Poll: How do you personally feel about the term cisgender?

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

It's not a real thing, it's something internet people have made up. I try to keep internet life and real life separate.

All words are made up, or did you not know that? Also Cisgender has been around in clinical terms far longer than it's been an internet term.

So what do you all think? Discuss!

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Then again I once heard a trans person use "cishet scum" unironically against a person and even I was offended by that. Seriously I wanted to smack that woman for saying that.

Hi Kyuubi, thank you for your response on the other thread, apologies if I go in a bit of a different direction to what you intended because the term is intrinsically related to the definition. To be cis or transgender, there must be use of gender.

The whole scum thing is problem what has caused the most immediate hate of the term. I am glad you are not like that woman.

I personally dislike it when people refer to me as "cis-gender". This is both because I dislike the concept of gender and because I don't identify as my sex, nor the other sex, nor neither sex, I don't identify as anything, I simply am my sex. I don't really understand what identifying as transgender is supposed to mean. I am frequently told that it means "What you identify as" which doesn't help my understanding because I don't know what it means to "identify" as something. I am also told "that one's sex feels wrong" which I can understand and I refer to as dysphoria. I consider it similar to body integrity identity disorder. I believe that people who experience dysphoria or BIID truly do feel that their body parts shouldn't be part of them and its sad that people feel uncomfortable with their bodies.
I fully support people breaking traditional gender roles, be it in terms of hair, make-up, clothing, choice of occupation, social activites, who pays for a date, whatever. If a man wants to grow his hair long, put on lipstick, wear a dress and learn belly dancing while he's not at work as a secretary he should feel free to and all power to him.
I feel like the concept of defining one's gender is restrictive as to me it seems almost like saying "pick one of these options for a set of gender roles which you then have to follow". The idea that one should define their personality by the sex that they would like to be is wrong because one should not have to restrict their personality in such a way nor should there be a "right" personality for a certain sex.

I support the usage of the terms dysphoric/non-dysphoric.

(EDITED)
I'm not cisgender (I'm pretty sure I'm genderqueer, I don't really identify as female, but I don't identify as male either), but I have no problem with people using the term. To be honest, I find cisgender less offensive than "normal" as a term because "normal" implies that those that aren't, need fixing.

Hi lunavixen,
I'd be interested to hear whether you identify as a tertiary option and/or if you identify as not being male/female. I would also be interested to hear if you feel like the cis/trans nomenclature makes you feel like you are confronted with a binary option.

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Best wishes to both of you.
PS If one was to use the word transgender, then cisgender is the correct choice for an antonym.

When it comes right down to it, to actually understand what being transgender is, you'd have to experience it, and it's not something I'd ever want to wish on someone. It's not a "pick from these" situation to my mind, it's more "this is how I identify myself, and this is what I want to project to the world." I hope that helps.


To the topic at hand:
A lot of people here have been restoring my faith in the term cisgender, even most of the ones who disagree with the term. A lot of the arguments against aren't holding any water form what I can see, some are making good points, but others are being a bit silly about the word to me. But I'm not begrudging anyone for it. There really isn't a replacement for cisgender, the people who use it to insult are monolithically ignorant, and the people offended by it seem not to realize that cisgender is a term that started as clinical and academic. Which is the context that use it with, I don't call a cisgendered man a cisgendered man, I call him a man just for example.

 

[Thaluikhain]

The more names people keep coming up with, the further and further away from everybody just being 'human' we go. Just call people people because nobody gives a damn about snowflakes.

That only works if trans people would otherwise be viewed the same as everyone else, which is not the case.

 

[totheendofsin]

It's one of those words I only hear on the internet, usually in either a condescending ''die cis scum' sort of way or when being told noone uses it in that sort of way. I don't really have a problem with the word itself, it can be handy, it can be very useful in discussions on trans issues.

 

[CommanderL]

Just use the word normal

I dont mean to be a prick
but people who are attracted to the oppistate sex and see themself as the gender they are born in are the norm

we are the default factory settings

 

[Thaluikhain]

Just use the word normal

I dont mean to be a prick
but people who are attracted to the oppistate sex and see themself as the gender they are born in are the norm

we are the default factory settings

Putting aside the other problems with that word, any number of things are in the norm. If I say someone is "normal", what do you think I mean?

In any case, being heterosexual and being cisgender are not the same thing.

 

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

Just use the word normal

I dont mean to be a prick
but people who are attracted to the oppistate sex and see themself as the gender they are born in are the norm

we are the default factory settings

Except that normal is a broad term and really applies to no one because if it ever did then everyone would be exactly the same.

Also if you're factory default then that makes me some sort of special package, and more valuable as such. Kinda dumb when you think about it.

 

[Parasondox]

An internet word/phrase. That's pretty much what I think about the term "cisgender". There are a lot of phrases and words that people use over the net that the majority of them would never use in the work place, or home or in many settings. Cisgender is one of them. You wouldn't write on an application or applying for something by say you were cisgendered. Transgender, yes. Cisgender? Not even.

 

[CrystalShadow]

Eh, it's a weird sounding word, but it really only exists because otherwise you get the muck involved with trying to describe non-transgender people.

non-trans is weird, 'normal' carries absurd, indirect connotations about what it means to be transgender...
The awkwardness created by needing to make the trans/not-trans destinction led to that word, but... It seems... Weird, regardless...

 

[Depulcator]

If I actually start hearing it outside the internet/tumblr I'll consider it. Til then I can, and will care less.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

If I actually start hearing it outside the internet/tumblr I'll consider it. Til then I can, and will care less.

Get some trans friends, then?

It's a pretty uncommon term, but it's hella useful in describing things in between trans people and their friends. But then again the word 'trans' rarely comes up all that often either.

I would say you would likely hear it once every 3 hours between me and my friends if we're talking a bit. The difference between the written word and word of mouth is one hangs around typically far longer.

 

[Andy Shandy]

It's a useful term. Don't use it a huge amount myself, but I don't see a problem with it.

Certainly have no idea how it could be used as an insult.

 

[Starik20X6]

I'm reminded of a great moment from 30 Rock:

Labelling each other as cisgendered, transgendered or whatever else (outside of medical contexts) just seems like another way to categorise and divide each other. How about we stop seeing other people as different races, as different genders, as anything other than fellow humans? I know it sounds very much like something a bunch of smelly hippies would paint onto the side of their VW, but they've got a point. When we move to a universal culture that stops fearing difference, fearing the unknown, fearing the other, and instead move forward to the point where we won't need to be celebrating those among us who have the courage to be different because we'll have already accepted and indeed embraced the fact that that we are all different. Imagine if all the money we spent on weapons and defences was instead spent on education, medical care and bringing each other together in common humanity? I thought being able to see past our base animal instincts and knee-jerk reactions of fear and hatred was what made us human!

Jeez that turned into a bit of a rant didn't it?

 

[Mong0]

Considering how often I've seen it used to dismiss the beliefs of people someone disagrees with, often in a sort of smug and self righteous way, I'm going to say that I think its insulting. That doesn't mean that needs to stop being used though; sticks and stones and all that.

Do you blame all tools for the way they're sometimes used?

I'll change my opinion of it when I start to hear it used properly; something that I've yet to experience even once.

Do you base all of your opinions only on your own personal experiences? I mean... that seems kind of untenable to me.

Yes, I do. I also recognize that it need not be an insult, but the OP asked how I felt about it, not what I thought that it was. Additionally, a words association with such use is precisely how they become derogatory. Unless you're willing to defend words like retard on the same grounds, then you're not being entirely consistent.

Retard is a pejorative shorthand for retarded, which is itself shorthand for mentally/physically retarded. Cisgender is just... the opposite of Transgender. 99.999% of the time you're not talking to, around, or about trans people so it shouldn't even be a burden. It's not like having it in the language means that you can't call yourself "straight" or "male"... any more than calling you heterosexual does.

Yeah, I guess people can toss around "Hetero", or "Gay" as insults too, and as it relates to "retarded" it would be a matter of context. "Developmentally Delayed" is the current PC, and since "delayed" and "retarded" are synonymous... I find it hard to argue against "Retarded".

Now... to the interesting bit, which is that your opinions are all based on your personal experiences... that must be wild! Tell me, what's it like not to believe in the great experimentalist physics of the last century and a half? Have you accepted Special Relativity yet? General would be out, unless you checked out that transit of Venus a while back? Hell... what are your views on modern medicine?!

Perhaps I should have been more clear, how I personally feel about things is derived from personal experience, which is both the topic of the thread and what I was discussing. What my beliefs are are a separate matter entirely.

 

[lunavixen]

Hi lunavixen,
I'd be interested to hear whether you identify as a tertiary option and/or if you identify as not being male/female. I would also be interested to hear if you feel like the cis/trans nomenclature makes you feel like you are confronted with a binary option.

I generally don't identify as a whole, I've never really felt the need to. I don't feel they're really binary options, or that restrictive, as words only have the power that we give them.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Labelling each other as cisgendered, transgendered or whatever else (outside of medical contexts) just seems like another way to categorise and divide each other. How about we stop seeing other people as different races, as different genders, as anything other than fellow humans? I know it sounds very much like something a bunch of smelly hippies would paint onto the side of their VW, but they've got a point. When we move to a universal culture that stops fearing difference, fearing the unknown, fearing the other, and instead move forward to the point where we won't need to be celebrating those among us who have the courage to be different because we'll have already accepted and indeed embraced the fact that that we are all different. Imagine if all the money we spent on weapons and defences was instead spent on education, medical care and bringing each other together in common humanity? I thought being able to see past our base animal instincts and knee-jerk reactions of fear and hatred was what made us human!

Jeez that turned into a bit of a rant didn't it?

As mentioned a few times previously in this thread, it's all very well to talk about not seeing differences, but in the real world, people do. We could drop the words "transgender" and "cisgender" today, and trans people will still be discriminated against.

"I don't see race" very often tends to mean "I don't want to hear about racism".

 

[Hagi]

I think it's a perfectly fine term. When the need comes up to distinguish between such things that is.

When it's used without an explicit need to distinguish it's a tad annoying. In the vast majority it shouldn't matter whether someone's cis or trans. So there really shouldn't be a need to mention it.

 

[Ishal]

So due to people constantly insisting on derailing my thread, designed to help broaden the understanding of transgender people, with a debate on this term I decided to start this one.

I have only one rule for this thread: Keep it civil and polite! So don't throw insults and false accusations around. That said debating the term is perfectly fine, so long as you follow the site rules.

My Opinion: I'm honestly not quite sure what what to think of the term now. I'm just kind of tired of it being debated back and forth to the point it's lost almost all meaning in my mind. I guess replacing it might be inorder.

So what do you all think? Discuss!

To be honest I tend to steer clear of these sorts of topics. But I guess I'll throw my two bits in here, and really I think my opinion means less than that.

I think I understand the term pretty well enough, at least in how transgender people use it. Makes sense. But what I'm about to say might not come as any surprise, and I'm sure people are sick of hearing it.

The majority of times I hear the term are by (I assume) the rather vocal and angry portions of the trans community. Using it as an insult, or just being condescending. Cis-scum, (white)cis-scum, cishet being the ever popular ones. I still don't know what cishet means. I've also heard one notable trans poster in these forums use the term cis-splain. Like Mansplain. Though to be fair that was only once, and it was rare that I saw it because I don't usually like to get involved in these threads.

I'm not about to spread that experience to make a blanket judgement about the whole trans community. However, I'm really in no hurry to participate in discussions like this. It usually doesn't end well. I will say that your threads have been more approachable and less... shall we say... combative? Than some other posters here. So props for that, Kyuubi.

 

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

So due to people constantly insisting on derailing my thread, designed to help broaden the understanding of transgender people, with a debate on this term I decided to start this one.

I have only one rule for this thread: Keep it civil and polite! So don't throw insults and false accusations around. That said debating the term is perfectly fine, so long as you follow the site rules.

My Opinion: I'm honestly not quite sure what what to think of the term now. I'm just kind of tired of it being debated back and forth to the point it's lost almost all meaning in my mind. I guess replacing it might be inorder.

So what do you all think? Discuss!

To be honest I tend to steer clear of these sorts of topics. But I guess I'll throw my two bits in here, and really I think my opinion means less than that.

I think I understand the term pretty well enough, at least in how transgender people use it. Makes sense. But what I'm about to say might not come as any surprise, and I'm sure people are sick of hearing it.

The majority of times I hear the term are by (I assume) the rather vocal and angry portions of the trans community. Using it as an insult, or just being condescending. Cis-scum, (white)cis-scum, cishet being the ever popular ones. I still don't know what cishet means. I've also heard one notable trans poster in these forums use the term cis-splain. Like Mansplain. Though to be fair that was only once, and it was rare that I saw it because I don't usually like to get involved in these threads.

I'm not about to spread that experience to make a blanket judgement about the whole trans community. However, I'm really in no hurry to participate in discussions like this. It usually doesn't end well. I will say that your threads have been more approachable and less... shall we say... combative? Than some other posters here. So props for that, Kyuubi.

Well thank you, I try not to be mean or terribly confrontational about things when I can help it.

As to your statement of ignorance on what cishet means, it's simply a combination of cisgender and heterosexual. Not in and of it self actually an insult.

 

[Rip Van Rabbit]

I don't really participate in the threads very often, but I really appreciate what Kyuubi is trying to do. Offering your insight and understanding is very much appreciated, and it is because of people like you that I am able to stay informed when it comes to the finer details.

Anyway, on-topic, I think the term serves a very useful purpose by offering some clarity to the multifaceted conception of gender and gender identity. Not much else to say really, I don't condone the use of cisgender as a derogatory term, but that sentiment applies to insults of all other kinds, regardless of who you are and what you may identify as.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

I gotta say I give it as much consideration as words like "tall" or "fat" or "curtain"

It's a descriptor, an adjective that describes people if their gender and birth sex matches up.

I mean, if someone is trying to use it as an insult I may get offended. Probably not, but you never know...