Rows other people have so that you don't have to

[rozk]

There has been, over at Pam's House Blend, a row about whether the term cis-, used by many trans people as a way of describing non-trans people, is offensive; it is a row out of which I have stayed because I have been busy with other things. From voz_latina this link to an excellent post about the whole controversy.

As Voz says, pass it on.

Later It appears that, for whatever reason the blog containing this post has been deleted. Given this, I shall probably delete this post in a day or so.

Comments

[voz-latina.livejournal.com]

psst...it's voz_latina.

and thank you for the repost. I haven't commented, but I do enjoy your poetry postings.

[rozk.livejournal.com]

A. Whoops
B. Thanks

[fastfwd.livejournal.com]

As usual, I'm always the last to know and the most surprised. Cis? I've never heard of this term until just this moment. I googled it; it got so complicated so quickly that I gave up and came back here to read your poetry.

I imagine someone will keep me posted as to what we all are. In the meantime, how about sis, as in sister?:)

[andrewducker]

cis basically means "not-trans", but rather than defining things by what they are not, it's generally better to have a separate word that doesn't have that connotation. Also, it's clearly better to avoid prejudicing the argument by avoiding words like "normal" as an opposite to other states.

[redbird]

Exactly. I'm geeky enough to like the roots of that (the prefixes also used to be used in geography), and am glad to have a term for this that, as you say, doesn't prejudice the argument. Even if I didn't realize "normal" carried prejudice here, it's a much less useful term: if I call myself "normal" am I saying "not trans" or "not queer" or "not one of those weirdos who likes…"?

[andrewducker]

I think using "normal" always carries a certain amount of prejudice, because it defines the other people as "not normal", which is generally frowned on.

Not in _my_ circle of friends, who delight in their geeky oddness, but generally in society :->

[redbird]

It carries that judgment, yes: but even if it didn't, if I was defining myself as one of the other/weird group, cisgendered is more useful because more specific.

[andrewducker]

Absolutely!

A fine rant

[(Anonymous)]

That Femmessay piece is a fine rant, powered by righteous anger. It belongs on a list of things non-trans people really should read/watch before commenting on trans issues, along with vids like Calpernia Adams' 'Bad Questions to Ask a Transsexual: Director's Cut,' and a similar vid recently posted on AfterElton that you may not have seen:

http://www.afterelton.com/blog/dennis/mores-gays-114-the-t-in-glbt

- Rob Hansen

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

I am utterly bemused by the claim that "cis" is insulting, because it seems to me that those who argue it is are claiming that any word specifically identifying someone whose sex and gender spontaneously match would be insulting. But maybe that's because I studied chemistry and was already used to the cis-trans opposing pair in a less loaded context.

[electricland.livejournal.com]

exactly what I was thinking!

(Of course it still leaves ortho, meta, and para up for grabs.)

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

OK, straight guy here possibly missing some nuances... The only way I can see that term (which I'd never come across before) being offensive is if trans people had some magical special powers or privileges (which is manifestly not the case) and cis = muggles.

[snakey.livejournal.com]

Btw, trans != not-straight.... (Not necessarily, anyway - no more than for cis people...)

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I wasn't trying to imply otherwise. Like I said, missing nuances.

[tavella.livejournal.com]

While I'm neutral on the term cis, it is perfectly possible for a group to create and use an offensive term, even if they aren't the majority or power position. The example that comes to mind is "breeder", which I've seen used plenty of times with explicit contempt in mind. And quite a lot of straight people don't like it, and yes, if you keep calling someone breeder when they request you use an alternate form, it's rude.

So I pretty drastically disagree with the Femessay-ist's assertion that because of the power differential, there's no need to adhere to the idea of calling an individual by their preferred term.

However, glancing through the PHB thread, I don't see an alternative being suggested, either, and there's a valid need for a term to describe the opposite of trans.

[norabombay.livejournal.com]

I'm not a huge fan of the word cis. Not for any of the political implications, but because of the sound of it. It grates a little, and I suspect it will not grow to have much currency in a wider world than some progressive corner. Because explaining the origin of Cis as a science term isn't going to change the sond.

But: My annoyance with the word Cis is not with what it means, not it's implications. I think the word serves a very needed purpose and is not insulting at all. My dislike is purely aesthetic. Sort of how I don't like other words, like necessary (can't spell) or license and so on.

TLDR version: Cis is a perfectly good word. Serves a purpose. And how I feel about the sound is utterly irrelevant.

[snakey.livejournal.com]

fwiw, it's not exclusively a "science-term", any more than "trans" is - just a Latin-derived term.

[arkady.livejournal.com]

I have no problem with being referred to as a cis-woman; it's what I am. I was born with a physically female body, and a (mostly) female mind that is quite comfortable in that body. I have several very good friends who were not so fortunate, and who will only be in their rightful bodies after medical intervention. To suggest that I might be offended by them referring to me as cis is nothing short of preposterous. I can only assume the row was created in the first place by prickly personalities just looking for something to take righteous offense over - without really understanding the meaning of the term in the first place.

The only thing that confuses me about that row is the reference to cissexual. It's not a term I've ever encountered, and doesn't really make sense. In my experience (and I'm perfectly prepared to hold my hands up and admit that it is far more limited than that of others commenting here) sexuality is a spectrum ranging from heterosexuality at one end to homosexuality at the other, with most people falling somewhere on the spectrum; pansexuals encompass the whole spectrum, and asexuals absent from it entirely. So where does cissexual fit into the picture?

[snakey.livejournal.com]

Cissexual has nothing to do with sexuality/sexual attraction - it refers to someone who isn't transsexual, just as cisgendered refers to someone who isn't transgendered.

(edited for stupid typo)

[arkady.livejournal.com]

Ah, I see. Thank you for explaining; I'd not come across the term before.

[voz-latina.livejournal.com]

I was born with a physically female body

So was I. Only mine had a swinging cock and realllly droopy labia.

What you meant to say is, you were assigned female by some doctor/doula/midwife who caught you as you fell outta your Mama. Or perhaps "My body at birth was socially readable as 'female'."

Exalting your body to the status of "really female" like you did implies that mine is "fake" in some way.

This is exactly why we need words like cis. And that...is the natural fact.

[arkady.livejournal.com]

Please don't tell me what I mean to say, or put words in my mouth. I mean exactly what I said; my body has been physically female from birth, with readily-identifiable female genitalia and a female skeletal structure and female chromasomes.

I was not implying your body was fake. I was simply stating a medical fact.

Nor do I have any problem with the term cis or applying it to myself.

[voz-latina.livejournal.com]

um...no. you fail. I will not get into it with you, but what you call "fact" is actually just an opinion.

get over it.

You are not a real woman, any more than I am a fake one, as you are trying to position yourself.

Deal.

Roz, would you freeze comments here? I am done.

[arkady.livejournal.com]

You seem to be determined to misread my words and reinterpret them to take offense from them. I didn't comment on Roz's post just so you could take a pop at me for being cis.

Roz, I shall bow out now as you don't deserve to have this sort of thing going on in your comment threads. This is why it's hard for cisgendered allies to enter discussion. :-/

Um..no

[voz-latina.livejournal.com]

Maybe the fault is yours for arrogantly standing by stupid wrong shit which you have no experience in.

That is the kernel of cisgender privilege, to throw your weight around like an expert when you know nothing, then blame the people who take time to try and readjust your clueless ass. The total lack of self examination combined with an eagerness to blame me for your failis the problem, not me. Deal.

That arrogance and blaming is the problem, not my well justified frustration at yet another arrogant fool like yourself.

suck it up, and learn, or shut the fuck up.

[ktempest.livejournal.com]

My head is turning a bit inside-out because of this and I'm trying to understand your stance. What I think you're saying here is that gender assignment at birth based on physical markers (genitalia) is wrong or false? Because as I have always understood it (from an outside perspective, so I totally own that I could be ill-informed), there was acknowledgment that the body a transsexual individual was born into wasn't one that matched their mind/person, not that the body is... well, I don't want to say correct. Basically your stance is a very new idea to me and I'd like to understand it, if you're willing to attempt a deeper explanation.

Sure...why not? (note: heavy medical talk)

[voz-latina.livejournal.com]

Okay..basic biology 101.

Male and female are interpretations, not facts.

We very well could have invented more than two sex categories, enforced them, and that would have been no less "natural," and some societies have done precisely this.

Because of this, claiming "male" and "female" as objective, bilogical reality is patently absurd. It is just strongly agreed upon in Eurocentric cultures, and has been enforced on other cultures by same.

Put bluntly, gender assignment at birth is a medical opinion, not an objective fact.

Before we go further, can you accept that? Do you know precisely how it's done, and how sex categorization at birth is actually done?

Re: Sure...why not? (note: heavy medical talk)

[ktempest.livejournal.com]

Okay, I can see what you're saying here.

Do you know precisely how it's done, and how sex categorization at birth is actually done?

No. I have always assumed it's by looking at the genitalia, but I'm not sure how the determination is made when the genitalia falls outside of the accepted medical definitions of male and female.

Re: Sure...why not? (note: heavy medical talk)

[voz-latina.livejournal.com]

You have 90% of it down right there.

There is a real instrument called a Phallometer. Its a cheap ruler ruler with a pink zone between 0 and 1 cm, and a blue zone for greater than 2.5 cm, and a white zone in between.

If your penis (we are all born with them, only a mythical "biological female" has one < 1 cm, squarely in the pink) is in the white, you get hacked into one or the other. Also, external genitalia is only one of many recognized sex determinants, any or all of which can be anywhere on a bimodal spectrum...a spectrum with two large groups at the ends that bleed into each other. We just call really small penii "clits" and bigger ones "dicks." Completely arbitrary.

Okay, so far so good. There is a standard, but it is not objective, as the threatened and ranty "woman" above would have us believe.

Truth is, the standards for sex assignment are quite arbitrary, incomplete and entirely inconsistent with what most people know, and woe be to you if you fall outside of them in some way.

Let's look at the threatened "woman" above, and deconstruct.

A "physically female bone structure" does not exist.
Nor do "female chromosomes"
Nor a "physically female fat distribution"
Nor "female internal organs"
etc etc
But, we do have a binary division that is enforced on what is really a bimodal distribution of sex characteristics- and here is the important part- none of which are peculiar to one "sex" or the other. Our rabidly defensive companion above was so upset because she needed to crow about how "real" and scientific she was (because she lucked out and was born when her gender and sex was privileged), and by implication, how "fake" I was, since I did not share her luck.

Put another way, it's the ultimate dick measuring contest, with cis ppl celebrating their special status by brutalizing us.

This is why people object to cis. It levels the playing field a little bit, and cisgender privilege was the motivation behind her tooth and nail defensiveness.
They are a hair's breadth away from realizing the truth: there are no true sexes, only opinions of sex. No matter what opinion you may have of how to divy people into sex groups, you can always find a case to break that division.

so, no division of sexes can cover everybody and still make sense. Thus, a cissexual person's claim to having a real sex is totally bogus, which makes their sex claim no more real than mine.

This is incredibly threatening, and when confronted with it, cos people reliably go insane and become anything from ranty Internet people to gruesomely, deadly violent.

omg..

[voz-latina.livejournal.com]

Extreme icon love. I just had to stop and say that...

a cispinion from a cisperson

[going-not-gone.livejournal.com]

I first encountered the cis prefix a while ago, and my first thought was, "oh, that's useful." It's a simple descriptive term, which I saw as value-neutral, that defines a particular state without negating or putting down the opposite state.

I am cis, and hetero, and married, and white, and I recognized that all of these make me privileged. (The only strike against me in the great lottery is that I'm female.) But none of those terms define my value as human being, they are simply facts about me. What I do with my privilege, my actions (and inactions) are what matter.

In a sane, just world, being trans would be as value-neutral, in the world's eyes, as being brunette, or blue-eyed, or having freckles. A simple fact. Words like cis, by turning it around and saying "having been born with a body that matches your self-perceived gender" is a simple fact, a state of being, as much as being trans. And it takes a lot less time to type. Alas, we do not live in a sane, just world.

Anybody who's offended by it is clinging (even if they don't say so) to the idea of "normal" and "other." Which is beyond offensive and well into reprehensible.

Re: a cispinion from a cisperson

[geekyisgood.livejournal.com]

Thank you, completely agree. If anything I love the term cis, I think it's a good, tidy way of describing what it means. It's not hard to explain, so it can't be hard to understand.

Re: a cispinion from a cisperson

[going-not-gone.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I'm always hesitant about jumping into these conversations, because I know that white/het/cis/etc privilege means I may be missing some angles or nuances. I'm trying not to be blind to these things, while at the same time seeing individuals rather than neatly labeled categories. But labels (like cis) can be useful shorthand for "as an individual, this experience informs my opinions."

Friending you, btw, if that's ok?

(frozen)

[rozk.livejournal.com]

This is starting to get unproductive, so I'd appreciate it if we stop here.

OK?