https://www.engadget.com/x-now-treats-the-term-cisgender-as-a-slur-211117779.html
X now considers the term “cisgender” a slur. On Tuesday, the platform reportedly began posting an official warning that the LGBTQ-inclusive terms could result in a ban from the platform.
Ah yes, the historically marginalized vulnerable community, the cisgenders. How can a community even hope to live in peace with only 98.5% of the population?
As one of the most average dudes in the world, I can't help but feel threatened and marginalized, which of course means that the gay agenda is to blame for everthing that has gone wrong in my life.
Just to be on the safe side: That was sarcasm.
My gender: You can safely make assumptions based on appearance.
Orientation: Straight and boringly sprinkle-free
Favorite dinosaur: Triceratops
Opinion on this: Fuck Elon. Let people be people, for fucks sake. If he feels threatened by increasing specificity in language, he must have some real identity issues boiling underneath.
I don’t think Elon feels personally threatened. I think he feels hate and a misguided sense of heroism. If you listen to him speak enough, it becomes painfully obvious that he not only thinks he’s the most important person in the world, he also thinks he’s the smartest person in the world. Basically he thinks he can’t possibly be wrong, no matter how many experts who’ve dedicated their lives to the pursuit of knowledge in a field that’s new to him disagree with him.
That, plus the constant stream of right wing propaganda from his Twitter addiction, has convinced him that the acceptance of trans people will lead to the destruction of society. His brain is rotten to the core at this point. So he’s made it his personal mission to make trans people’s lives worse.
My refined interpretation: He's desperate to be liked, and as long as his Xitter-circle cheers him on, he'll continue to be a Xithead shithead. He doesn't have a circle of friends to keep him grounded in reality.
bullshit. cis- is a latin prefix that means "on this side of". So for example, the Roman region Cisalpine Gaul could reasonably be interpreted as "the part of Gaul that's on our side of the Alpines". The prefix trans- is the antonym meaning "on the far side". Transalpine Gaul was the part of the Roman empire on the other side of the Alpines. When related to gender, the only way cisgender can be read in any context is "their gender aligns with their sex". There is no way that could ever be reasonably be interpreted as a slur.
Those kids on Tumblr, infamous for their coining of slurs, knowledge of Latin and history of Rome in equal measure.
Ok but you did describe a specific chunk of rome nerds. You’ve really got three kinds of rome nerds: the “I just think it’s neat” folks, the ones who think of it as glorious western tradition and lean fascist (it’s how they turned the symbol of Roman right to rule into the “kill everyone in the name of tradition” ideology), and then there are those of us who see a society that’s full on clown shoes where a bisexual twink managed to talk his way into destroying a republic among many many many other fucking bonkers things that just kept fucking happening while this empire refused to trade with China because of dipshit toxic masculinity. So yeah us in the last group lean anti fascist because rome was a shit show of a caliber only America and Russia can compare to
OMG I love it!
Right wing assholes get all bent out of shape over the computer world trying to do away with "master" and "slave" terminology, but they'll rush to "cancel" using "cis" because it hurts their feefees...
Most people don't see cisgender as a slur. Only complete asshole transphobes do.
Honestly, not even they do. They just lie about it as a gotcha.
From wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cisgender
The term cisgender was coined in 1994 as an antonym to transgender, and entered into dictionaries starting in 2015 as a result of changes in social discourse about gender.[4][5] The term has been and continues to be controversial and subject to critique.
I think there's some confirmation bias on your end here. The local community (including me) tends to be young and liberal and knows the term cisgender. I'd bet that the majority (by a huge margin) of English speakers (including as a second or third language) has never even heard the term cisgender or doesn't know what it means. Lots of them will react negatively if you label them cisgender out of pure ignorance and false assumptions - no transphobia needed.
Only complete asshole transphobes do. Honestly, not even they do. They just lie about it as a gotcha.
Sure, they exist. But what's their percentage of the population or the X user base? I think you're making a false generalization by an invalid extrapolation.
And just to be clear: I'm not saying cisgender is a slur. I'm just pointing out that the notion that community A or an individual can decide whether some word is a slur or not in community B is ridiculous, and that the argument, from the first comment I replied to, for technical correctness or intended meaning of a word is irrelevant for who considers what a slur.
I hope that made my point clearer to your dry-nosed primate's brain.
Most people don't hear a new word and immediately assume it's a slur.
Most people without an ax to grind anyway.
I'm just pointing out that the notion that community A or an individual can decide whether some word is a slur or not in community B is ridiculous,
As a member of group B I consider the word community a slur (purely because it is convenient for my argument to do so). Never use that word again because it is a slur and it would be ridiculous for you to say otherwise.
I’m pretty confident the slur-status of a word is closely rated to whether or not it is used in a hateful way to refer to a people group or member of a group that is in some way disadvantaged. For example the n-word is obviously a slur and “cracker” or “whitey” obviously are not. That’s why cisgender isn’t a slur, even if people can and have use(d) it in a hateful way.
When you have a trans-something you have cis-something. It's how language works.
The only way for cisgender to be a slur is if you consider transgender a slur too.
Ok let me rephrase for pedantic people, adjectives with trans prefix have a correspondent cis adjective.
And an electrical cisformer would be something that would keep energy inside the same circuit at roughly the same voltage, so basically a wire. Feel free to use the term if you want to oversell something.
Cisformers
They're what meets the eyes
Cisformers
Bots not in disguise
Robobots wage their battle to destroy the evil forces of
The Obviouscons
I will start using "cisformer" in place of "wire" from now on, in a similar manner to how we at work sometimes refer to "power aspect negation cycle" for pulling the plug on something and reconnect it.
Also, I guess a cisistor would be just a regular switch or potentiometer.
A cisformer would just be a conductor (like a wire). It takes a current/voltage on one side, and gives you the same current/voltage on the other side.
Now if we’re talking about the big robots that turn into cars, a cisformer would be a car that turns into the same car (so just any car).
You could construct a cis- form of the word, but it's not always going to be useful, or even sensible.
Cismit? Cisaction? Cislate? Cisportation?
Cismit - communicating with one self, for e.g. inner dialog
Cisaction - an agreement with one self or within a group
Cislate - to rephrase in the same language
Cisportation - moving inside a boundary
Cisgender originated on Usenet in alt.transgender in 1994.
I Coined The Term 'Cisgender' 29 Years Ago. Here's What This Controversial Word Really Means.
Well, damn.
The word is a threat because it linguistically separates biological sex from socially constructed categories of “woman” and “man.” That gender is a social construction undermines heteronormativity, critical to defending patriarchal sex roles and procreation.
People on tumblr being really mad when they say cisgender doesn’t actually make it a slur ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
You believe that cis is a slur because that's how you use the word trans.
These people are so fragile. If you dare remind them that they're cisgender, that they're straight, that they're white, that they're able-bodied, they take it personally because to them, they're just normal.
All of the sudden, they have to think about their place in society and it absolutely terrifies them. They are like rich people when you tell them that they're rich. They will do this whole fucking song and dance to try and tell you about how they are not that rich and how the government taxes them and everything and how they're just like you and so on.
They are not white, they are not cis, they are not straight, they are not able-bodied, no, they are just normal. It's everyone else that is different. It's them who are black, who are gay, who are trans, who are disabled. They're different.
But my guy, you are not. You are as much a part of the society as I am. And you're getting just a small taste of what it's like to be a minority in said society. Someone reminded you of what you are for just a second. Now, imagine being constantly brought back to what you are and not who you are. What that would be like.
People like Elon Musk take offense to being called straight, white, cis or able-bodied because everything else is inferior to them.
On a side note: Someone should remind him of what the Nazis did to disabled people. Because the dude is clearly getting cozy with a lot of them, but I don't think being this level of clinically stupid is going to get him far in the Fourth Reich. Besides, those South African origins... erh, that may get him in trouble. And having a trans daughter? Woof, doesn't sound like "good genes" to me. Elon, you may want to pick better friends.
This might be top five comment on Lemmy that I’ve seen.
I appreciate what you put down here. I’m a white dude that is about as corn fed looking as they come. This comment made so much sense.
Thank you for taking the time to write this out.
Ok, I'm going to be completely honest with you. I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not.
Are you telling me that I made a shit comment? If so, please do say so because I'm gonna be honest: I am not sure about this comment and I've been thinking about deleting it ever since I posted it. I rewrote it like five or six times before until I finally got fed up with it and said "fuck it" and posted it. :|
EDIT:
So, according to all of you, I worry too much. Thanks a lot for the support, and I'm glad you liked my comment. ❤️
How did you interpret a genuine compliment as so negative? You need to get some more self-esteem, friend lol. You're valid and you have good insights!
Because obviously all compliments are actually just insults in disguise! /s
I put /s, but like, that's often my first assumption. IME, often compliments have been mostly been intentionally a back-handed insult, are putting themselves down in the process, or they're trying to give a genuine compliment but its about something I dislike about myself and therefore feels insulting despite the intentions.
They are being genuine. It is a terrific analysis. You are exactly right; in their minds, they are "normal", and anyone implying any sort of equal status between them and the "abnormals" pisses them off.
Considering that they didn't use the universal /s tag, I would take it at face value. It's a good comment.
Plume - I was being totally serious. I really think your comment hit home for me and I appreciate how you framed your points.
Also - please don’t let internet comments from strangers linger rent free in your head. Too much awesomeness out in the world to let randoms’ comments bring you down.
Because they are normal. If most of the species is the same in these aspects, it's normal. But you know, we can also simply switch what word we use, and instead of normal use...common or average. So, they are average. :p
they take it personally because to them, they’re just normal.
Maybe they (including myself) might take it personally because to them you ARE normal. Regardless of your gender, skin colour or sexual orientation.
So, if I'm treating everyone the same, why is it wrong to ask for other people to do it as well? For example, if I'm trying to talk about a certain topic and your opinion is discarded simply because "you're cis" then yeah, I have every right to be offended. Just because I'm white and a man it doesn't mean that I'm necessarily part of the problem.
And no, I wouldn't presume to know how if feels to be part of a minority that has to face constant violence and discrimination but that's precisely why I want to have the conversation, I want to better understand what other people are going through. Although, that doesn't mean that I will (or should) agree with everything the other person says. Being part of a minority doesn't magically make you right about everything. Just like I might be biased due to my personal context, you can be biased because of yours.
I'm afraid you are putting a lot of words into my mouth and making lots of assomptions about what I'm saying here. I don't really know how to answer to this because, well, you're debating against things I didn't say.
I'm calling you cis, because it's simply a descriptive term. You are white, you are a man, you are cisgender. That's not a problem. I'm white, I'm a woman, I'm transgender. That's not a problem. These, on their own, are simply descriptors. No one here is saying that you're a problem. I'm talking about people who specifically take offense to these terms, like Musk here does, like, if you tell this man that he is "cis", he will genuienly get upset.
You misunderstood my point. Context is important and, in this case, the context is using these terms in a platform for discussion (which are usually not very friendly). In my comment, I was thinking of why calling someone "cis" or "trans" or any other thing in a conversation can often be to insult or discredit the other person and why that's wrong.
not understanding your point is the point. you are not human. you are the evil majority who can't ever experience bad things... and if you do... you deserve it.
the irony of so many oppressed people is that they dont' want freedom from oppression, they want to oppress. they want revenge not harmony.
and no better way to tell it when you express yourself politely and they ATTACK you for doing so and are unable to admit that trans folks can also be oppressors of each other and other people. oppression doesn't make you a saint.
amen.
i keep trying to be on the side of these people, but they keep telling me i'm a shit person because of my skin color, my gentials, my education, etc. and ironically.. most of these people are WAY more privileged than will ever be. I'm so sick of trans/feminist peopel telling me off that i'm a POS who got all the advantages in life... while they often got free-rides on the life train due to parental wealth and exploiting other people where as i had to struggle to get into college and pay off my debts and didn't get a tsate of this so called of 'privileged' until iwas well into my 30s. all the while being constantly harassed for not being a 'real man' and also 'being a man'. all i ever wanted was to be left alone to do my own thing... but no. the second i want ot empathize about being beating for my non-gender conformity, i'm told to STFU and that I'm 'stealing' or whatever, because apparently my expereince of my gendered life and gender violence doesn't exist or is all lies and falsehoods because i'm not trans, or a woman. and oh by the way, if it did really happen... i clearly deserved it because of the debt i own gender minorities or something.
like... ok i won't be on your side anymore then. i'll just leave you to your own bitterness and focus on folks who treat me well who aren't pathologically violent against anyone who is different than them and who take offense at every perceived slight.
I think "slur" is not the right word but in some cases it can be used ina a derogartory or dimissive way.
By "post" do you mean the comment I replied to or the actual OP? Because I believe that the intent behind classifying "cis" as an insult is more aligned with my interpretation.
If using the word "cisgender" is a ban-worthy offense, it's not being considered "a word that can sometimes be insulting", it's being considered "a word that is inherently harmful to use in almost any situation"
I don't think that terms that can get you banned would do so in any context. You'd have to use it and then someone else would have to report you. Might be wrong though.
I have never been excluded from truth seeking conversations because I am cis. Everyone likes an ally. Some people actually like them a little too much in my experience.
If you are in a queer safe space you should treat it like you are at your in-laws house. You don't need to be expressing every diverging opinion or challenging every cultural assumption. In my experience, if you are being met with hostility, it's because you are projecting it.
I have never been excluded from truth seeking conversations because I am cis.
Congrats. Unfortunately, it has not been my experience.
if you are being met with hostility, it’s because you are projecting it.
I honestly don't think I am but it is something that I could ask if it happens again.
In my past experiences where my questions or disagreements, etc have been met with hostility, the reason seems to be that if I don't 100% agree with what the other person is saying, it's simply because I'm a straight white man and don't know any better. Which, as you may guess, doesn't lead to a very productive discussion.
that's because of purists and nutjobs any disagreement whatsoever is hostile to them. the notion of civil disagreement, or just polite disagreement is met with violence, because tehy are passive aggressive nut jobs. they don't want you to be an ally, they dont' want to work with you to improve things, they want to you submit to their crazy.
just like if you go into your in laws, they ask you for a cup of tea, and you know they serve shitty tea, so you decline it politely, and they go 'oh so what is our tea not good enough for you?'
Because I think people's disagreement makes my point more effectively than my words ever could.
I was really thinking they were going to challenge Musk since it’s not only their name, but he chose practically the same logo.
And I'm only, like, 98% joking about it also being the day I saw a headline on Lemmy about Wayland use overtaking X11.
I mean, honesty, there has to be some legally standing harm having been done or be possible. By a fucking billionaire tech mogul guy to a foundational, open, and free part of the tech ecosystem who also relies on fundraising.
Edit: on the other hand I’m waiting to be pounded by a reply about the logo being open source. Which it is. But you know ethics and tech and stuff.
It might not be worth challenging them, by the time it gets anywhere the current business will be gone. They always had little to no hope of paying off the $13bn loan Musk saddled the business with, now the business is worth less than the loan. Musk knows this, which is why he's trialling all sorts of dodgy shit on the platform, such as this and also the API charges.
I've said for some time now that as long as he allows deadnaming on his site, I'm going to deadname his site.
Probably not, but used with sufficient invective I think you could make people feel like they've been insulted with out actually doing so. 'You blasted multicellular mammal! What have you done this time? What are you, bipedal or something? Eukaryote!'
Don't the fans of X applaud it for being anti-censorship? I would think this goes against their free speech inclinations.
Free speech for right wingers means they get to say anything they want. Doesn't apply to others
The most critical component of "free speech" to a right-winger isn't just the ability to say whatever they want with no repercussions, it's also that an audience has to be forced to listen to them.
There are plenty of shithole places on the Internet where they can spout their transphobic, Great Replacement anti-Semitic shit all day long, but that's not good enough for them. They need a "lib" to be triggered.
Jordan Peterson is the absolute king of thinking that he deserves and audience but also no one is allowed to leave a mean comment or he'll quit Twitter again.
That's the guy who cries about nothing, motivates incels to hate women and minorities, and goes on tirades about wanting humans to behave like lobsters or whatever, right? Utter detriment to the human species.
The guy found a way to get famous by lying that a law would put him personally in prison if he called someone "he" instead of "she." He's the biggest attention whore out there.
Exactly, it’s not enough to stand outside a college campus and spout bigotry, they must be given a podium and an audience must attend
This is what happens when a Nazi affiliated "free-speech" absolutist buys a major media. The trap of the tolerating the intolerant is very real.
"Real man/woman" or something inherently derogatory towards everyone else like that.
These bigots consider their own gender (and usually race and political affiliation, for that matter) the default and everything else a misguided if not dangerous aberration.
They're like the the people Musk grew up with in apartheid South Africa in that respect.
She hates him more. When she changed her name, she changed her surname to her mother's and had it put into the court record that she disowns her father. She could have just broken contact, waited for him to die and hoped she was included in the will, but he was such an awful father that she said, "fuck you and your billions of dollars." Can you imagine how exceptionally bad a parent that would make him?
Not to play down how absolutely terrible I'm sure Musk is as a father, but her mum's also loaded. That would certainly make the decision easier.
But is she "barring significant changes in world financial systems, my descendants could purchase a small nation-state every generation and still likely never have to sell their labor or until the end of their genetic line" wealthy? Gotta remember that Billion with a B is an absurdly large number that is literally beyond human comprehension in anything but an abstract sense by a large margin.
I got more curious, so I did some searching, and I just can't. Turns out Musk has some absurd number of children with several different women. And I only found that out through some pop culture/celebrity worship/exploitation websites I'd rather not have in my search history. I couldn't even find the name or age of the child in question (probably for the best, I wouldn't want my children to go through this, either), though it seems of the three children he had with Grimes, the oldest just turned 4. That's a bit young to even know what disowning is.
Sure, her mom is loaded. But even ignoring the money, she wanted it known in a legal setting and on an official court transcript that she did not consider Elon Musk to be her father. That's quite the statement.
Has anyone ever been fired from a job for being cis? [I’ve been fired from a couple for being trans….]
I know that is legal in a lot of places, but it absofuckinglutely should not be. I'm really sorry. I hope you've found something good since.
no, but i have seen people asked to give up their position so a 'more worthy' trans person could take their place... mostly for the 'optics' of being 'diverse'. most often old white men, because they are 'bad' and trans people are 'good'.
a lot in community groups in social/leftist leanings. the obsession with trans tokenism about rich white liberals is def a thing, esp when you can request a old white man and replace them with a young trans person so that your org/group is 'with it'. i've seen this happen multiple times.
and in a few instance sadly, the person who replaced was great and knowledgeable, and the trans person who replaced them was an unhinged jerk who ended up quitting or being asked to leave after introducing an inordinate amount of drama into the group.
Where I live, I can be legally denied a job, housing, or medical care. If the cops wanted to, they’ve retroactively invalidated changed drivers licenses, so they could probably just arrest me for driving. I couldn’t access any form of domestic violence resource when escaping my marriage.
Some trans people are crazy assholes - just as some cis people are crazy assholes. But there is no system level oppression of cis people. Drama is annoying, but drama doesn’t mean you don’t get to eat.
Should we really be adding more derogatory terms to children's vocabulary tho? I don't care if it's cisgender or a new word for removed, I get theyre only words and we shouldnt be voldermorting words because of the power it gives to oppressors but for fuckin real what I get nervous about is adding another word to be fucking mean adding it to school aged children's arsenal of mean as fuck shit to say to other kids. We can all agree they don't belong anywhere appropriately but for me this has always been about discouraging the next generation from being as hateful and cruel as this current parenting generation and older.
I will die on the hill that psychological and emotional aggression is 1000x's worse than trying to knock someones teeth in. As someone who grew up a barefoot3d hippie in redneck country I've seen it way too often that issues get fuckin squashed after 2 parties are icing their shinners and are arguing wile coming down from a much depleted sense of drive, rage amd adrenaline or whatever that hormone is called now.
"Cisgender" is no more a derogatory term than "heterosexual." It's simply a descriptor. It means your gender and biological sex are the same. That's all.
It's only derogatory to you if you feel that "cisgender" should be "normal" and thus not have a word. But we have a word for all kinds of things people might consider "normal." Sighted is a word even though being able to see is the norm. I'm sure you can use 'sighted' in a derogatory way. Maybe some blind people even do, I don't know. That doesn't make the word derogatory.
"Cisgender" is not the queer equivalent of something like "tranny."
Getting into fistfights > Learning a single vocabulary word ??
Wow. A VIOLENT snowflake. Daring today, aren't we.
Your position is great, all these kids are being warped by slander and pejoratives (as contextual), and nobody seems to care about manipulating all these new kids being grown up into a world that's burning down and their McDonald's meal will cost $26.99 next year with no jobs existing. But they're concerned more about gender and words and feelings than reality anymore.
I wasn't aware of this term, but I just checked it in wiktionary. Looks like a perfect normal word to me.
It is, and it's a word we need there's not a different term for it and it's a useful concept. Close minded people just hate that it implies the existence of trans people.
Much like all words for a privileged group it has some people who really don’t like it. Transphobes in particular dislike it because it is neutral and contains no value judgement. But also because it gives people the language to talk about trans experiences without misgendering or othering trans people
I call myself cis male. What delicate fucking snowflakes.
EDIT: I want to provide some more information. I am a straight cis male. Straight is my sexual preference, cis gendered in my gender identity, and male is my biological sex as assigned at birth. I was first called cis male by a lesbian friend in a relationship with a trans-masculine lesbian (I think...s/he was a life long butch lesbian who began to transition socially after we met.) My friend described to me what cis meant and I said, "Ya, that describes me." I have a pair of trans women friends (one post-op and one who will never get the surgery.) I have a pair of gay friends, one who had always known that he was gay and one who was closeted his whole life, married, kids, and came out in his 50s. I had known him for 25 years and never thought about whether he was straight or gay. In my social circle, intellectual and liberal, it is handy to be able to let people know a bit about me in a few words. I've embraced "cis" because I don't think that I am superior because I am what I am. The people who are offended by being called "cis" are the ones who have sneered labels at others. I haven't done that. I also find it handy in social situations to be able to say I'm interested in straight or bi cis women.
I could not care less who you love, who you want to have sex with, how you present yourself, how you want to be addressed, etc. I have my preference but that's just me.
I only ever call myself things like cisgender for the sake of argument, as it is the identity I was born into and lived with for many years before realizing I was agender.
I personally consider cisgender and cishet to be slurs solely because I've so largely seen it used in a derogatory context, the same way "white male" is used by certain bad actors to signal outrage
In all reality gender, sexual preference, race, ethnicity are all our of place in most civil discussion-- the majority of the time it is brought up is in discussion of identity politics. And if what we want as a society is equality, then identity should take a back seat to humanism.
Unfortunately, as I'm sure my comment score will no doubt soon reflect, a lot of people take issue with this notion of equality and, as I'm sure replies to my comments may end up reflecting, are ready to disagree and offer their own definitions of equality. It is therefore the duty of the reader to decide what equality means to them, unfortunately.
Cisgender is straight up just not a slur though, it literally just means the opposite of transgender, which is also not a slur, despite the fact that it can be used with derogatory language or sentiments.
I think you're currently in a place where I was in myself many years ago. This is all assuming everything you said was in good faith. You see all of the pain and damage the -isms have caused (racism, sexism, etc) and it seems at first blush that if society simply disregarded the traits those -isms are based around, the problem would go away. There's enough truth in the idea to make it feel like a solution and, even if it's subconscious, it kinda takes the onus of action off of you and puts it on the people that that are actually racist or exist. I don't want to assume your political leanings, but I was farther right on the political spectrum than than I am now, and it fit well with my ideas about personal responsibility and limited government at the time...and I feel like it was regarded as common sense with everyone in that political sphere at the time. At the time, I was a 20-something cishet white guy (I'm still all of those things, except 20), and I felt like everything I had I'd earned, and I legit thought people could pull themselves out of the mire if they wanted it enough. I didn't like being grouped in with the -ists, but I also wasn't likely to call out a buddy for making an offensive joke.
That whole chain of thinking is deeply flawed, but it's an easy place to land, especially in middle-America. I feel like a good analogy that would have hit home with me at that point in my life would have been stories about places where Christianity was outlawed. I remember I had one of those old Christian comic books that were popular in the 90s about it. If you wanted to wear a cross, you'd have to hide it, you couldn't talk about being Christian or meet with other Christians (like a church service or prayer group) without having to worry about the law coming down on you. (Really makes me wonder where that infamous sense of persecution the right has comes from). At the time, I'd hear those stories and think, "Man, government sucks...it would be terrible to have to hide who you were like that." I think about those stories now and I think instead about not wearing the clothes you're comfortable in, not being able to get healthcare for legit medical diagnoses, not being able to have a club or group of similar people you couls safely meet with to build community around shared life experiences. The story about persucted Christians in some unnamed dystopia was also telling the true story of LGBTQ people in my own country. And women in my own country. And racial groups In. My. Own. Country. I never would have accepted the idea that those persecuted Christians would be OK if there just wasn't religion. Just like I know marginalized groups today won't be OK if whatever society deems "wrong" with them just went away. Societies have inertia, and without someone exerting some kind of force on them, they'll maintain their current trajectory. I came to see I didn't like my societies trajectory, so I started trying to change it, probably went a little too extreme in the other direction for a while, but eventually learned to just listen first. It's OK if I belong to a group (or several) that have been bad actors. It means I'm in a position to leverage my privileges to help change society's momentum. I grew up very poor, but I've got pretty much every other privilege society has to offer. I honestly don't know that I'd have been as fortunate as I am today if even one of those privileges was missing. Even with the deck stacked pretty well in my favor, it was a fucking fight to get here...and even now, doing so much better than most, it feels like barely hanging on some days. I agree that humanism is what we should be striving for, but I also understand that I'm part of a group that's done a lot of bad to a lot of other groups. I don't think it makes sense for me to be "proud" of any immutable part of my identity, but that also means I shouldn't feel personally attacked when people talk about that identity. Things like the whole bear thing would have probably bothered me in the past, but now it's more nuanced. I'm sad people feel that way, but I don't blame them, and I've listened enough that I believe them. Now the question I ask isn't "How is this fair to me?" but instead. "How can I use my membership in the group to help change its momentum to something better." Sometimes it's voting, sometimes it's canvassing or protesting, sometimes it's reaching out to someone I see a part of my past self in.
Thanks, stranger. I'm in stormy seas now, and that means more to me than it otherwise might.
Cisgender is a descriptive term. If you have seen it in a derogatory context, then you should take issue with the context.
Cis and trans are both the same type of descriptor. If trans can be used as a slur, so can cis.
Not saying either are slurs by default. But they most certainly can be turned into ones.
Maybe we should clarify what a slur is? Because to my knowledge, a slur is a term that has such negative connotations that it is considered offensive and discriminatory against a certain group of people in itself, without any additional context. You simply do not use it unless you want to insult or offend someone from that group. If a term is only offensive based on how it's used, it's just a regular insult, not a slur.
So, "can be used as a slur" is not a thing. A word is either a slur, or it isn't. Neither trans nor cis are slurs at the moment. I've never seen trans be used as an insult before. And even cis is almost never meant as a direct insult, merely as a reminder that someone is talking about things they have no lived experience with and should probably check their privilege. Yes, that can be in a demeaning way, but the goal there is not to hurt you, but to make you piss off. It's an act of self protection. Nobody is seeking cis people out and starting to call them names unless they insert themselves into trans spaces and start talking shit about trans issues. If you're doing that, and getting told off insults you or hurts your feelings, then, frankly, that's a you problem.
It is so strange to say that identity should take a back seat to humanism when every historical example of discrimination and dehumanization is based on identity. Identity in those instances is not imposed on oneself, but is used to define the outgroup that is being dehumanized. Identity politics is simply an honest accounting of groups that being descriminated against. When the discrimination ends, we see the group identity evaporate. We need only look at the early 20th century definitions of Caucasian, and the identity politics of Irish and Italian Americans subsequently evaporating when that definition evolved to include all Americans of European decent, to see that identity politics is a reaction to injustice and not the other way around.
agender
guess this is what i will tell people to call me now. because i don't give a shit that i have a penis.
100% agree with you. but sadly humanism doesn't incite people to team-based violence, so it's very going to be very popular. human beings very much prefer tribal thinking to global thinking.
The definition of cis is, "a person whose gender identity corresponds to their sex assigned at birth." Does you gender identity correspond to the sex you were assigned at birth? Mine does.
The prefix cis- is Latin and means on this side of.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cisgender
Just as "trans-" means on the other side of. It's literally just the opposite of trans.
The term cisgender has its origin in the Latin-derived prefix cis-, meaning 'on this side of', which is the opposite of trans-, meaning 'across from' or 'on the other side of'. This usage can be seen in the cis–trans distinction in chemistry, the cis and trans sides of the Golgi apparatus in cellular biology, the ancient Roman term Cisalpine Gaul (i.e. 'Gaul on this side of the Alps'), and Cisjordan (as distinguished from Transjordan). In cisgender, cis- describes the alignment of gender identity with assigned sex.
what if i feel like my gender identity is irrelevant?
other people care a lot more about my gender and sex than i do. i can tell you that.
Also, I don't accept I was "assigned a gender at birth". That's like a person of faith saying when I got a sole. Believe what you want, but don't expect me to join in.
People made the same arguments about "heterosexual" and "straight", at least with the latter I could see why someone would see that as a slur (it's a term originates from animal farming), while "heterosexual" just describes someone is attracted to the opposite gender (go on, and use it as an "a ha!" moment against me by claiming it as a proof that even I know there's only two genders, like fundamentalists do with atheists saying "oh my god!"). "Cis" is just the opposite of "trans", even if Musk had the techbro-level idea of treating "cis" the same way most sensible people treat that "cool and funny" gamer word, he wants to say out loud in the public, like he used to do it in apartheid Africa.
So, even if I don't like it, I have to accept being called that? My preferences don't matter?
I know this may be a difficult concept for you, but here's what you do:
Someone calls you cisgendered.
You say, "I don't like being called cisgendered, call me _____."
That person agrees and calls you ______.
-and that is all most trans people are asking of you too.
speak for yourself. not my experience of many trans folk at all. many of them are actively hostile. and some of them are just straight up fucking mean people. and i've also seen trans folks who were chill... become radicalized and whom i used to hang out with and liked... and then all the sudden i'm the 'enemy'.
it's almost like trans folks are people and subject to the same errors in thinking and hateful nonsense as anyone else.
I can't imagine why trans people might be actively hostile. Can you think of any possible reasons? Do you think it might have to do with things like Twitter treating 'cisgender' as a slur?
That and the genocide?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender_genocide#United_States
Tired of hearing about Xhitter... Stop posting every excruciating minutiae about it and let it die already
I agree with you but we both know it's not going to stop. We need a mostodon instance to get world famous.
the best part about this is that elon basically is doing the john mulaney sketch where he says cis all the time to justify it but when asked why the n word is allowed, he refers to it without saying it.
I honestly never even considered that it was a slur. Sometimes you are having a discussion where gender identity is relevant, and in that situation it is useful to be able to clearly indicate that someone is cisgender.
See I just used it.
The word was created so the official opposite of transgender is not simply the word "normal". Treating cisgender as a slur is just attacking transgender people.
I agree completely. The whole manufactured discussion about it it ridiculous. Conservative love to be able to point at social values and try to claim there is simply an opposite alternative fact that’s completely contradictory to it on the conservative spectrum. Did you notice when they normalized leftist?
I don't think classifying cisgender as a slur is defendable, especially on its own.
Not saying it is a slur, but I've seen it used like a slur before, mostly coupled with "white" and "men"/"women". But I'm fairly sure Elon himself is against censoring language for that reason (when it comes to things that don't personally offend him). It just seems dumb and hypocritical to me
if used descriptively it's not a slur.
if used to harass, intimidate, and demean, it's a slur.
When I first heard it, I assumed it was a slur because the closest common use English word is cissy.
But then I like... looked it up.
Basically, I can understand how some folks initially think it's a slur, but this conservative overreaction is clearly in bad faith and it'd almost certainly happen whatever the fuck the word was.
