Pulled up at work for ‘trans views’

[wherearethemarsbars]

Recently, a colleague at my company has declared that they are ‘agender’ and asexual and has asked to be addressed as ‘they’. As a result, my company decided to arrange a trans training session where some trans people came in to talk to us all about gender and terminology etc etc.

During this session, I was asked to describe my experience of living as a ‘cis woman’. I said that I didn’t have any experience of living as a cis woman, only as a woman so I couldn’t comment. I was pressed further and didn’t say much, only that the term ‘cis woman’ doesn’t align with my personal beliefs of what a woman is, so therefore declined to comment any further.

A few days later, I was pulled up on this by management who said that my behaviour was not acceptable and that I should be making an effort to be inclusive to everyone. I’m a bit baffled. Can I get others’ thoughts on this topic?

Yep, most people have a mix of masculine and feminine traits. And if everyone is non-binary, then there are no women, so therefore nobody left to suffer from misogyny or sexism or MVAW, & none of those people who historically would not have been allowed to vote. Hallelujah, we've fixed all women's problems, if only it were that easy to solve all the others, lol.

Declaring oneself asexual isn’t a protected characteristic - I would avoid interactions if possible and use their names to describe them rather than use ‘they’.
Forcing you to adopt transgender terminology to describe yourself was wrong and I would suggest they update their training to acknowledge the law.

Trans is a signifier that indicates a deviation from the norm. Thus the ‘norm’ does not need to be restated. We talk of ‘occluded windows’, because the norm is ‘transparent’ windows and the transparency is accepted/incorporated into cultural understanding of the meaning of ‘window’. Similarly we might refer to a 3-legged dog or horse, because w understand that quadrupeds have 4 legs - we don’t talk about 4 legged dogs or horses. We know how many legs they have normally.

So, we KNOW what a woman is - a biologically female human who has survived to adulthood. We don’t need to prefix ‘woman’ with terms like ‘cis’ or ‘biological’. And the SC ruling has underscored this fact.

I am a woman. Full stop.

I’ve always thought cis and trans were terms related to gender. As such, it prioritises gender as what makes a woman a woman and a man and a man. Replace it with sex and you would end up with female woman and a male woman.

Many years ago the BBC did an early reality TV show (late 1990's) called Paddington green which did feature a trans woman, Jackie. I remember her talking about how she liked playing with 'girls toys' like a kitchen set rather than what she considered to be masculine. Worked as a prostitute to pay for surgery and then she was discovered to be a very good pianist and did some recordings. She was a mess but managed to sort her life out.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paddington_Green_(TV_series) - (can watch on you tube)

And never was the word CIS mentioned one, nor were pronouns demanded of everyone. This is a new - part of a expectation that unless people label themselves they are not acknowledging their rights. It is very much a case of the new (self absorbed) generation which have been bought up on the internet, and social media, and expect recognition at every level.

That would be an improvement on "cis" and would clarify "trans" I think!

Cis and trans are nothing more than a pair of Latin words which mean on the same side as, or on the opposite side to, as any A level chemistry student will tell you. They aren’t inherently linked to gender at all.

They're not inherently linked, but when someone does link them, then they're linked.

(There's chemistry, and history too--when this foolishness began, I was thinking of "Cisalpine Gaul" and "Transalpine Gaul".)

PP said they were terms related to gender. I just pointed out that they aren’t necessarily. In fact, hadn’t been until quite recently in terms
of their current use. The chemical
use has been for hundreds of years at least. I don’t know about the historical use.

That's geographical, rather than historical, use of cis and trans. Cis means east of or on this side of, trans means west of or on the other side of . In the example you gave that would be east and West of the alps. Julius caesar coined the term for the gauls on either side of the alps to him.

I think you are setting an EXCELLENT example for junior colleagues!

@wherearethemarsbars

Just wondering if any more came of this for you at work?