(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

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?

[hollyqueen.livejournal.com]

What does "knapsack" mean?

[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.

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.

[rollick.livejournal.com]

Aha, very helpful. Thank you.

[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.

[gfish.livejournal.com]

I wasn't really referring to linguistics complaints, though I do think those are silly. Because, again, expecting absolute logic and consistency out of natural language is ridiculous. Even artificial languages like Esperanto which set out to do that fail. Even math can't manage it, thanks to Gödel.

Somewhere elsethread you reference "microscope" as being self-evident. I don't think it is. It could mean a device for viewing small things, sure. It could also mean a viewing device which is itself very small. Or a brief, superficial examination. Do you reject "microscopic" to mean minuscule? It certainly doesn't make any sense, if you insist only on using suffix roots. "Macroscopic" is even worse, since there isn't even anything called a macroscope. Unless you think that should be the term we use instead of telescope, I guess.

I think the reason hostility keeps creeping into this discussion is... why would anyone so energetically argue against the linguistic merits of a word like this? It's not an obviously flawed multi-language hybrid like "polyamory" or a crude Frankenstein¹ like "staycation". It's a response to an existing word, using a valid (if obscure) prefix, indicating the appropriate oppositeness. You aren't even arguing that the term will be confusing to people because they're unfamiliar with cis-, which I could understand even though it doesn't worry me much. You seem to imagine that everyone will rush to the OED and dissect the word piece by piece, instead of just googling the damn thing like any sane person would. If nothing else, why not use all this energy to come up with an alternative, if it's that important to you? So, yeah, eventually people are going to wonder why you would choose to defend the imagined purity of the English language over attempts to oh so very slightly even the playing field when it comes to the terminology used to discuss trans issues.

1: Another term that makes no sense if you try to apply blind logic to the etymology, but "Frankensteinian creation" is pretty awkward to use.

[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.

[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.

[ashley-y.livejournal.com]

"Normal person" really isn't very useful. "Non-trans" is fine.

[gfish.livejournal.com]

That is still setting up trans as the other, a state that needs to be singled out and labeled as strange.

[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.

[ashley-y.livejournal.com]

That's an interesting question, I mean we don't talk about "non-gay", do we? On the other hand, we can clearly point to a heterosexual experience (desire, relationships) without reference to homosexual experience.

Is there such a thing as cisgender experience as itself, not defined relative to transgender experience?

[gfish.livejournal.com]

Ah, but we used to! "Hetereosexual" (and "straight" in the modern usage) are both relatively new terms. Before ~1970 there wasn't a need for them, because heterosexuality was the assumed normal default.

How could there not be a cisgender experience? That's like suggesting white people don't have a culture or ethnicity.

[neuro42.livejournal.com]

Not to you, sure. But different people are allowed to care about different things...

[neuro42.livejournal.com]

It all comes down to one word, I guess: "valid". I maintain, strenuously, that this usage is simply not valid. You, of course, feel that it is, and the rest naturally follows.

[ashley-y.livejournal.com]

Could you give me an example of cisgender experience?

[gfish.livejournal.com]

I just went to the washroom and could choose a door to walk through without fearing ostracism or violence.

I experience puberty with some amount of confusion, maybe, but not an overwhelming sense of dread or self-hatred.

How many of these do you want me to spell out, here?

[ashley-y.livejournal.com]

But there are also transgender people who have both these experiences. Are there any specifically cisgender experiences?

We're trying to characterise a "cisgender condition" here, so it won't work if transgender people are saying "according to this, I'm cisgender".

[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.

[gfish.livejournal.com]

Nothing is universal, and the world is a big place -- I'm not sure what that proves. If you want me to give you a list of experiences that 100% of cisgender people experience and 0% of transgender people do, that's pretty silly.

[ashley-y.livejournal.com]

There are experiences that many transgender people experience but almost no cisgender people experience. Are there experiences than many cisgender people experience that almost no transgender people do?

[gfish.livejournal.com]

If nothing else, trivially, the contrapositive of all those experiences.