gullibility.

I thought the same too but thinking about it, the slogan probably means that to them, Sisterhood incudes transwomen not just 'CIS' women.

My teenage child was hooked up to lots of monitors and cameras and couldn’t move out of her bed for a week, so bedpans etc. She was taken rapidly off her strong meds so they could see what happened to her body. It was necessary but very stressful and she had cannulas in to administer emergency meds if it all kicked off.

The roaming entertainer/mental health/ counselling man (bald older man called Steve) had a he/him badge. I tried to make peace with it by thinking he may feel like an ‘ally’ to some child who was caught up in all this ideology. But at the same time it is more stressful that the only person we could talk to about the mental toll had a badge on that announced his biological and medically relevant pronouns were a social construct.

None of the nurses or doctors had badges with their pronouns. When you are in hospital in that critical a situation medically, it is good to see that pronoun announcing nonsense is not being pandered to. What was lovely is that there were some young female nurses that were able to bathe and change my daughter in her bed so she felt fresher and chat with her about exams and stuff. There were particularly two amazing first year students who took such care to help her with dignity and privacy. They had hijabs on and I could hear them chatting away to her about scarves to wear for when her head was shaved. They did far more for her than any counsellor.

You are not the irrational one here!

I remember Gemma Correll (artist) posted about International Women's Day or something like that and how "women in poverty around the world who don't have access to clean water suffer more with self-hygiene etc around their menstruation, and some "they/them" piped up with "er, I think you'll find it's "people who menstruate" not "women" - I feel really hurt and offended by what you've said. Gemma, who suffers from extreme anxiety and depression as it is which most people who follow her know full well, then grovelled and grovelled and apologised, erased the word woman/women and girls from all her posts and replaced it with people who menstruate. It was so frustrating.

Despite me not being a leftie, I have a lot of time for Aaron Bastani off Novara Media, and his class-based analysis of society.

He has pronouns in his bio, but I can look past this, he says he's #JustBeingKind.

But today he's Tweeted words to the effect that Sunak's new recommendations to not allow schools to allow pupil's contra trans IDs without parents' permission, is American-style alt right politics, and what's the problem with kids IDing differently and/or with parents' ignorance on the matter, as totally infuriating, and further evidence that even the trad class-analysis lefties are lost to this nihilistic cult.

Is Cis pronounced Sis, as in Sister, or Kiss? I always pronounce it in my mind as Kiss.

Good question, @Riverlee I've always pronounced it the same as "sister". I can see a name change coming up - I don't wish to be misunderstood!!