Bigenders, multigenders, and gender fluid people are just as trans as they are cis, in my opinion, because they likely have at least one gender that matches their body and at least one gender that doesn’t. Most of the ones I know have experienced being perfectly happy with their sex as much as they’ve experienced having dysphoria about it, because some of their genders align with their body better than others.

I also don’t understand why people who are Bigender/Multigender/Genderfluid would be considered crossdressers if they’re wearing the clothes that match their gender. Most bigenders I know wear women’s clothes when they identify as a woman and men’s clothes when they identify as a man, how is that crossdressing? Isn’t it insulting to say that a transwoman is a crossdresser when she’s wearing women’s clothes? How is this any different?

i stand corrected on squibs. i couldn’t remember the term for them, & so was thinking more of mudbloods, or muggle-born wizards, who are accepted.

Finally- Squibs not only weren’t accepted “without question”, but they were NOT tolerated. If anything, they were the skeletons in the closet of the wizarding world. http://harrypotter.wikia.com/w.....ard_Squibs

Okay, this sort of thing seems to be the biggest non-privilege-based issue people have with cis- terminology. But the problem is not actually present in the word.

Cisgender does NOT mean not-transgender. (And cissexual does not mean not-transsexual. I’ll be saying just the -gender terms to save space, WLOG)

This is often how the word is described when it’s being explained to people, and it’s nothing more than a simplification. It can cause misunderstandings, sure. But what cisgender comes from cis, “on the same side of” and gender. It is another category like transgender. Having these two categories does NOT mean that everyone fits into one or the other!

Some people are cisgender, some people are transgender, some gender-variant people are neither. If the term does not accurately describe you, then by all means, don’t use it for yourself. Correct other people when they use it to describe you. But don’t jump on the bandwagon of people who want to throw away the word entirely. It is a very useful word.

Also, wrt this:

“So, yeah. I love it as theory, in classrooms. I teach cisgender & cissexual privilege. But as a cissexual person, I don’t want to be called cis, or cisgender. It’s not my identity.”

It’s worth pointing out that cisgender is not an “identity,” but a description. For example, I may not have a white “identity,” thanks to privilege, but that sure as hell doesn’t change the fact that I’m white. I couldn’t deny that and say “oh, but I don’t identify with ‘white!’” It doesn’t matter whether I “identify” with the term white; it is an accurate descriptor of a member of a privileged class.
(I don’t mean to imply that you’re cisgender, I’m just attacking the use of the word “identity.” If the descriptor is INaccurate, then of course you shouldn’t be labeled as cisgender! Still, it is important to make this distinction. We don’t want people going around saying “But I don’t identify with the term ‘privileged…’”)

And just as you said you experience straight privilege, without being straight (I’m in the same boat there), you also can be said to experience “cis privilege” even if you’re not cisgender. It might be more accurate to say “passing-as-straight” and “passing-as-cis” privilege, or to use some other modifier.

“Finally, there’s the whole bottom rung of the ladder issue: cis allies, partners, & gender variant LGBs are not just the natural allies to trans people, but they are also the closest to them. So when trans people use the term “cis” like a curse – Calibanesque – the utility of the term for pointing out the privilege those who are non-trans experience becomes instead fighting words.”

This looks like a classic tone argument, and has absolutely nothing to do with whether cis terminology should or shouldn’t be used.

Helen,

I’m posting here because your blog’s spam wards won’t let it in.

Thank you for writing this (your blog post). Up until now, I had little sympathy for people who objected to “cis” (in its many forms). In general, when I hear people objecting, I hear a lot of rationalization over a foundation of privilege. (This conversation, here on the mHB boards, is an exception to that generalization.)

I agree with you in drawing a distinction between “cisgender” and “cissexual”. It had never occurred to me that there was /not/ a difference, in the same way that there is a difference between “transgender” and “transsexual”. But you gave a concrete example, yourself, of someone who is cissexual but transgender, or at least not cisgender.

Certainly, it’s ironic that trans people sometimes need to be reminded that dividing the human species into two distinct groups is problematic, at best.

I also agree that “cis” is not as clear as “cisgender and cissexual”, but I consider that to be a feature, not a bug. Sometimes, as when we say “trans” instead of “transgender” or “transsexual”, we are making deliberate use of ambiguity. The other side of that coin, as you point out, is the danger of lack of clarity.

So, I hear you saying that you feel excluded by “cis”, and also by “not trans”.

Part of this problem, perhaps, is inherent in labelling. It seems to me that it’s really difficult, if not impossible, to divide a large group of human beings perfectly on the basis of any binary label at all.
There will always be people left out, and even people who want to be left out.

[QUOTE]Telling me, & other partners whose lives are profoundly impacted by the legal rights / cultural perceptions of trans people, that we are “not trans” implies that we are also not part of the trans community.[/QUOTE]

I don’t think that this necessarily follows. I can be part of a broader community without being one of its defining members. I can /certainly/ be married to a community member without being directly of that community myself. For instance, a good friend of mine who is personally areligious married another good friend of mine who is Jewish. They are raising their child as Jewish, and he is now part of that community, without being a Jew himself.

[QUOTE]I’ve been saying for years now that we are. When trans people are killed, harassed, not hired, fired due to discrimination, denied health care, etc. etc. etc., their loved ones suffer along with them. Their families, their lovers, their kids especially. We are not just “allies.”
We are vested, dammit, & a part of the trans community, so when “cisgender” comes to mean, or is used to mean, “not part of the trans community,” we are once again left out in the dark.[/QUOTE]

When it’s used to exclude you from community, I agreed that it’s a pernicious use. Frankly, people like you, who are vested (lovely turn of phrase), who suffer alongside and because of, who got into this whole mess without any kind of informed consent, BUT who stick with the trans people you love … you’re rare and precious, and your opinions and viewpoints are as good as anyone’s.

So, that use is pernicious. And it’s rotten that some people have used it that way, and that therefore what could have been a simple, useful term now carries negative emotional baggage. Perhaps that was inevitable, if the first use many people heard was the weaponized use.
Certainly it’s understandable.

But, as has been mentioned in the discussion on the mHB boards, pretty much any label can be used as a weapon, and it’s not often inherent in the word.

Thanks for helping me understand why some people object to the terms.

Tell me, is there some way in which the term(s) could be used which would /not/ prompt you to feel excluded from the community (of which you certainly are a member)?

Grace

The term “cis” always has made me a little squirmy; I’ll try to figure out why and put it into words:

If I really think about cis terms, they seem pretty transient. It’s set up, the way I hear it described by most, in such a way that to be “trans” is to deviate from “cis”. But to me that’s just reinforcing the idea of “normal” and “not normal”. There are so many ways of being without even going so far as to identify as trans specifically, that the term “cis” doesn’t seem to me to describe what someone is so much as what they are not. And so, I can see why anyone so involved with the trans community would be upset by the assumptions inherent in that.

Additionally, what “cis” is, if taken to mean anything that doesn’t deviate from the status quo of gender, will change with time and culture. What it means to conform to a set of ideas given an assigned gender will depend on what those ideas are at the time a child is developing their sense of self. I’m not sure how to address this. I suppose it’s fine as a shorthand term when one wants to draw a distinction as an ally or a friend; but I just feel as if the label “cis” is an invitation to project a very commercial-driven image of masculinity or femininity onto someone that is most probably much more complex than all of that.

However, the term seems to be created for people within the trans community; people who are not aware of gender transgression won’t use a gender-specific term like “cisgendered” in order to identify themselves. So it almost makes me feel as if someone’s saying, “I’m with you, but I’m not like you,” before they even know who I am.

If “cis” can be applied liberally to anyone who doesn’t self-identify as trans, then the general attitude about “cis” as conforming to societal standards can overshadow the possibilities that cis people might have in a different environment or with a partner. “Trans” is one way of saying that we don’t conform to gender expectations, but I don’t know too many people who want to be known for conforming to all gender expectations. The title of “cis” seems to me to imply that the person is bound by their society’s ideas of who they are supposed to be.

“Not trans” seems to be adequate enough for me, or no term necessary at all. It’s like this: ‘Not gay’ translates to ‘straight’ (generally assumed), but we didn’t have the term ‘straight’ meaning what it does until people started using the term ‘gay’ meaning what it does. Now they’re both boxes that people can’t seem to escape from. Being cisgendered doesn’t mean a person hasn’t done some crossdressing, just as being transgendered doesn’t mean a person doesn’t ever revisit things they do enjoy about their assigned gender or pass as such for their own personal reasons.

But there are many different ways to be trans, many different stripes, terms, communities, presentations, titles, pronouns. It doesn’t seem that there are many different ways to be cis. There are many different ways to be a person, however.

Okay, that last bit probably sums up everything, without my long-winded shpeal. I’m sorry, it’s late, and I’m probably not making much sense.

Oh, nice to meet you. I love your books. This is the first time I’ve posted here, but felt compelled to say something.

Ah, well.

Grace