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"cis" [Jun. 29th, 2009|04:43 pm]
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Progressive, anti-racist, feminist queer blog Pam's House Blend bans the term "cis" -- especially when used by trans people -- because it's so demeaning and cruel to the cissexuals.

This is fucked up.

(If you need a definition, look here.)

Cisgender people don't like being called "cisgender" because it upsets the cissexist hierarchy: cisgender is "normal", transgender is "abnormal." There are women, and there are transgender women. There are men, and there are transgender men.

Forbidding the term "cis" in the name of "civility" is not supporting trans rights -- it is enforcing the existing social dominance of cisgender people over trans people.

It's not about supporting the right of the poor oppressed cis folks to self-determine their own name; cis people don't even think of themselves as cis people, but as "normal" people. It's no more oppressive to cis people than it is to call straight people "straight" or white people "white".

I am really, really disappointed in Autumn Sandeen, a trans woman who is normally a valuable benefit to the trans community, but on this -- by siding with cis people who want to silence trans people on Pam's House Blend -- she has really missed the boat and is stabbing her trans siblings in the back to gain cisgender approval.

Update:

Links to comments --

From Autumn Sandeen:

Subject: Please stop.

This is going nowhere, and is starting to offend people at The Blend.

And in a post that's theme is about behaving civility, I'm not having any of it.

Public warning in this thread -- next person who uses this thread to make comment defending "cis" terminology gets a trap door drop.

Understand, dyssonance?


(Nice to bury that "public warning" so deep in the comments that nobody can see it.)

As Pam noted in the post, "Autumn volunteered to help with the onerous duty of monitoring some of the threads on PHB because I have so little time to watch each comment or post." -- so Autumn is speaking as a blog admin there, with authority. And she's using that to prevent trans people (like dyssonance) from speaking, because it "is starting to offend people" -- i.e., cisgender people.

I've already had one cis person on PHB tell me that I have to stop using "cis" in comments because Autumn says so.

Update 2: It's very clear from reading the comments that the upset cis gay men who Autumn Sandeen and Pam Spaulding are trying to placate are not really angry because they don't like having the term "cis" imposed on them, but because they object to the very premise of "cisgender" because it identifies a privilege that they possess. And want to deny they don't have.

For example, here's what "Fritz," someone who is angry about the term "cis", had to say:

Subject: That privileged cisgender gay Matthew Shepard

He had a lot of nerve, didn't he? Died like a real man.

I'm tired of this.

Label as whatever you wish. Make me feel shame for being a privilged cisgender.


And I'm not even touching on the comment where he equated trans people using the term "cis" to what the Nazis did to the Jews.
LinkReply

Comments:
[User Picture]From: [info]coridan
2009-06-30 12:29 am (UTC)

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My apologies, but I am utterly unfamiliar with the term 'cis' and 'cisgender'. Please explain?

CB
[User Picture]From: [info]catsidhe
2009-06-30 12:48 am (UTC)

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Latin “cis” means “on this side”, thus “cisalpine Gaul” was that part of Gaul on this (the Italian) side of the Alps. It is the direct antonym for “trans” (as in “Transylvania”: ‘on the other side of the forest’).

Thus “cisgender” is the antonym for “transgender”.
[User Picture]From: [info]atheoi
2009-06-30 01:57 am (UTC)

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Wow.

That's utterly hilarious.
[User Picture]From: [info]catsidhe
2009-06-30 02:29 am (UTC)

??

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I don't get it. How is that funny?
[User Picture]From: [info]chaoticset
2009-06-30 02:53 am (UTC)

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Yes, linguistics are well known for being amusing. :)
[User Picture]From: [info]atheoi
2009-07-01 04:38 pm (UTC)

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Indeed.
[User Picture]From: [info]chaoticset
2009-07-01 04:51 pm (UTC)

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In thought as well.
[User Picture]From: [info]maevele
2009-06-30 01:16 am (UTC)

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there is a link in the third line of the original post that says 'if you need a definition'

[User Picture]From: [info]redstar826
2009-06-30 01:20 am (UTC)

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I'm reading the post you linked to, and not seeing anything about banning the term "cis". Are you referring to something that happened somewhere in the comments?
[User Picture]From: [info]shemale
2009-06-30 01:49 am (UTC)

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Yes, it's in the comments.

http://www.pamshouseblend.com/showComment.do;jsessionid=D8B0CF1E850486BD4986D940EA5525AD?commentId=147378

Eventually, Autumn, the PHB contributor who made the post, says:
"Public warning in this thread -- next person who uses this thread to make comment defending 'cis' terminology gets a trap door drop."


But, you know, it's not just about the term "cis."

It's a defensive post by (from what others have said) a cis white gay man chastising and scolding trans people for not treating white cis gay men respectfully and "civilly" enough. To complain about the persecution he feels by mean trannies.

It's the same kind of behavior.
[User Picture]From: [info]redstar826
2009-06-30 01:53 am (UTC)

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ahh, okay. Thanks!
[User Picture]From: [info]maevele
2009-06-30 01:24 am (UTC)

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and n the topic, i just, errrrr. aaaarfgh..SMASH.

I keep hoping the next thing i will read will be them going "Holy Shit! That was fucked up what we did, wtf was wrong with us that we didn't see it til everyone pointed it out? we'll try to stop being assholes now!"

it should have happened by now.
[User Picture]From: [info]kynn
2009-06-30 03:00 am (UTC)

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Yeah, and they keep not realizing it, and start comparing us to Nazis.
[User Picture]From: [info]eumelia
2009-06-30 05:51 am (UTC)

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Like... Grammar Nazis... *sigh* sorry for the old as the hills joke there.

I'm cisgender and I love that word! I mean, I love the denaturalisation of non-trans identity (and having an actual word is always better than continuing to say "non-trans"... why would a queer positive blog do something like this?
Really... it's beyond me.
[User Picture]From: [info]voz_latina
2009-06-30 02:02 pm (UTC)

The word is Homosupremacist

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not queer pos.

They are friendly to gay assimilationists, not queers.
[User Picture]From: [info]masscooper
2009-06-30 06:39 am (UTC)

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Which, really, should be a clue right there. If you feel that your best rhetorical option is to Godwin the thread YOU HAVE TAKEN A WRONG TURN.
[User Picture]From: [info]notrafficlights
2009-06-30 08:05 am (UTC)

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Wow, that is a whole new level of Beyond Fucked Up.
[User Picture]From: [info]voz_latina
2009-06-30 01:59 pm (UTC)

"Houston, this is Endeavor. We have Godwin..."

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You cannot even make this shit up.

The only good thing is, that it is so outrageous that it can't be buried.
[User Picture]From: [info]haddayr
2009-06-30 04:18 pm (UTC)

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Whut.

There is nothing offensive about the term "cis." It is merely, neutrally, descriptive.

Pretending not to have privilege doesn't mean you don't have it. Bringing up Matthew Shepard is just ridiculous. He was also white. Does his murder means he never benefitted from being white, either?

Why do people have to get involved in he Oppression Olympics? Life can be hard for gay cismen, sure. But that doesn't take away the privilege they do have.

ARGH
[User Picture]From: [info]upstart_crow
2009-06-30 09:04 pm (UTC)

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I don't understand why people object to being called white if they're white or cisgender/cis if they're cisgender. It's the truth, right? :/

[User Picture]From: [info]skunkette
2009-07-01 10:16 am (UTC)

I've experienced this aversion to "cis" before.

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I've had cis people (both gay and straight) object to my use of "cis" before. Evidently, they think it's some kind of made-up word that trans people use to insult cis people. The fact that "cis" is the opposite of "trans" (much like how "hetero" is the opposite of "homo") does not faze them. They still insist that it's some kind of insult, and at least one cis guy I've talked to about the subject would prefer that we use a term more like "normal" instead of "cis".
[User Picture]From: [info]atheoi
2009-07-01 04:37 pm (UTC)

I know you are, but what am I?

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I think pigeon-holing any person as a certain type can be degrading because we are reducing a person to an object to be examined instead of a subject to be embraced.

The baby's a...we're not telling!

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