[RD] HuffPost: "I Coined The Term 'Cisgender' 29 Years Ago. Here's What This Controversial Word Really Means."

[Kyriakos]

He just told you that (most) people do not feel they are in a group with others, just due to others being termed as "cis".
There's no solidarity between members of the group, because very few care to identify as members of that group - let alone accept a name for it.

I don't think of user Snowygerry as "part of the cis group", and that he can be termed such doesn't make me feel any likeness to him. If I think anything of him I do due to entirely unrelated reasons.

 

[Moriarte]

And we certainly haven’t elected a spokesperson for our imaginary group.

 

[Cloud_Strife]

What the christ are you on about?

 

[schlaufuchs]

So don’t come into these threads? Truly I don’t get it. As has been noted earlier, you can live your whole lives and never really hear or use the term cis. It doesn’t really affect you unless you specifically come seeking us out. So what is it you want? If you really don’t care, just say as much and be about your day, otherwise I have to conclude, based on your repeated popping in here to insist that you don’t care, that you have some bizarre fixation on trans people or a humiliation fetish or something. It’s really just baffling behavior

 

[Gorbles]

If so, surely this holds true for all.

Could you be more explicit?

There's no solidarity between members of the group

Really? Because I'm seeing plenty between the three of you

In this case no "border" is defined so cis and trans are in fact meaningless. That is the linguistic argument.

Moriarte's argument was that it was dubious, not meaningless. That's a value judgement.

Alongside him suggesting that people need to be nice to potential allies for them to be allies. Ignoring the fact that it should be the right thing to do.

 

[Kyriakos]

Really? Because I'm seeing plenty between the three of you

That's not logical; if it was, then the "solidarity" between you and Lexicus here would also be due to being in that group.

 

[Gorbles]

That's not logical; if it was, then the "solidarity" between you and Lexicus here would also be due to being in that group.

That's because the problem here isn't "cis" and never was, it was peoples' discomfort with a label that they're unwilling for individual reasons to spell out explicitly in a lot of cases.

Moriarte called it "dubious", Snowgerry interpreted this as "meaningless", and you're sticking to "very few care to identify members of that group" (citation needed). These are all individual arguments, and yet you're all showing solidarity against trans people allegedly "othering" the poor cis folk.

I don't feel othered. lexi has said the same thing. If there is no solidarity, you can't claim consensus on arguments. But you're both trying to claim consensus (about what cis folks feel about "cis") and insist there isn't a consensus. That reads a bit like having your cake and eating it (excuse the idiom).

Like sophie said, nobody's forcing you to be in this thread. Nobody's forcing you to be in any LGBTQ thread where the label "cis" is often relevant to the ongoing marginalisation that trans folk suffer from on a daily basis. We've all been asked "how often do we use it" and most of us - myself, lexi, etc, included - have said "barely". It's only relevant in a specific context. I don't go to my wife in the morning and say HELLO MY LOVELY CIS WIFE. It doesn't happen lol. I don't log onto a forum to argue about support for mod tools for a video game and go IF YOU'RE CIS, IGNORE THIS. Or whatever. That'd be self-defeating anyway

If you object to the label full stop, then you need to have an argument that extends beyond the individual. If your objections are personal, why are you engaging repeatedly on a topic where it is useful context, regardless of how it may affect you personally? You disagreeing with that label applying to you doesn't mean it doesn't have a greater use, you see.

 

[Kyriakos]

(Gorbles) I feel it's better to continue this in pm (or not), so post copy/pasted there.

 

[Cloud_Strife]

How about you just tell us how you really feel, rather than this coy attitude of denying that cis people can be grouped together, even though we do this with non Jewish people or straight people

If cis people feel uncomfortable with being put into a category, then i don't know what to tell you because that's an experience literally every single trans person has automatically forced upon them, passing, stealth or otherwise.

 

[Kyriakos]

There's only so many times you can write "how about you just tell us how you really feel" without coming across as having no respect for discussing with others. And if so, you already told how you feel.
As for "every single trans person has automatically forced upon them", that isn't forced by myself, so it doesn't fly either. Just because some "cis" made you feel bad, it doesn't mean I am responsible for them as if we are a communal entity.

 

[Cloud_Strife]

"Made you feel bad" you really don't get it, do you? You honestly think it's just about being socially uncomfortable.

Have you listened to nothing Sophie has said?

Or what I've said? About my own experiences with cis people? Those that turned away from helping me as i was kicked within an inch of my life? Treated like a pariah, lumped in with the worst of society and kicked to the fringes?

Honestly, the worst case scenario for cis people interacting with trans people is that they might feel uncomfortable around the latter, the worst case scenario for trans people interacting with cis people is nothing short of a goddamn lynching.

 

[Traitorfish]

I do, because if I'm understanding other posters correctly the actual basis of physical attraction (primary and secondary sexual characteristics) is incidental to transness. We can imagine the case of a post-op trans woman who is not "detectably" trans; a man attracted to this woman whose attraction turns to disgust when he learns she is trans is transphobic. How common such a scenario is in practice, I don't know, but I think its mere logical possibility demonstrates my point.

Sure, I'll grant that in this scenario, we could attribute non-attraction simply to transphobia- but that scenario is essentially science-fiction, no such "undetectable" person exists or plausibly could exist with current medical technology, or even with any medical technology we can reasonably forsee. In practice, the trans-ness of a person is inextricably bound up with their body, with the particular combination of primary and secondary sex characteristics they possess, which will never be identical to those of a cis person. There is an undeniable physical difference. So if we accept that romantic and sexual attraction are based in part on those primary and secondary characteristics, there just isn't really a clear scenario in which we could confidently attribute a person rejecting a trans person to transphobia alone, that would allow us to conclude that animus towards trans people is the root barrier to attraction, even if some degree of transphobic attitude may in fact be present. We can't imagine a scenario in which we can confidently assert "you would be attracted to this person if you weren't transphobic", whereas we can at least imagine a scenario in which we could confidently say "you would be attracted to this person if you weren't' racist".

 

[Kyriakos]

"Made you feel bad" you really don't get it, do you? You honestly think it's just about being socially uncomfortable.

Have you listened to nothing Sophie has said?

Or what I've said? About my own experiences with cis people? Those that turned away from helping me as i was kicked within an inch of my life? Treated like a pariah, lumped in with the worst of society and kicked to the fringes?

Honestly, the worst case scenario for cis people interacting with trans people is that they might feel uncomfortable around the latter, the worst case scenario for trans people interacting with cis people is nothing short of a goddamn lynching.

It sounds horrible. I don't see why you feel it has anything to do with myself? There's no tie between me and those who harmed you and certainly no communal responsibility for their crime.

 

[Arwon]

I don't go to my wife in the morning and say HELLO MY LOVELY CIS WIFE

Speak for yourself, I'm gonna do this tomorrow now

 

[Cloud_Strife]

It sounds horrible. I don't see why you feel it has anything to do with myself? There's no tie between me and those who harmed you and certainly no communal responsibility for their crime.

It is your problem, turning a blind eye to it means you are effectively saying "this is permissible and I'm not going to do anything about it",

Inaction is in itself an action, as you would quickly realize, if i stood there and watched as 6 non greek men decided on the basis of your heritage and ethnicity, to beat you within an inch of your life and you begged non greek passers-by to do *something* to stop your suffering and imminent death.

Or are you going to seriously suggest otherwise?

 

[Kyriakos]

It is your problem, turning a blind eye to it means you are effectively saying "this is permissible".

Inaction is in itself an action, as you would quickly realize, if i stood there and watched as 6 men beat you within an inch of your life and you begged non greek passers-by to do *something* to stop your imminent death.

Or are you going to seriously suggest otherwise?

I think you feel there is communal guilt for what specific people did to you, and project it to me who lives on the opposite edge of the continent to you. You also seem to believe that most other people have it great in life, so should help those who are in the only group which faces existential problems; but reality is that the majority of people barely can help their own self and battle with life-threatening problems.

 

[Cloud_Strife]

I think you feel there is communal guilt for what specific people did to you, and project it to me who live on the different edge of the continent to you. You also seem to believe that other people have it great in life, so should help those who are in the only group which face existential problems; but reality is that the majority of people barely can help their own self and battle with life-threatening problems.

Dude i work multiple jobs, trying to save up enough money so i can flee this state that wants me dead, you think I'm personally unaware of how bad things are, even for cis people? Are you for real?

My life threatening problem is that there's cis people who want to harm me and that there's plenty of people like yourself who want to look the other way because it's inconvenient to do anything but gawk and walk on by.

You live in Britain, where a trans girl was stabbed to death and people did nothing to stop it, so don't sit there and pretend that this level of violence isn't going on around you. It's going to happen again and you're going to have to confront your blasé indifference to the hostilities inflicted upon those that fall outside of the "majority".

You better hope that when you are attacked on the basis of who you are, that passers-by don't share your unwillingness to help a fellow human being.

 

[IglooDame]

I think you feel there is communal guilt for what specific people did to you, and project it to me who lives on the opposite edge of the continent to you. You also seem to believe that most other people have it great in life, so should help those who are in the only group which faces existential problems; but reality is that the majority of people barely can help their own self and battle with life-threatening problems.

I do think trans folk that came out and started transitioning after puberty has already had their way with them have a fairly unique perspective on how society is biased against transgender people in general, and for that matter the significant differences between how society treats men and women differently, especially those that are binary and are now presenting opposite of their gender assigned at birth. After all, BIPOCs and cis women appear that way from birth, they grow up experiencing it, being told about it by their elders, and developing defenses against the things that come up because of their skin color or gender. Coming from cishet-presenting lives, the change once people can easily clock us as trans can be pretty dramatic. So sure everyone has their own issues to deal with day to day, but at least give us some credit for knowing what issues are just life in general and what issues are inflicted on us either from treating/mitigating gender dysphoria or from society feeling uncomfortable around us and wishing we did not exist.
Sidenote, you'll rarely get a better perspective on the social differences between men and women than from trans folk who have been "100% passing" post-transition for a little while. It's probably worth its own thread here in OT.

 

[Lexicus]

Sure there is - it was misused from the start - "cis" means on "our side" of some border, "trans" then means "across" that border, as in Trans-Atlantic trade, Trans-Alpine Gaul etc.

In this case no "border" is defined so cis and trans are in fact meaningless. That is the linguistic argument.

In addition there is a practical argument - I tried to make that yesterday, the stratification simply does not serve its intended purpose, offers no advantage to the trans people.

We have no "cis-Atlantic" trade for example, that would be all trade that does not cross the Atlantic - a useless term that would only cause confusion among economists.

It's a metaphorical border, you absolute moron
Moderator Action: Warned for flaming. The_J

 

[Lexicus]

no such "undetectable" person exists

You sure about that? Seems like quite a sweeping statement to make without sweeping evidence