(no subject)

[gfish]

People have problems with the term cisgender? That's... I don't know what that is. Quite an impressive knapsack, I guess.

Comments

[gfish.livejournal.com]

You have a chemistry degree. Cis- should not be a scary prefix for you.

[neuro42.livejournal.com]

It's not scary in the least.

It also doesn't mean what they seem to think it means.

[cow.livejournal.com]

And yet, sadly common whenever trans/genderqueer stuff gets discussed on the internet. :(

It seems that people feel that defining the .. standard option? .. makes them boxed in. Which is understandable, but just as 'homo' needs 'hetero', 'trans' needs 'cis' just to construct the sentences. Not that you don't already know, but I get ranty.

or something. blurg tired brain.

[arjache.livejournal.com]

It sure would be nice if, in the process of feeling boxed in, they took the time to consider how awful it must be for gender-variant people to feel boxed in by language too.

Something tells me that didn't happen, though.

[cow.livejournal.com]

Seriously. It's definitely something where I tend to reach for the Tiny Violins™ when I see people getting offended by the term.

[neuro42.livejournal.com]

I don't have *any* problem with the concept. I don't have *any* problem with there being *a* word for it.

I have a problem with that *particular* word, just like I have a problem with a lot of very-poorly-chosen neologisms / language abuse.

[samildanach.livejournal.com]

Is there an option that isn't a neologism, or one that sounds more English-natural to you?

[ashley-y.livejournal.com]

I quite like "gender-coherent", since my bodily appearance, sense of self, and fertility all cohere to one gender. Mind you, people keep thinking "Ashley" is specifically a girls' name.

[sistawendy.livejournal.com]

I knew exactly what it meant the moment I saw it, so it wasn't that poorly chosen.

Gender doesn't have geometry. So what? This is really not worth undie-bunching.

[ashley-y.livejournal.com]

How do you feel about neurotypical?

[gfish.livejournal.com]

Seems like a useful term, but those aren't issues I follow very closely so I'm less informed on the debate (if any) around it. I'm generally in favor of removing "othering" language.

[ashley-y.livejournal.com]

The only problem with "cisgender" is that it's a rather foisted "everyone else" term. Most people it is intended to describe don't use the word. If someone asks me, "are you cisgender", my response is likely to be "um, I guess".

It's a bit like goy actually. I'm going to have the same response is someone asks whether I'm goyishe. Being goyishe as such isn't an active part of my identity, though I suppose it might be if I moved to Israel.

But neither term bothers me, either, because I know neither are intended to be derogatory.

[gfish.livejournal.com]

Well, that's kind of the point. Since there is going to be an "everyone else" group, you can either give them a label or let them assume the no-label "normal" category by default. It's just too easy to go from "trans person"/"normal person" to "trans person"/"person". Ick.

[quiet000001.livejournal.com]

The term mostly just confuses me, as I have no idea where it came from or how it was decided that it was the best term to use. So I tend to get distracted by it's use in that way.

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

A discussion elsewhere yesterday uncovered the fact that a lot of people dislike terms like 'cisgender' when used in otherwise jargon-free conversation, because they feel it is somehow elitist (as would be your reference to the knapsack, because if you haven't come across the essay or references to it - and a lot of people haven't - it's effectively meaningless). I can vaguely see their point, because it isn't a word everyone is familiar with, and I read the comments above about etymology with mostly-amused interest, but there really isn't a better single word to use so... *shrug*

[rollick.livejournal.com]

I'm in the category of people who apparently hasn't read the relevant info, because the phrase "Quite an impressive knapsack" is meaningless to me. Unless you're complimenting someone's camping gear, in a fairly random non sequitur.

[vixyish.livejournal.com]

There's not really any way to make sure you avoid using any words that a lot of people aren't familiar with or consider to be jargon. How is anyone going to know what everyone else in their audience is familiar with?

It seems like the attempt would lead to a depressing amount of dumbing-down.

A lot of responses crammed together.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

I've got no problem with cis-gender as a word; it seems to me the meaning is obvious to anyone who knows a little bit about human sexuality and latin prefixes, and anyone who doesn't know at least a little about those things is likely to need *any* term having to do with the subject explained. Trans-gender is "across the gender spectrum; (body one gender, self-image anoher)"-if that makes any sense at all (and I think it does) then cis-gender is "on the same side of the gender spectrum" (or "divide" if you prefer to think of it as a binary.)

English has a long history of pickpocketing other languages for spare vocabulary, so latin prefixes are perfectly appropriate for English words. Chemistry uses latin prefixes and that's fine, but it doesn't have them copyrighted.

I think gender is *far* more than reproduction--good grief; if I'm infertile, am I genderless?

I don't much care for "gender incoherent" as a term; it seems to me that it makes it sound like transgender people can't even talk. But if a majority of trans people start using it, I'm willing to reconsider my position.

I'm used to the accusation of "elitist" meaning "the previous speaker thinks she is better than other people because of some personal characteristic." I don't see how this could be applied to the term "cis-gender"--if anything it seems to me to be *less* elitist than having no term for the concept because it includes a recognition that being cis-gender is like being trans-gender: a characteristic rather than the only normal way to be. Unless the accusation means "the previous speaker thinks she is better than other people because she knows this specialized term" which is an accusation that can be directed against anyone who uses any new or unusual word. Perhaps I am misunderstanding what was meant?

Re: A lot of responses crammed together.

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

The 'elitist' comment as I saw it explained yesterday is basically a combination of reactions like: 'this is not a sociology community, stop using jargon'*, 'remember we don't all have degrees', and 'I don't know that word and it would help if you explained it but you're too arrogant/rude to bother' (because it's not actually in many dictionaries, and apparently looking up the prefix separately does confuse some people - the threads above seem to bear this out somewhat!). I'm not convinced but I do see where the commenters are coming from, at least, if not where they're going with it!



* The definition of racism as "prejudice plus power" often triggers this one, as it's a specialised sociological one, not the common dictionary definition. It seems to be only US-based commenters who use it (in the community I'm thinking of). Ethnocentrism is another manifestation of privilege, of course. ;-)

Re: A lot of responses crammed together.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

English has a long history of pickpocketing other languages for spare vocabulary...

The full quote:

"The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary."
    -- James Nicoll (1990)

"cis-gender" holds no malice for me. It's who I am, but it's not a value judgement - just as I hold no value judgement for or against transgender people. A few of them are friends of mine, and part of why I get uppity about the rights of all people to associated with whom and how they wish. (A few others of them are.... not as much worth my time. Just as with cis-gender people.)

Now, when you start throwing *connotation* into the mix, that's when things get ugly. Of course, most folks who start throwing connotation and judgment into the mix wouldn't use a word as ... non-confrontational? that's not right, but it's in the right direction... as "trans-gender".... and if somebody's using "cis-gender" and looking down their nose, perhaps their own knapsack needs upending.

Not that I think gender is precisely completely an either-or thing, either, but that's a whole 'nother can of worms.

[hollyqueen.livejournal.com]

What does "knapsack" mean?

[rollick.livejournal.com]

I had the same question, and someone helpfully explained in detail. See above.

[k-crow.livejournal.com]

It's not a term I have a problem with, but it was also a term I was unaware of until recently. I'd seen it here and there in things I was reading, but almost always lacked context to piece together what it meant. Personally, I think it's a very useful term when discussing gender.

[tylik.livejournal.com]

I think it's a great term, myself - both made perfect intuitive sense when I first ran across it, and made me giggle. Two thumbs up.