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

ThreeName

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Aelinsaar said:
The majority of what? By your logic unless you're Asian you're abnormal. My point is that "Normal" just means whatever you want it to mean... whatever your view of "the majority" is. In the '50's the view was a white mother and father with 2 kids, but that didn't exactly lead to anything we'd call "Normalcy".

It's like "Extra Crispy"... it sounds like a lot, but it's bullshit... marketing for bigots.
On the contrary, I would argue that you yourself are causing the obfuscation of the term by intentionally trying not to understand usage within context.

Could you explain why the 50's view of normal was invalid at the time?
 

ThreeName

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Aelinsaar said:
You're not arguing that, just claiming it... arguing would be actually presenting... an argument. As for obfuscation... you're arguing that "Cis" is confusing? Again, I'd say that it's confusing to people who didn't pay attention in school, and frankly most of those people will never hear it anyway.

As to the 50's thing... no... go watch Mad Men if you need a refresher on the reality behind the myth. Or listen to 'Mother's Little Helper', or read almost any book on the period.
Ah, so you're going to put words into my mouth and make ludicrous claims about me before presenting a TV show and a Rolling Stones song as evidence for... what, exactly? You've failed to address anything to do with the discussion at hand.
 

Michel Henzel

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May 13, 2014
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A term that tumblr crazies seem to love to throw around in a derogatory way. Never even heard of it until someone called me cis-scum, among other weird term, and I had to look them up. It has little meaning outside of select circles imo, and probably even less meaning outside of the US.
 

KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime

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Jan 12, 2010
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necromanzer52 said:
KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime said:
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.
Ok, I have a question on this. Why do you feel like you have to "project to the world" rather than just being you and letting the world think whatever it wants to think?
This is such a good question it actually forced me to answer it rather than read the rest of the page and the next's back log that I've missed. It's in part trans pride, learning to actually be proud of something countless people, even perfect strangers, have told me to be ashamed of. Also being visible in on way, or another, with various trans pride symbols I have, actually sparks discussion with random strangers, which usually helps me dispel negative ideas people tend to have about trans people. Unfortunately a shocking number of the world thinks that for one reason, or another that being something other than cisgender justifies abuse, being visible and proud helps me change that little by little.

freaper said:
On a side note; OP you seem to occupy yourself a lot with what other people think of, presumably, your gender/sexuality/whatever. Does it matter? Maybe don't pay attention to what other, inconsequential, people think about certain aspects of your life? Obviously I don't know you, so you could easily just toss these two cents in the next beggar's hat, but I've found that I'm a lot less nervous when I stop reading these kinds of threads.
It's not so much I care so much about what people think about me personally in those regards, though it's a factor, but it's also a factor that I want society to have a better view of, and more understanding for transgender people. I like discussing these things, it's interesting to hear personal thoughts on the matter, especially when someone accepting has a unique opinion on the subject. It's why I get offended by things that can be exclusionary to trans, or anti-trans for example, not as much for myself, but as apart of a whole group of people that just got slighted.
 

OldNewNewOld

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Well, I wish I could pick more than 1 option because they aren't mutually exclusive.
For starters, the term is starting to become insulting since that's how it's used 99% of the times when you see it. A change would be needed.
But then, I also believe it's a rather unnecessary term. Why do we need it? Yeah, I understand the cis part is also used in chemisty if I recall correctly and it's basically the opposite of trans, but do we really need it? Lets not pretend that the "cis" gender isn't the "default" gender. That doesn't mean that transgender people are somehow "less" valid or anything. But it is the default state. That's how most people are. It's like how people assume that you're straight. It's because they are most likely right. It's kinda a default state. So gender is enough.
 

FirstNameLastName

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Lots of people offended over a completely innocuous word used to describe some quality about them and want it replaced with something else? Did I take a wrong turn somewhere and end up at tumblr? I thought it was only the SJWs who got offended over simple words.

captcha: get over it.
Well I'm glad the captcha agrees.
 

zumbledum

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Nov 13, 2011
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irrelevant to self defeating. nothing wrong with normal/abnormal , i have abnormal intelligence and sexual preferences .

just because a few people dont understand what a word means and so take offence at it isn't a good argument to make other terms up that no one else has even heard of
 

Reasonable Atheist

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So im noticing that alot of the pro-cisgender terminology arguments here, are based on the idea that there is no such thing as context. Anyway, im male and i do not see the need for a specific term to denote that im not trans. Asinine, do i also need a term to denote that im not bipolar? That im not a furry?
 

KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime

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Reasonable Atheist said:
So im noticing that alot of the pro-cisgender terminology arguments here, are based on the idea that there is no such thing as context. Anyway, im male and i do not see the need for a specific term to denote that im not trans. Asinine, do i also need a term to denote that im not bipolar? That im not a furry?
Well if you put it that way, I'll put it this way: I'm transgender and when that comes up it's useful to have a term for people who have their gender identity matching the sex they were assigned at birth. Cisgender is a contextual word, and what's funny is that from what I can tell most who misuse it as an insult are cisgender them selves.
 

FirstNameLastName

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Reasonable Atheist said:
So im noticing that alot of the pro-cisgender terminology arguments here, are based on the idea that there is no such thing as context. Anyway, im male and i do not see the need for a specific term to denote that im not trans. Asinine, do i also need a term to denote that im not bipolar? That im not a furry?
If there was a need for a term to denote either of those things then I'm sure one would have been invented already, and if a need arises in the future, you are more than welcome to invent one.

Honestly, if you would rather refer to cisgender people as normal or not-trans then I don't see anything standing in your way. Does the existence of the word "cisgender" require all other words of similar meaning to suddenly vanish? Last time I checked, that's not how language works.

Honestly, I'm not seeing why people seem to be so offended by the mere existence of the word. It only really applies to discussions about transgender topics, so it's not like it's hard to ignore. How does it really effect your life to know that someone somewhere on the internet knows you as cisgender?
 

Johnny Novgorod

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Dismal purple said:
Johnny Novgorod said:
I like "straight" better.
But that puts gay people in a peculiar situation. Sentences like "I think straight people have problems understanding trans issues" would imply that gay people have special insight into the subject and they are our bros and part of our secret club. Or worse, it would imply that straight people are ignorant of trans issues because they are straight.
I'm not sure I understand or see the problem, I - together with most people, apparently - just think it's an unnecessary term.
 

FirstNameLastName

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Wandering_Hero said:
FirstNameLastName said:
Lots of people offended over a completely innocuous word used to describe some quality about them and want it replaced with something else? Did I take a wrong turn somewhere and end up at tumblr? I thought it was only the SJWs who got offended over simple words.

captcha: get over it.
Well I'm glad the captcha agrees.
Ever notice that most of the words considered slurs are words that by themselves would be innocuous (say the first few letters of a country), and become recognized as offensive via being used repetitively as insults or to degrade a group of people?
The only one I can think of is jap. But honestly, the idea that cisgender is a slur is just laughable. People are drastically over estimating the number of times it is used with any form of hostility. Outside of that stupid "die cis scum" thing, where else is it used in an offensive manner? Is it just people taking offence to being called "privileged", in the same way straight white male is enough to piss some people off?

Besides, with the right context people can twist anything into an insult (liberal and conservative springs to mind), that doesn't make something an offensive term in itself.

Perhaps this is just a matter of personal experience, but of all the times of have encountered the term, virtually none of them were hostile in nature.
 

Therumancer

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KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime said:
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!

It's a political construct and I tend to look down on people who use the term and even mock it's use at times. I don't consider it worthy of serious debate. It's pretty much another attempt by politically grandstanding minorities to come up with a "slur" they can apply to the majority of people to "label" them in a dehumanizing fashion in the way they believe they have been labeled. "Cisgender" is to a gay person what a black person calling a white person a "cracker" is, perhaps the people doing it will say otherwise, but that's functionally the case. Really the only experience I've had with it is occasionally getting griped at for refusing to take the label seriously. Debating it winds up giving it too much credit, and sort of shows how ridiculous it is.

Basically gays, lesbians, trans genders of various stripes, and everything else that isn't a straight person can be identified by that name and labeled, where as a "straight" person doesn't have much of a label except maybe "straight" and simply comes as a default assumption along with personhood. The idea is that they want to label everyone and making it so that a normal person is going to be labeled as "Cis" rather than simply as a basic person out of hand, and get away from only minorities having specifications. "Cis" of course also generally having negative connotations and being used as an offensive label when dealing with a lot of the LGBT crowd and their supporters.
 

KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime

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Therumancer said:
KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime said:
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!

It's a political construct and I tend to look down on people who use the term and even mock it's use at times. I don't consider it worthy of serious debate. It's pretty much another attempt by politically grandstanding minorities to come up with a "slur" they can apply to the majority of people to "label" them in a dehumanizing fashion in the way they believe they have been labeled. "Cisgender" is to a gay person what a black person calling a white person a "cracker" is, perhaps the people doing it will say otherwise, but that's functionally the case. Really the only experience I've had with it is occasionally getting griped at for refusing to take the label seriously. Debating it winds up giving it too much credit, and sort of shows how ridiculous it is.

Basically gays, lesbians, trans genders of various stripes, and everything else that isn't a straight person can be identified by that name and labeled, where as a "straight" person doesn't have much of a label except maybe "straight" and simply comes as a default assumption along with personhood. The idea is that they want to label everyone and making it so that a normal person is going to be labeled as "Cis" rather than simply as a basic person out of hand, and get away from only minorities having specifications. "Cis" of course also generally having negative connotations and being used as an offensive label when dealing with a lot of the LGBT crowd and their supporters.
The point you missed is that cisgender =/= straight/heterosexual, and perhaps you missed the fact that transgender =/= gay/lesbian. Gender identity and sexuality are different things. So calling a straight person cisgender would mean that they're straight, and have their gender identity matches the sex they were assigned at birth. Homosexual people can be, and usually are cisgender. Plenty of transgender people are straight no matter which way you identify it compared to them. Why do people keep making this mistake?
 

Skeleon

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I like that it reminds me of organic chemistry (for example, unsaturated trans and cis fatty acids). It's logically derived and it makes sense to have it. It's true that a lot of people complain about it being used as an insult, but as a cisgendered person myself, I don't have a problem with it at all, nor have I ever experienced it being used as such. It's probably just part of the anti-"SJW" outrage machine chugging along. *shrug*
 

SmallHatLogan

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KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime said:
The point you missed is that cisgender =/= straight/heterosexual, and perhaps you missed the fact that transgender =/= gay/lesbian. Gender identity and sexuality are different things. So calling a straight person cisgender would mean that they're straight, and have their gender identity matches the sex they were assigned at birth. Homosexual people can be, and usually are cisgender. Plenty of transgender people are straight no matter which way you identify it compared to them. Why do people keep making this mistake?
Well, Therumancer did mention LGBT. I wonder if that muddies the waters a bit. Lumping trans people in with a group that can be identified as "not straight" can send the wrong message.

Come to think of it (and apologies for going a bit off topic) why are trans people included with the lesbian/gay/bi group when, as we're saying, gender identity and sexual preference are two entirely different things? Seems like LGB and T should be two separate entities.