Well, who are we talking about? I think that covers it (though maybe intersex men? I admit to not being totally up on this).
Help me understand who you’re talking about. Describe a man who is neither cis nor trans.
I can’t speak for him, but I don’t like the word because its etymology is dodgy at best and (perhaps as a result) it simply sounds stupid.
This isn’t a big enough problem to justify making fifty posts about it and dominating the thread with it, mind you. But I do dislike the word itself. If somebody comes up with an alternative that covers the meaning and doesn’t sound awful, I’d cheerfully answer to it, rather than begrudgingly like I do to the ‘cis-’ abomination.
Acoustic guitars used to just be “guitars”. When electric guitars came along, it became useful to have a term for the ones that weren’t electric.
I’m sure there were people who hated electric guitars. “Traditional guitars sound great; why do we need these new, strident, screechy electric guitars?” If you were a guitar player, you’d probably spent years of your life getting good at it and now you had this whole new thing come along just when things were perfect, but such is life. That was decades ago, and acoustic guitars haven’t gone away.
Things change. You can accept it, you can try to anticipate it and lead the change, or you can get mad and rail against it. What you can’t do is stop it.
Unfortunately, that’s not how language works. I’m very much a prescriptivist at heart and my default position for invented words or usage is to resist. “Cisgendered” has been around for a couple of decades, though. It’s moved naturally from fringe academic speak to common parlance.
There’s nothing stopping you from picking a new term and trying to get people to use it. You’re more than welcome to say, “I’m not cisgendered, I’m beg-gendered.” Some people may even acquiesce.
The irony, of course, is that the people who would most readily call you what you want to be called are the very sorts of people who have normalized words like “cisgendered.”
People who don’t identify as either trans or cis.
Yes, I object to being labeled anything by anybody who isn’t me.
I’d never say I’m not cisgendered - I’d say I hate the word. Because of its properties as a word. The damn thing is ugly.
But it’s not ugly enough to freak out and claim I’m not it. That’s crazy talk. It would be like claiming you’re not human because the word sounds too much like “hummus”. Nutbar talk.
But I would refrain from choosing to use the word myself, because I hate it. It should burn.
I think I might’ve been rolling your POV in with other people in the thread. I agree with you that it’s not a pleasing word.
Interestingly, my response to this is the same thing that would piss off trans people - I’m not particularly interested in people who reject definitions. You can say that you’re not a human, you’re an airplane, and run around with your arms out making wooshing noises, and I will stubbornly keep calling you a human. (Among other things.)
Fortunately for all concerned, I have had little or no contact with people whose gender doesn’t match their sex. Because if it walks like a male and talks like a male and has the physical body of a male, it’s a duck. And saying so would not make me popular.
But I thing I can get away with being unpopular with you. You’re cis. Suck it up. Yes, the word is awful, but you (and I) are stuck with it.
Exactly the kind of thing I’d expect a labelphobe to say.
Sorry, but that offends me. You dirty offender!
I’m not a labelphobe, and I am…Hey! No labels!
I honestly find it very hard to believe that you would object if someone called you brown-haired (if that’s your hair color), or human, or American, or heterosexual, or male, or adult, etc.
Well, I have a name. I would rather be called that. And how would someone know if I’m American, or heterosexual, or even male?
Describe that person.
You seem to be operating under the misunderstanding that these words are just “labels” that are arbitrary and have no meaning. Or that “identify” means “I just want you to call me this made-up thing because no reasons.”
You’re not cis because I want to label you randomly. You’re cis because there is a functional reason for needing to describe “men who are not trans.” The word “men” doesn’t work because it includes trans men.
The fact is that “man” is a broad and imprecise term. Sometimes it’s good enough. But sometimes one needs to be more specific.
So this is a realistic conversation from your perspective:
Bob: “I’m looking for somebody named manson1972 - do you know him?”
Me: “Yeah, he’s the brown-haired dude over there.”
You: (overhearing) “Excuse me, I object to being labeled as ‘brown-haired’ or ‘dude.’”
Or is it more of a silent rage any time somebody uses adjectives around you?
If they’re an acquaintance, or a friend? Would you object to them saying “Americans like us”, or “veterans like us”, or “heterosexuals like us”…?
How would you know I’m a dude? Isn’t that assuming my gender?
I understand they have meaning. Just like “Male” and “Female” and “Man” and “Woman” have meaning. I also know that there are people who don’t identify with any of those terms. How would you refer to someone who doesn’t identify as trans or cis? Or are you under the impression that every single person on the planet can be categorized as either “transgender” or “cisgender”?
If I’ve previously identified myself as “American” or “a veteran” or “heterosexual” then no, I wouldn’t object.