Counteroffensive

I seem to have missed the beginning of the "cis" debate. That's not surprising. I try to keep up with my blog RSS list, but I often fall behind, especially on the sites that post a lot like Bilerico, Feministing, and Pam's House Blend. Sometimes too many unread entries accumulate, and I end up clicking "mark all as viewed" and starting over. And missing things.

Apparently, it was Pam's House Blend where the brouhaha began, and although I've tried to read through the comments, thanks to a link from Lori's A T Revival (oops, which is itself a link to Renée's Transsexual Ferox), I still can't figure out what is offensive about the prefix "cis" nor why PHB went so far as to ban someone who defended the use of the term.

Cis means "this side." It's the opposite of trans, which means "the other side." Once upon a time, the Kingdom of Jordan was referred to as Trans-Jordan, because it was on the other side (I realize such a thing is relative) of the Jordan River, and what is now the West Bank was referred to as Cis-Jordan. It's true that you don't see cis as often as trans, which is probably why so few people are familiar with it.

Cissexual and cisgender refer to people who are not trans, people who experience congruity between body and brain when it comes to a sense of their own gender. They're already on this side. They don't have to cross over in order to achieve congruency.

Cissexual is the opposite of transsexual. Cisgender is the opposite of transgender. I have no objection to the trans terms, when used properly. What could possibly be the objection to the cis terms? I'm very willing to find out, but at this point I'm just puzzled.

We need a nonjudgmental way to distinguish cis people from trans people, just as we distinguish heterosexuals from homosexuals. Do heterosexuals object to being called that? I hope not. For gender, I frequently use long forms in order to avoid what I deem unsatisfactory terms, such as "natal" and "genetic." I will write and say "women-born-female-bodied" to mean cis women, and "women-born-male-bodied" to mean trans women. But sometimes you just want a shortcut.

One reason we use terms like heterosexual and cisgender is to indicate that even though a group constitutes the majority, and indeed is normal in the statistical sense, it is not normal in the sense that normal implies better. Heterosexual is not better than homosexual. Cisgender is not better than transgender. Neither should either group be assumed to be the default. Sure, if we assume that someone is heterosexual and cisgender, statistically we are likely to be correct. But it's the societal assumption that heterosexual and cisgender are the defaults that leads to exclusion and sometimes discrimination.

Perhaps that's where the rub is. We also refer to phenomena such as male privilege, white privilege, class privilege, heterosexual privilege, and cisgender privilege. Those denote the attitude that male, light-skinned, well-off, heterosexual, and cisgender should be assumed in the absence of further qualification. In that way of looking at things, female, dark-skinned, poor, homosexual, and transgender are "other."

I don't think I've ever whacked people for being cisgender. Heck, I wish I were cisgender too. Who wants to be trans? So I don't see cisgender or cissexual to be in any way pejorative. I consider cisgender people fortunate to have the congruity that people like me have to struggle to achieve. But they are different than me, in that one area. I don't think this sets up a great divide. It's simply a way of classifying people based on gender identity. It's human to put things in categories. It should not limit us, but it does help us understand the world.

Likewise, I don't think cisgender privilege is the responsibility of any single person. Most people don't even think about it. They don't have to. But I don't think it's offensive to make people aware that it exists.

So after all that, if anyone can explain to me why cis is offensive, I'm listening.