Act of contrition

I found this blog post by Renée, author of Transsexual Ferox (I have no idea what that title means), via Lori's A T Revival blog. I was struck by how uncomfortably true so much of what she wrote is. Having transgressed yet again this evening, I thought I'd post the link, for myself as much as for anyone else. But if you haven't seen this entry, it's worth your while. Just be prepared.

It's hot here. Seriously hot, not just hot for Vancouver, but hot hot. We're setting records. In this office, I'm sure it's running well into the 90s F, despite the efforts of the little fan by the door. I was DJing in Second Life tonight, sitting at my hot computer for two hours plus. So I was wearing a bikini, not just the top, because even my short shorts were too hot. At one point, I remarked to Sweetie that I knew I still had some weight to deal with but that I felt like I was looking OK. I guess I asked for some feedback. She countered by saying that she doesn't always want to be talking about my body.

Ouch. That stung. But of course she doesn't. Right now, she's dealing with the heat less well than I am. She can hardly sleep. If there was ever a time to shut up and not talk about myself, or about anything gender-related, it was now. But I did. And I feel bad, because I could have avoided the situation.

Yes, there are two sides to this. It's amazingly hot. I'm doing what I can to stay cool. I'm in my house, no one can see me, and wearing minimal clothing helps me stay cool. It's also liberating for me. Despite my skinny ass, still flabby waist, and minimal breasts, I've wanted this for so long.

At the same time, I'm sure it was quite enough for me to be running around this way, and maybe too much. Sweetie probably wasn't feeling all that sanguine about it. And then I made it worse. Stupid me. My feelings do get hurt, but I guess I feel like I should cut her more slack. Maybe that's guilt talking. And I didn't think I had any.

She and I are doing great, but that doesn't mean nothing will ever go wrong. I don't want to be an idiot about these things. I don't want to babble when silence would serve the moment better. I don't want to be insensitive rather than perceptive of what's up with her. That's what I consider a masculine trait, and one I particularly want to get away from. I'm a lot more perceptive and empathic than I used to be, but no one is perfect, least of all me.

I'm sorry, baby. I'll keep trying to do better. You please keep letting me know, before anything builds up, how you feel.

Happy rezday!

Three years ago today, I created Veronique, my Second Life avatar. Today, I was assessed by two psychiatrists who work for the Medical Services Plan of British Columbia, who said at the end of the session that they would support my application for funding for surgery. Woo hoo! It wasn't a heinous experience. In fact, it was just fine. I had to go over my history, both general and gender-related, as well as some medical stuff. They asked questions, but there was no grilling.

I was much relieved when they gave me their blessing. I wasn't really nervous, but my story is a bit outside the norm. Or so I thought. They said they've heard other stories like it. Nice to know I'm different but not a fluke of the universe!

It's appropriate that I had this assessment on my "rezday," the day I started in SL. A lot of things in my life contributed to bringing my gender issues to the fore, but none more than my little virtual female life. SL let me live what had been only a fantasy up to then. It made my fantasy almost real. It let me meet all kinds of trans people and learn from them, from which I went to the web to learn more. And it was so compelling that it left me with a choice between game addiction and fixing my real life. I made the right choice.

So once the psychiatrists write the letter and send it to MSP, I will wait for a letter to come back that says funding has been approved. According to my assessors, that's likely to take two to three months.

Meanwhile, my own therapist wrote a supporting letter and faxed it to the Centre Métropolitain de Chirurgie Plastique. The woman I've been speaking with indicated that with such a letter, they could give me a firm date for surgery, even before MSP approves funding. What she neglected to mention was that only one person arranges the schedule, and she is on holidays until August 10. If it isn't one thing, it's another! Do you think I might have an Outlook task set to fire off at 6 a.m. on the 10th? Oh yeah.

Confirmation

There are so many ways to refer to the surgery I will be having: sex reassignment surgery, gender reassignment surgery, genital reconstructive surgery, and one that has been my favourite for its lack of baggage, feminizing genitoplasty. I've changed how I've referred to the procedure in this blog more than once.

The literature I received from the assessing psychiatrists uses the term gender confirming surgery, and thereafter GCS. It's not the first time I had seen that term or a variant. Earlier in my journey, I used to think it was pretentious, just like the rewritten histories of those trans women who insist that they were never male.

I gain understanding as I work through this process. At least I like to think so. Certainly I have had to revise my thinking on a lot of things. Sometimes I have had to eat a bit of humble pie, and I hope I always learn from my mistakes. Now I'm thinking that I like the phrase gender confirming surgery. At this point, that's what it feels like to me. I am a woman in all ways except that one physical aspect. Surgery will confirm, and tell the bureaucratic world, what I and many others know to be true already.

Maybe even the self-revisionists are right. I now know that I was born with a brain that was different from the norm and that did not fit well with my body. In that way, I was female all along, just overpowered by testosterone, society, and my own ignorance, shame, and fear. I will not invalidate the first 50+ years of my existence. There was much good during that time, including the best relationship anyone could ever ask for. I did not think of myself as a woman. My femaleness was only in fantasy. Now the fantasy has become real. And I'm still amazed.

Bring on the confirmation! And on that subject, I'm hoping I will have more news later in the week, after a very important duck gets into line.

A guy they knew

In a week, my Beloved will be heading back east for two weeks to visit her sister and her sister's wife, her uncle and aunt, and one of her best friends. I'm not going. One reason I'm not is that when she was booking flights I did not know when I would be having my psychiatric assessment, and I didn't want to be away if a cancellation came up. Another reason is that it's a lot of time for me to take off from work. She's a school teacher, so she's off anyway. I will be taking a week off to do Girls Rock Camp, so two weeks right before that would not have worked very well.

On Saturday, in order to make some plans, Sweetie called her aunt and uncle, two of the nicest and most generous people I know. They have always treated me like one of the family, and I love them both dearly. He is one of my cooking mentors, another one of those people who can whip up a great meal out of whatever is in the fridge. He turned us on to panzanella (tomato-bread salad). She is a wonderful person and someone who is aging more than gracefully. We've always gotten along very well, and I think she was a role model before I even knew I needed female role models.

Like everyone back east, they have not seen me since my transition. I spoke with Sweetie's uncle briefly. I had been afraid to ask to speak with him in case it was too weird, but he was willing. We had a brief chat, mostly about the fact that my life is pretty normal and uneventful. Naturally, they are concerned about Sweetie, and she will tell them how things are for her. When I gave the phone back to her, I heard her correct him on my name, but that was no big deal. As she says, I don't sound that different on the phone. I know I sound different enough, because I get "ma'am"ed on the phone all the time, but when people haven't seen me, they don't instantly get the impression that anything has changed.

Now that I know when my assessment will be, maybe it's time to do a little travelling of my own, especially if my surgery won't be until next year (our vacation time is "use it or lose it" during a calendar year). It used to be that when I went to New England, I spent all or most of my time with my mother and sister. Since that's no longer an option (at least for my mother), that frees me up to see other people whom I have not seen in a long time. I have high school friends who live in the Berkshires. In the Boston area I have former work colleagues, theatre friends, former band mates, and now possibly a few new trans friends. And elsewhere in New England, I have cousins.

The phone call reminded me that it will be interesting, and probably challenging, to see people who knew me in my former life, especially if they have known me for a long time. I feel no nostalgia for my former life, but people can drag you back into it without really intending to. That former life is all they know. Unlike people I see all the time, they will need some time to get used to the new me.

There are trans friends elsewhere in North America whom I would love to visit. These are people with whom I have become very close, despite not yet having met them in person. I want to meet them. But a visit to old friends and relations should probably come first. It's about breaking out of my isolation.

Fortunate daughter

OK, so I really did have a bad day yesterday. I didn't ask to feel like that, and I seemed not to be able to stop it. The tears flowed. Things kept going wrong, little things that felt worse when added to the basic funk. It wasn't until I went downtown, had an excellent Indonesian wrap for supper, and met two very cool women and chatted for almost two hours about anything and everything, that I felt better. The funk returned when I watched that Primetime: Family Secrets report, but that's the subject of a different post.

I'm feeling better today, even though it still sucks just as much as yesterday being a woman with a penis and having to wait until I'm-not-sure-when to get something done about it. I imagine there are going to be more bad days. I don't expect surgery to transform my world, but I know that at least some tension will be relieved. I know that things will not be the same. And I have a feeling things might be different in ways I'm not yet expecting.

Did I have a point? Oh yeah, I did. The point is that I am lucky. Fortunate. Blessed. I got hit with that funk unexpectedly, but I really have no reason to bitch. Even if there is a delay, I will have surgery, one way or another, before too long. In all likelihood (unless I flunk the test), the province will pay for it. Even if I had to pay for it myself, I could, although I'd negotiate that with my beloved spouse and not just pay without talking about it.

It's like the old saying about complaining that I had no shoes until I met someone who had no feet. There are trans people everywhere, especially in the United States, who need genital surgery (women) or top surgery and hysterectomy (men) just as much as I do, yet have no way to pay for it. I've heard some say that if you want it badly enough, you'll find a way. That's just classist bullshit. Spouting aphorisms is easy. If they're so certain, let them create a viable financial plan for the people they so blithely assume can find a way. Some will find a way, sure, saving whatever they can for as long as necessary. But some people live from paycheque to paycheque. Some have family responsibilities that have to come first. Some simply aren't made in such a way as to be able to get a better job or a better situation. It's not their fault.

And it's not just about surgery. I was fortunate to be able to transition at my job. I don't know how it would have gone if I were actually in the office rather than remote, but the way Human Resources handled things and the way my colleagues treat me on phone meetings and in email make me think it would have worked. I know too many trans people who don't have jobs, or don't have good enough jobs, or are mistreated at their jobs. For the jobless, it's not about not having surgery. It's about survival in a bad economy.

So I will try to remember that not only do I have feet; I have really nice shoes to put on them. I've learned how to be more patient during the transition process, but clearly I have more to learn.

Betwixt and between

Yesterday was a bitch. I have bad days, like anyone, but yesterday was particularly bad. It started with an email message from a friend who will also be having her genital surgery in Montreal. She wrote that she had a tentative date a couple months after I had hoped to be able to get my own appointment. It seems the Montreal clinic is much more backed up than it was a while ago. I'm still eight days away from my psychiatric assessment. I might be back to looking at spring again, certainly not November.

I was so crushed by this that I didn't even congratulate my friend on her surgery date, until I realized how awful I had been and wrote back a second time. I suppose I should never have been counting on having surgery this year, but I set myself up to expect that it would be possible. Silly me.

One of the criteria of the assessment for surgical readiness is that if there were a delay in getting surgery, I might be disappointed but not in crisis. Yesterday was not a crisis, but it went beyond disappointment, and that can't go on.

Since I've lived with male genitalia all this time, you might think that a few more months should be no big deal. You would be wrong. It's true that I did not go through my life hating my genitals, even though I fantasized about having different ones. Even not that long ago, I thought I might not need surgery. Oh, how things change! I have been on hormone therapy for a little over a year and a half. I have been living full time for more than a year. I am so ready.

Do you hear that, dear doctors? I'm ready!

Why should I not be? I am a woman, all day, all night. I'm quite certain of that. Yet I am a woman with a penis. Do you know how much that sucks? I know it works fine for some, and too many others have no choice, but for me, it's just wrong. It should be fixed. Delay is, well, let's just say very disappointing. I want to get on with my life. I want all my gender markers to reflect my actual gender. I want to be able to do anything that any woman can do without embarrassment or fear.

I want to be whole.

Bra blues

Like many if not most women, I have never been properly fitted for a bra. I took my own measurements, and I buy bras I like that fit well enough. Of course, I should really have a proper fitting. Women who have fittings rave about what a difference it makes. But I'll tell you what's holding me back.

I don't want to know.

I have no doubt about my cup size. After a year and a half on hormone therapy, the cup size is no more than an A. I haven't given up hope. I've been getting very slow development all along, and I might get more especially after I have genital surgery. But right now, I'm in no danger of needing to move to a B.

There's nothing wrong with an A cup, of course—as long as your band size is something like 32 or 34. Alas, not a prayer. So not only do I not want to be reminded that my breasts themselves are small. I also don't want to be reminded of how large my ribcage is, and how disproportional the difference is. I'm not large for a person who was born male-bodied, but I'm definitely larger than I wish. A bra fitting would not be enlightening or liberating. It would be depressing.

So I continue to avoid it. I suppose I'll have to give in at some point, or ought to. Some women never do. Some women wear ill-fitting bras all their lives. I shouldn't be one of them, but either I have to get over the fear of the truth or wait a while until the truth hopefully doesn't hurt as much.

Women born what?

OK, this is getting more absurd all the time. On Wednesday, trans activist Jamie Lee Hamilton attempted to get a prescription filled at Lu's: A Pharmacy for Women. She was refused service. Caryn Duncan, executive director of the Vancouver Women's Health Collective, which operates the pharmacy and sets its policy, keeps digging the hole deeper. She continues to spout the "women born women" line, although apparently she has now mixed this with "women born female." She keeps saying that Lu's and the WHC are providing services to "women," even though she leaves many women out of her definition.

Let's try to cut through the ridiculous rhetoric. No one is born a woman. There are no women born women, nor even womyn born womyn. When we're born, we're babies, as was noted by one of the Feminija activists who protested Lu's policy in a rally last Sunday. Most of us are sexed male or female, depending on how our genitals look to the obstetrician, or midwife, I suppose. The decision might be even more arbitrary, and possibly temporary, for intersex people with ambiguous genitalia.

Rather than the physiologically impossible "women born women," it would be much more accurate to use the phrase I use, women born female-bodied. In general, female-bodied children are reared as girls. But even Duncan should know, even if she denies it, that there are women born male-bodied, as well as women born indeterminately-sexed.

The female-bodied become women during puberty and during a long process of socialization and education. The male-bodied whose brains are female (to put it a bit simplistically) and the indeterminately-sexed with female brains usually become women later in life, sometimes much later. It is a difficult path, and those who walk it go through a similar process to girls going through puberty, but usually without the support of the surrounding society and often in the face of its hostility. In the end, we are all women. We just got here by different paths. I never had the experience of growing up a girl, but among girls, such experience varies widely. Girls are hardly all alike. My own experience growing up a sissy, an outcast, and a pretty boy gave me my own baggage to deal with, not necessarily that different than if I'd grown up a girl.

Duncan speaks about Lu's and the WHC focusing on reproductive health. By that logic, they should be refusing service to any woman without a uterus or even who has never given birth. Trans women who are post-op have genitalia similar to those of women with Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, who were "born women." How can Lu's feel it cannot serve our needs? Even if I were inclined to give the WHC the benefit of the doubt, Duncan's statement that Lu's will serve trans men shows their true colours. It's called transphobia, plain and simple. By their policy, they are saying that trans women are not women but that trans men are, thus insulting all trans people in one fell swoop.

If the policy weren't so hurtful, it would be laughable. And Duncan has the nerve to say that she feels personally intimidated by pressure from activists. Too damn bad. We're supposed to be nice to bigots because their feelings might get hurt?

There has been an update to the story that seems hopeful at least. On Thursday, Hamilton, Raigen D'Angelo, and Sadie Kuehn met for two hours with representatives of Lu's pharmacy. and all participants agreed to another meeting. At this point, Hamilton will not file a complaint with the College of Pharmacists of British Columbia. Talking is good. I just hope it leads to some enlightenment.

(Thanks to The Georgia Straight for continuing to follow this story.)

The joyful stranger

I've written before about one of the reasons that it took me so long to take seriously that I might be transsexual was the lack of positive role models. I could never see myself in the trans women I knew of. People like Wendy Carlos and Renée Richards were celebrities. It was OK for them, but not for me, or so I thought. I never found information that would have helped me learn about other trans women. It's only fairly recently that there has been such a wealth of information on the web.

The one image that stuck in my head was very negative. This would have been in the early to mid 1980s, probably, when I was working as a computer journalist. I was at a trade show, and I spotted a woman who looked familiar. I soon realized that the last time I had seen her, she had been male. She was, or at least had been, a columnist for one of the trade magazines. As a male, she was pretty masculine looking, and she had not lost that as a female. I saw a woman sitting alone, apart from everyone else. In reality, she might have been happy as a clam, but that was not the impression I got. And my thoughts from that impression were that I never wanted to be in the same situation. I did not want to be like her.

Fast forward to the spring of 2004, when I was an active member of a Unitarian church. I was so active, in fact, that I attended that year's Annual Conference Meeting as a delegate. One of the workshops in which I participated was one on alternate sexualities, co-facilitated by Gilles Marchand, then head of Égale Canada. I remember a young woman at the workshop who was doing her student ministry at the time and who said she was in a polyamorous relationship, which was new to me at the time. It was a fascinating discussion.

One of my favourite parts of the conference were the large services. I heard some inspiring speakers leading those services, and it was easy to get caught up in the spirit of worship and song. There was lots of song, and that's where I saw her—a woman who was part of a choir made up of people from various participating churches. I kept looking at her (from far away), and I came to the realization that she was trans. And there she was, singing her heart out with all those people, including the minister of my church, looking very happy. I wanted to speak with her, but I didn't know how to approach her, and in the end I never did. When I saw her, she always seemed to be speaking with someone already. I just watched from afar and thought, wow, this is very cool. She wasn't the prettiest trans woman I've ever seen, but she looked good, and she gave me a much more positive impression than the trade magazine columnist.

The funny thing is that I had forgotten about seeing her until just now. It has been several years since I was an active church member, and although of course I remember that I was at that conference, I hadn't thought much about it for a long time. But now that I remember, I'm thinking that was a seed that was planted. It might have grown even more strongly if I had actually met her and spoken with her. Maybe fear held me back, because I spoke with plenty of other people I didn't know. Or maybe it was that I didn't want her to feel like I wanted to meet her only because she was trans. But then, maybe she would have been fine with that. I'll never know.

My "second life" kicked my dysphoria into high gear, but it didn't come out of nothing. That unknown woman was part of my awakening. I wish I could thank her—for being herself, and thus for showing me a positive image of trans women. The memory might have been filed away, but it never left me.

Sportive

I read in today's Globe and Mail that the Supreme Court of British Columbia dismissed a lawsuit against the Vancouver Olympic Committee (VANOC) demanding that a women's ski jump event be included in the 2010 Olympic Winter Games. The court found that VANOC was obliged to follow the dictates of the International Olympic Committee, and that the IOC, being based in Switzerland, was not bound by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The IOC claimed to be following its own technical rules for which sports are included in the Olympics, but the judge in the case did go on to disagree, saying that because there were no similar criteria for inclusion of men's ski jump, that the IOC was engaging in discrimination based on gender.

I had a feeling this is how things would go, since the suit against VANOC was misdirected. It was always the IOC that was responsible. But now I hope that because of how the judge ruled, including saying that the IOC was indeed being sexist, that by 2014 we will no longer have a situation in which there is that one last winter Olympic event in which women do not participate. I look forward to seeing justice done before the games in Sochi, Russia, and seeing both men and women flying off the ski jump hill.

Sports aren't just for men. Every other winter Olympic sport has a corresponding women's event. Women engage in sports at all levels. Much legislative blood was spilled in the United States to ensure that girls in school had access to the same funds, equipment, and facilities as boys for sports. Sports are for everyone who wants to participate.

Now, not everyone does, and that's their choice. But from time to time I read comments from trans women that they never liked sports as a kid, as though this were some sign of their innate femaleness. It's not. It means they didn't like sports, same as many boys as well as girls. A lot of kids prefer other activities or even reading a good book, and most of them are cisgender.

I happened to like sports when I was younger. I played Little League baseball, and later warmed the bench on the Junior Varsity team in high school. I was on the golf team, matched against the worst player from the opposing school. I played a slow backfield position on the soccer team. See a pattern? It wasn't that I didn't like sports. I just wasn't very good at them. And that had nothing to do with my innate femaleness either. I just wasn't very sportif, a French word that means "athletic."

Plenty of women are sportive. See, that's the feminine form. I knew girls in high school who played field hockey, basketball, whatever was available then. I hope there are many more possibilities now. I don't think a person has to participate in sports to be well-rounded, but for those who want to participate, whether in an individual sport like tennis or a team sport like soccer, participation can be an enriching experience.

So please, none of this crap about trans women hating sports. Sports are not a guy thing. If you don't like sports, you don't, and that's fine. But many women do, and we're women, right? And indeed, there are trans women who fight for the right to participate in women's sporting events, and I support them.

There are all kinds of women in the world and, one hopes, all kinds of trans women. Including some who are sportive.

The thrill is gone

Sing the blues, B.B.!

By now, as I'm sure I've said more than once, in my daily life I am just a woman. A woman of unusual provenance, to be sure, but in normal circumstances that is no more relevant than the fact that I was born and brought up in the United States. I've used that analogy before: both things are true, but unless we're doing research I am just a Canadian woman, not an American-Canadian trans woman.

Tonight, however, I presented an ethical dilemma from my counselling practicum to a seminar of other practicum students. The ethical dilemma had to do with boundary issues that arise when my clients are also trans. So in order to make sure people understood what I was dealing with, I had to make it clear, in case anyone didn't know, that I was a woman with a past.

There was no joy in that revelation. People were very good, accepting and supportive, as has been true all along in school, but I still didn't like it. It made me self-conscious. It reminded me of the prefix in front of "woman." I was somewhat nervous during the presentation, which usually is not the case any more, but I did fine. I could have chosen a different ethical dilemma, but this was really the one that I'm dealing with, so it's the one I had to use. And I got a really good mark for the presentation.

I'm hoping, however, that there won't be any more of those situations. I just want to be me, Véronique. I don't want to be reminded of stuff that I don't deny but would rather not think about all the time. I think about that stuff here in my blog, or in therapy. Those are ways that I keep the stuff out of my daily life.

I think I need to be "just a woman," and to think of myself that way. If I had to be reminded all that time that I was born male bodied, I don't think I would be very happy. I suppose I'd get used to it, but it would not be what I really wanted.

It might be that this is a phase I need to go through. Maybe I'll become comfortable enough that I'll be able to engage in some trans advocacy. Maybe at some point being reminded of my origin will no longer bother me. But right now, I don't want that. Maybe it's because I'm still consolidating my identity. Maybe it's because I really need genital surgery to feel complete. Whatever it is, I'm glad I don't have any more comings out in the near future, at least as far as I know.

Sand and rock

"Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash." (Mt 7:24-27 New International Version)

If the foundation of a building is not solid, no change to the rest of the building will make it more stable. In fact, any changes to a building constructed on a poor foundation are likely to make the building less stable. You can tweak those upper storeys all you want, but the building will never be right while the foundation is wrong. It might even collapse.

After 50 years of changing things in those upper storeys, trying desperately to make my life right and often accomplishing the opposite, I finally have a solid foundation. It's no wonder I have an underlying current of joy even when things go wrong. It comes from knowing that the basics are finally right. Let the building commence! We'll see how tall this tower can get.

New partially related video on YouTube:

We interrupt this program...

...to bring you a special bulletin.

I had a blog post written about the session with my therapist yesterday. About how she gave me good advice about lasting through the wait until I got an appointment with the psychiatrists who do surgical assessments for the province. About how if I wanted not to be depressed, I should also start getting more sleep and exercise. It was all done, just mellowing a bit before I posted it.

Well, it really was a good and useful visit, and I love to see my therapist anyway. And the advice is still good. It's just that I seem not to have quite as much time to wait as I was first warned I would.

Today, while I was DJing in Second Life, an email message arrived. An email! Not exactly the most reliable means of communication, especially with spam filters. But I fished it out of the junk mail folder where all mail from people I don't know goes automatically. The Goddess must have been watching over me.

The message said that I have an appointment with the assessing psychiatrists on Thursday, July 30. I was stunned. I started crying and hyperventilating. Then I got a grip on myself and put the appointment into my Outlook calendar, marked "Important." I wish I could mark it "Double Plus Important"! There is no way I'm going to miss this.

Now that I know this date, it even means that if I wanted to take a chance with a thousand dollar deposit, I could book a surgery date. I think the wait time for genital surgery at the Centre Métropolitain de Chirurgie Plastique is a good two or three months. Once the psychiatrists do their evaluation, I don't think the provincial approval board will take that much time. So maybe, just maybe, I could actually book the procedure before the end of the year. And who knows, maybe even be lying on a beach in Maui next spring.

I'm breathing normally again. I'm not going to do anything rash. But man, this is just awesome. OK, now you can all beat on me for whining so much. I deserve it. But I'll be grinning the whole time.

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.