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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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?
Breeding in a way coherent with one's sense of gender, now that's part of a "cisgender condition". But can we find experiences to cover the rest of the cisgender condition?
Of course they're not genderless! That's the fascinating thing. But the converse is true: if people do breed, they are gendered in a very physically defining way, that cuts to the heart of the "binariness" of gender.
I tried on clothes in the store and didn't have to worry that someone was going to consider me weird or dangerous, or an appropriate target for violence.
When people give me second looks in the bathroom, I don't have to wonder whether I'm "passing" because it doesn't matter.
When someone calls me "sir" by mistake I know they're not trying to make a point.
And my experience is considered so normal that some people think it doesn't exist.
Sure. It's what I (and most cisgender people) grew up with--the experience of having your externally visible gender and your internal self-image of gender aligned.
I had it when I didn't even *know* it was possible to be transgender, so it's not defined relative to transgender experience but as an experience in itself.
(shrug) I guess transgender means having or having once had your external gender and your self image of gender not align.
And cisgender means having always had your external gender and your self image of gender aligned.
And of course, just like being male or female, or gay or straight, it's presumably a spectrum, with most people coming at one end or another and a handful somewhere in the middle.
In other words, cisgender means never having had characteristically transgender experiences. Thus we might call cisgender "non-transgender". Though you do make an interesting point about a cis/trans spectrum.
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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.
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Is there such a thing as cisgender experience as itself, not defined relative to transgender experience?
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How could there not be a cisgender experience? That's like suggesting white people don't have a culture or ethnicity.
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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?
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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".
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When people give me second looks in the bathroom, I don't have to wonder whether I'm "passing" because it doesn't matter.
When someone calls me "sir" by mistake I know they're not trying to make a point.
And my experience is considered so normal that some people think it doesn't exist.
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That's great! Where do you live?
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I had it when I didn't even *know* it was possible to be transgender, so it's not defined relative to transgender experience but as an experience in itself.
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And cisgender means having always had your external gender and your self image of gender aligned.
And of course, just like being male or female, or gay or straight, it's presumably a spectrum, with most people coming at one end or another and a handful somewhere in the middle.
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