The assumption that demonstrating traits not aligned with your gender must make you the other gender is silly, short sighted, needlessly restrictive of potential identities, and in and of itself dangerous. Full stop.
That is the same logic used years back to argue that men who were not traditionally masculine had to be gay. That causes harm as well. Harm I’ve experienced through bullying, ostracization, etc. After hearing that assumption of my sexuality enough times, I suffered confusion about my identity as a teen. Now people are arguing that somehow using that same logic but now it means you’re trans?
I cannot make this any clearer: Present people with their options and allow them to make their own damn choices.
Over a decade later I’m still not particularly masculine, and I am happy in a cishet marriage with a child I am proud to be a father to. Yeah, I’m technically bisexual. I have a single digit number of men I’ve encountered in my 30+ years that I could go for, but I’m not gay which was the identity prescribed to me.
When even the most generous studies show trans people as making up a single digit percentage of the population, it’s silly to argue that there is an intrinsic problem with CIS being the default.
The problem is when people don’t understand that not being cis is an option. Or when they don’t leave options open. Don’t conflate that with the fact that good or bad, cis is factually overwhelmingly the default.
If people are allowed to be whatever they wish (and they should be) then there is room for people who are cis but display traits not aligned with that.
Tomboys exist. Women who demonstrate traditionally masculine traits but are still women. There are also trans men, who may have done the same pre-transistion but are men. There has to be room for both.
Not entirely sure what the term would be, but feminine men exist who are still men and are not trans. There are also trans women.
All of those identities ae valid. Assuming trans because non-conformity is just setting a new needlessly restrictive default.
Lastly, once again I must emphasize that:
your example of someone in a group of friends is NOT what the egg prime directive is about.
Different fucking social situations call for different rules and approaches. For fucks sake.
When even the most generous studies show trans people as making up a single digit percentage of the population, it’s silly to argue that there is an intrinsic problem with CIS being the default.
That’s disgusting.
Sure, the way I worded that is. Especially when divorced from the rest of that section.
But I hope it is clear from the rest of that section that I’m drawing a line to separate the idea of CIS = majority default vs. the attitude that CIS is the only valid option.
CIS being the majority default is just reality. Statistics.
CIS being the only valid option is bullshit.
When distilling concepts like that into the shorter statement “cisnormativity is a problem”, I feel that nuance is lost. The almost immediate follow up question is “Do you have a problem with CIS people being the norm/majority default, or do you have a problem with the fact that they are the norm/majority default is being used by some to suppress the validity of other options?”
Not entirely sure what the term would be, but feminine men exist who are still men and are not trans. There are also trans women.
as one, I’m cool with the term femboy. I think there’s still a few people who’d have an issue with the term, but we kinda have our own subculture established and everything at this point, so feels like a strong contender for the label.
Yeah, cishet man, tell me how to interact in different social situations. Please tell me more about how cisnormativity isn’t killing trans people left and right.
And there it is. It almost always comes down to “cishet bad”.
Look. I almost killed myself over how many times I was told I had to be gay growing up when I wasn’t. Often by well meaning people. Please don’t turn transness into the new default label for people who aren’t gender conforming.