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?
The experience of feeling one's body is the wrong gender is a characteristically transgender experience. It's a part, or perhaps the defining part, of a "transgender condition". It's how we think of this concept we've named "transgender".
So is there any experience that characterises a "cisgender condition"? What about the experience of feeling one's body is the right gender? Well, no, because with sufficient surgery transgender people might have that experience too, and not thereby become cisgender.
The best one can say is that someone is cisgender if they never have transgender experiences. In other words, that they are non-transgender.
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.
And so people who don't or can't breed are not gendered? Or just not in a physically defining way?
And if they're not gendered in a physically defining way that cuts to the heart of the "binariness" of gender maybe that means gender is not as binary as you thought.
No, you see "breeding implies gender" is not the same thing as "non-breeding implies non-gender".
The thing is, there's a binariness in the concept of gender. We might ask, where does it come from? Why do people think of gender as being binary at all? The answer is that breeding phenomenon motivates the gender concept. Gender is defined with reference to breeding, even though one can be gendered without ever breeding.
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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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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So is there any experience that characterises a "cisgender condition"? What about the experience of feeling one's body is the right gender? Well, no, because with sufficient surgery transgender people might have that experience too, and not thereby become cisgender.
The best one can say is that someone is cisgender if they never have transgender experiences. In other words, that they are non-transgender.
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And if they're not gendered in a physically defining way that cuts to the heart of the "binariness" of gender maybe that means gender is not as binary as you thought.
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The thing is, there's a binariness in the concept of gender. We might ask, where does it come from? Why do people think of gender as being binary at all? The answer is that breeding phenomenon motivates the gender concept. Gender is defined with reference to breeding, even though one can be gendered without ever breeding.
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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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