I’m of two minds:
- I find the ‘cis’ label offensive. That’s my right.
- I find this guy offensive. That’s also my right.
(If you want to know who says I don’t get rights, look at the downvotes. They disagree with one of those. You pick)
It literally means “not trans” my dude. Do you get offended when people call you human?
I think it’s disingenuous to argue that is the only usage of it. Plenty of words have colloquial meanings. There’s plenty of assholes out there who use it venemously. Like a racist saying “He’s black” when they mean the n word. “Fuck off and die, cishet!”
There has been a lot of shit on Twitter and Tumblr outright calling for genocide of cis people. Forced sterilization. Saying that if you are a cis white male you inherently are a bad person. A rapist. Etc. Etc.
It’s bullshit lashing out, and doesn’t truly amount to anything. That said, it can wear on you to be vilified for what you were born as, for things you can’t control.
Huh, imagine that.
It strikes me as particularly ridiculous when this is brought up, there usually are a lot of responses along the lines of “Well now you know what we’ve dealt with!” “Poor majority person is suddenly hurt when they’re treated the same way they’ve been treating the rest of us” etc.
I don’t think many people miss that point. But it’s still a shitty thing to do, and it can feel like gaslighting attempts when reasonable people make responses like yours.
“Negro literally means black, do you get offended when people call you the color of your skin?” … let’s start the countdown to people falling over themselves to say it’s not the same. It isn’t the same, but the parallels should give you pause. Hopefully cause some thought.
“There has been a lot of shit on Twitter and Tumblr outright calling for genocide of cis people. Forced sterilization. Saying that if you are a cis white male you inherently are a bad person. A rapist. Etc. Etc”
Believe me I know how crazy people on twitter can get, and I’ve definitely seen those crazies in action. But they are going to act crazy towards their chosen scapegoat for their problems regardless of the word we’ve chosen to describe those people.
“It’s bullshit lashing out, and doesn’t truly amount to anything. That said, it can wear on you to be vilified for what you were born as, for things you can’t control.”
I 100% understand and empathize with this and will not argue or counter it in any way. I mean no gaslighting and I apologize if it feels like what I said was heading in that direction.
On your last point: for a while Negro WAS the appropriate word to use, and now it’s Black (or if you’re American “African American”) and while it isnt appropriate anymore, we have a word that is that fills its usecase. People dont Identify as Cis (and on that point most dont identify as trans), they identify as Male/Female/etc, and cis and trans are categories based on whether your identity matches your sex or not. As of right now, cis is the word we have for when it matches, we dont really have any other words in common parlance that describe that in 1 word, and further the extreme end of Tumblr and Twitter doesnt care which word we use when they dehumanize the percieved majority, they are going to continue being assholes to those they dont feel dont place on their oppression heirarchy regardless of the word we use
Does that mean that if enough of a minority of people use a neutral word with ill intent, other people should be careful of using that word? For instance, if a bunch of racists started using the word “black” venomously day and night for months, should everyone else start considering the word “black” to be a slur? What if it’s a term that’s otherwise used by scholars with ample consensus? And if there’s no other other to refer to it, and by avoiding it, you cannot refer to the concept at all?
Those people are going to do the same thing regardless of what the word is. What you’re asking for is just to put it on the euphemism treadmill
Female literally means egg holding human. Do peeps get offended being called female?
Oh shit. Is language fucking social? Jesus. Motherfuckers think gender is social but language is concrete apparently.
FOH
Do peeps get offended being called female?
Yes. It’s scientific language usually used to insult women. IE; men and females.
Reasonable, nobody should have to accept a label they don’t ascribe to themselves.
Bruh. We use labels to sort shit. Abstraction is how we deal with complexity. Choose your own labels, but how others see you isn’t up to you. You’ve got no ownership of other peep’s heads.
Do you find all the other labels that can be used to describe yourself offensive, or just this one?
Like are you offended by being called a human or homo sapien? Are you offended by being described by your skin color or race? Sexual preference? I just find it weird to single out the one label for no apparent reason.
How would you suggest we describe people that aren’t trans or non-binary in a way that wouldn’t offend you for whatever reason? As uncomfortable as it may be for you, gender identity is a thing, and the rest of the world is going to use that word to describe people. It would probably be best for you to just get over it.
Why are some women unhappy with being referred to as female? It’s biologically accurate, yeah? Obviously can’t be offensive.
You understand why some people find being called cis a problem, you just don’t want to accept it ideologically. That’s fine. Don’t try to drag others to your viewpoint for bullshit reasons.
I understand that some women don’t want to be called female when they are not cisgendered.
I just don’t understand why a cisgendered person would have a problem being referred to as such, unless they were unsure if they were cis, or were bothered by the topic of gender identity as a whole.
If its the former, than I can understand, but if its the latter, then that’s a you problem, and I don’t care if you are offended being called cis.
Are we not respecting people’s self chosen labels now? I must have missed the memo
Making fun of people for them asking to have their labels respected seems inconsistent.
Self chosen label
Have you chosen to be cis? Have you chosen to be trans?
Because there isnt any other option. If he isn’t cis, then he is trans.
cisgender /sĭs-jĕn′dər/
adjective
1. Identifying as having a gender that corresponds to the sex one has been assigned at birth; not transgender.
transgender /trăns-jĕn′dər, trănz-/
adjective
1. Identifying as or having undergone medical treatment to become a member of the opposite sex.
You could call somebody a slur then go “why are you getting worked up? It’s what you are, look at this definition in the book”. A person can say “I don’t want to be called that”, regardless of who they are. If you don’t respect it, you’re not being nice.
Simple as
… you think cisgender or transgender is a slur?
Ok. “call me a person to my face. see what happens”. If you’re not a person, what label do want?
(Technically, there’s a secret third option: agender. Agender folks are not cis, but not necessarily trans, either. Source: am agender)
I am absolutely not challenging your definition or view of agender!
Is this because cisgender is identifying with your birth sex (being different to gender?) and transgender identifying with the opposite sex of birth. But agender dont identify with either?
I think sex and gender are considered different? I might have written this very poorly with use of wrong terminology
Poor snowflake can’t handle three little letters :(
Bitch this whole thing started because _your side _ couldn’t handle him using three letters
Not in any way agreeing with the take, but I’d imagine they mean MtF vs Female and FtM vs Male.
I imagine they’re referring to Peterson misgendering someone using him/her, perhaps the Elliot Page debacle. A stupid and unrelated comment, to be sure.
Him coming to prominence and speaking up about the rediculesness of modern leftist politics
I don’t understand why some people get so bent out of shape over the term cisgender. Latin prefixes are even more common in English than abbreviations like AMAB.
It’s just transphobia. If you don’t have cis (wo)men and trans (wo)men, then you just have (wo)men and trans (wo)men, which implies that trans (wo)men are not (wo)men.
Got it. I didn’t understand because they make it seem like it’s an insult to be called cisgender. They’re actually just upset that it removes an avenue of bigotry.
Fucking gross.
The reasoning is simple: it’s just straight up transphobia. The term “cis” is just a neutral descriptor to pair with “trans” with no implication of being right or wrong. They’re mad at the existence of a term for the majority that doesn’t imply an insult to the minority.
Thanks. Another commenter pointed that out. They’re not really taking offense to the term so much as objecting to the concept of genders differing from biological sex. It’s awful.
There’s no reason to challenge the term otherwise. Cis is Latin for “on this side of” and trans is “across, beyond, or on the other side.” There’s really nothing objectionable about either prefix.
As someone who used to think it was an offensive term, it’s likely ignorance and because it’s often used in a deragatory and dehumanizing way on the internet.
At first I didn’t know what cisgendered or cis meant, but I definitely saw it used to describe a group of people non-cis folks didn’t like very much. Of course I eventually learned, but still had a bit of a distaste due to the initial impression.
Also, I always saw “cishet” as a cheeky way of saying “cis shit” because it was also often used negatively in the places I originally came across the term. Once someone explained it in a comment section I finally understood it wasn’t hateful terminology but instead descriptive.
You can’t stop someone from being negative but at least knowing what the words are meant to mean can help identify a bad person rather than bad word.
Bigots often have a problem with being accurately described because gaslighting is part of the strategy. Useful ignorants provide cover.
Look, I’ve never been anti-gay or anti-trans, but this kind of attitude isn’t winning over the people who are in the middle.
I’m talking about generalizing and stereotyping type statements that, even if you aren’t homo/transphobic, feel like they’re targeted at you. When someone says, to give a hyperbolic example, “cisgendered white men are bigots”, they are not actually referring to all cis white men. But if you’re cis and white, you now know they assume you’re not a good person by default.
Tribalism is never the way.
At first I didn’t know what cisgendered or cis meant, but I definitely saw it used to describe a group of people non-cis folks didn’t like very much. Of course I eventually learned, but still had a bit of a distaste due to the initial impression.
How long was this “eventually”? I feel like it should be a couple minutes to search and land on the Wikipedia page.
Hmm maybe longer that it should have been, but do you really expect everyone to search for something instead of inferring the meaning based on context?
Interesting. I didn’t have that experience myself, but I’ve definitely seen those types of comments. I absolutely understand how that could leave a bad impression. I’ll be more mindful of educational opportunities when having discussions about it in the future. Exposure and understanding are the enemies of bigotry.
Thanks for the insight!
Where were you seeing this online? (How much can I blame cursed social media algorithms feeding you bullshit?)
Reddit was where I came across that the most. I don’t use much social media so my exposure is relatively small.
Doubtful that Kermit Peterson was giving honest tactical advice to the left here, but he does have a point: “cis” is pretty bad branding when the biggest social group that slows down trans rights is the red-meat alpha-male boomers for whom “sissy” was the ultimate insult of their teenage years.
Petty and eyeroll-worthy? Yeah. Also an unforced error on the part of trans rights? Probably.