So.
Cis.
Cisgender.
If
you go to Wikipedia, “Cisgender
(often
abbreviated to simply cis)
describes related types of gender
identity
perceptions,
where individuals' experiences of their own gender
agree
with the sex
they
were assigned
at
conception.” AKA – when you were born, the doctor said “congrats,
it's an X!” and through your time growing up, you felt like X, and
now, today, you are still X.
Bringing
up the word cisgender is also a very easy way to get a lot of people
upset - people who identify with the sex and gender they were
assigned at birth, who dislike the word cisgender. Who don't identify
with it. Who don't want to be identified BY it. At this point, it
almost feels like the Voldemort of labels – that which shall not be
named.
As
someone who is not cisgender, I don't have a personal emotional stake
in what word is used, as it doesn't apply to me. But I have read
countless tumblr posts and facebook posts and articles around this
word . If you google it, you find articles in Time, The Atlantic, &
The Advocate, all on the first page. It's obviously a Big Deal.
My
question is... Why?
Linguistically,
it's a perfect match for someone who is not transgender or
transsexual. Cis-, as a prefix, means “on this side of”, where
Trans- means “on the other side”. Yes, it sounds a bit academic.
But so do heterosexual, and homosexual, and bisexual, and
transsexual. And those words have been around forever, (or at least
it feels that way, they've all been commonly used for decades), where
cisgender is relatively new to a lot of people.
Just
like in physics, where every action has an equal and opposite
reaction, so too language builds in opposites. Up and down. East and
west. What other word would fit? I've seen arguments for bio-male
(trans folks are biological too!), genetic girl (have you had your
genes tested? Not all folks assigned female at birth have XX
chromosomes)... or not use a modifier at all.
How
many times have you taken a survey online, and seen that is
'progressive' enough to offer the following options for gender
identification?
Male
/ Female / Trans Male / Trans Female
Suggestions
like these automatically put trans individuals into an 'othered'
space. According to those categories, we are trans, and therefore,
not “normal”, like those regular ol' men and women.
I
have seen folks say that people are using cis- as a slur. Yes, some
trans- people have used it that way. But there are countless other
words that we use every day to identify ourselves that are used as
slurs. Any word can be used as a weapon, and there are tons of words
that, in our marginalized communities, have historically been used in
a similar fashion. Yet we still identify as homos(exuals), or as
faggots, dykes, queers, etc.
I
think, honestly, the biggest issue people are having with the word
cisgender is that it is an identity they did not choose themselves.
Most of the folks I have experience with who speak out against using
the word cisgender are members of other marginalized class(es) of
people (LGB individuals, people of color, etc), who have taken part
of their lives to reflect on their own differences from the rest of
the world. They have worked, struggled, evaluated their lives, and
selected these “boxes”, these communities, where they feel at
home. And the idea of society giving them another box is offensive.
“I don't identify as cisgender.”
Guess
what? You don't have to! You don't need cisgender pride parades. You
don't need cisgender awareness month. You don't throw coming out
parties for friends when they tell you they are cisgender (though
that wouldn't be bad – more parties = more cake).
Cisgender
is not an identity. It's a definition. It literally just means that
you, who were born, and the doctor said, you are a boy (or a girl),
have now grown up, and still feel as though the doctor was correct
those many years ago. It's not anything you need to claim. It's not
something you have to share with a potential date before you get
'serious' - because the assumption in society is that everyone is
cisgender. You probably won't be discriminated against because you
are cisgender. You probably won't be threatened or harassed or fired
from your job or disowned from your family because you identify with
what was put on your birth certificate. Can those things happen to
you because of you don't quite match up with society's default in
other ways (gender, sexuality, gender expression, economic status,
religion, I could go on...)? YES. Absolutely! But none of that is
because you are cisgender.
You
can dislike the word itself. You can think it sounds too academic,
too preachy, too Social Justice Warrior-ey. But, it just IS. It is
just a thing, a thing that you are. And there's really no way to
change that... unless you want to transition. And that's pretty
expensive. :)
