# "Don't call me 'cisgender'!" **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 30, 2015, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-call-me-cisgender/718903 "2015-04-30T15:23:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 25
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2015, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-call-me-cisgender/718903/481 "2015-05-07T19:08:00Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > I bet, back when “Male” was solely used to describe someone born with male genitalia and then started to also mean “Someone who self-identifies as male regardless of birth genitalia” there was also someone who whined “But it ALREADY has a meaning, we can’t just redefine words that are already in use!” The difference is that words like “marriage” (in the context of gay marriage) and “male” (in the context of whether or not transgender men can be called “male” and “men”) are words that have enormous societal and cultural weight and meaning, words that people want the right and recognition of having access to and being described by. That’s very different from whether we should take the narrow technical term “gender-typical”, which has a specific meaning, if one that a fractional percentage of the general population would be able to define, and use it to describe a related-but-distinct concept. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2015, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-call-me-cisgender/718903/482 "2015-05-07T19:11:26Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > That depends on whether the context requires that the listeners understand that the speaker is cisgendered or not. Sometimes it won’t matter (“as the sister of a transgendered brother, I have always tried to be loving and supportive”) and sometimes it will (“as the cisgendered sister of a transgendered brother, I appreciate that I have been accepted into the genderqueer community with open arms”) Let’s see if we can make any determination of the gender status of the sister in this sentence: “As the sister of a transgendered brother…” Did the sentence say “As the transgendered sister of a transgendered brother…”? No, so the sister is not transgendered. Seems pretty clear to me. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2015, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-call-me-cisgender/718903/483 "2015-05-07T19:14:12Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > The difference is that words like “marriage” (in the context of gay marriage) and “male” (in the context of whether or not transgender men can be called “male” and “men”) are words that have enormous societal and cultural weight and meaning, words that people want the right and recognition of having access to and being described by. > > That’s very different from whether we should take the narrow technical term “gender-typical”, which has a specific meaning, if one that a fractional percentage of the general population would be able to define, and use it to describe a related-but-distinct concept. So somehow society has survived after expanding the meaning of words that “have enormous societal and cultural weight and meaning” but will somehow break down if the meaning of ‘gender-typical’ gets expanded? ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2015, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-call-me-cisgender/718903/484 "2015-05-07T19:19:41Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > Let’s see if we can make any determination of the gender status of the sister in this sentence: “As the sister of a transgendered brother…” > > Did the sentence say “As the transgendered sister of a transgendered brother…”? > > No, so the sister is not transgendered. Seems pretty clear to me. Not following your logic. The sentence also does not say “As the left-handed sister of a transgendered brother” but I would not assume, on the basis of the absence of the term “left-handed”, that the sister necessarily writes with her right hand. “It doesn’t say X so it is not-X” doesn’t appear to me to be a reasonable approach to interpreting sentences, even where “X” is an uncommon condition. ---
**Author:** ![JR\_Brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d6d6ee/32.png) [@JR\_Brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JR_Brown)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2015, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-call-me-cisgender/718903/485 "2015-05-07T19:35:58Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > I bet, back when “Male” was solely used to describe someone born with male genitalia and then started to also mean “Someone who self-identifies as male regardless of birth genitalia” there was also someone who whined “But it ALREADY has a meaning, we can’t just redefine words that are already in use!” That’s not quite right. “Male / female” have always had two possible meanings: gender and sex. In languages with linguistic gender (such as French and German), entire animal species are labelled as male or female, regardless of the biological sex of the individual, as are types of inanimate objects (which have no sex). What happened was that we decided that social labeling of human individuals should be determined by gender identity, rather than biological sex, and so in terms of social categories the word “male” should be interpreted as gender rather than sex. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2015, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-call-me-cisgender/718903/486 "2015-05-07T19:55:12Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > “It doesn’t say X so it is not-X” doesn’t appear to me to be a reasonable approach to interpreting sentences, even where “X” is an uncommon condition. Well, it seems like a reasonable approach to me. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2015, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-call-me-cisgender/718903/487 "2015-05-07T19:56:44Z")
> [@JR\_Brown](#): > > That’s not quite right. “Male / female” have always had two possible meanings: gender and sex. In languages with linguistic gender (such as French and German), entire animal species are labelled as male or female, regardless of the biological sex of the individual, as are types of inanimate objects (which have no sex). What happened was that we decided that social labeling of human individuals should be determined by gender identity, rather than biological sex, and so in terms of social categories the word “male” should be interpreted as gender rather than sex. Really? So if you go back 100 years and ask anyone what it means to be a human male, they won’t say “A person born with a penis”? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2015, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-call-me-cisgender/718903/488 "2015-05-07T20:03:23Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > classy response, Pop Tart. Are you suggesting he has to justify his feelings of offense to you? Anyway, “cis” will do a similar job to “gender-typical”, so I guess we’ll see how the language evolves and which, if either or something else, survives. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2015, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-call-me-cisgender/718903/489 "2015-05-07T20:05:38Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > Really? So if you go back 100 years and ask anyone what it means to be a human male, they won’t say “A person born with a penis”? Ask Joan of Arc. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2015, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-call-me-cisgender/718903/490 "2015-05-07T20:13:36Z")
Better yet, ask [hijras](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hijra_%28South_Asia%29). ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2015, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-call-me-cisgender/718903/491 "2015-05-07T20:21:01Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > Ask Joan of Arc. I don’t understand this. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2015, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-call-me-cisgender/718903/492 "2015-05-07T20:22:20Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > Better yet, ask [hijras](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hijra_%28South_Asia%29). Seems to me they lobbied to become a THIRD gender, so they wouldn’t consider themselves male nor female, so not sure how this is relevant to asking anyone in the US 100 years ago what being a human male meant. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2015, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-call-me-cisgender/718903/493 "2015-05-07T20:23:34Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Are you suggesting he has to justify his feelings of offense to you? of course not. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2015, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-call-me-cisgender/718903/494 "2015-05-07T20:26:50Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > Seems to me they lobbied to become a THIRD gender, so they wouldn’t consider themselves male nor female, so not sure how this is relevant to asking anyone in the US 100 years ago what being a human male meant. Third gender or not, since they still have penises,\* it would invalidate “a person with a penis” as a workable definition of “man.” \*I’m assuming, based on the primitive state of sex change surgery in 1915. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2015, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-call-me-cisgender/718903/495 "2015-05-07T20:56:40Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > I don’t understand this. She was burned for behaving like a man and wearing men’s clothing ; which challenged dogmatic gender roles. [QUOTE=Miller] \*I’m assuming, based on the primitive state of sex change surgery in 1915. [/QUOTE] Hijras have been a thing for thousands of years. They’re really quite fascinating. Another example would be the two-spirit people among Native Americans : women and men who lived somewhere in-between genders, mixing them or alternating between both. Which just goes to show, dicks ain’t everythang. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2015, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-call-me-cisgender/718903/496 "2015-05-07T20:57:11Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > of course not. Is his objection something you feel you should take into consideration when proposing “gender-typical” in place of “cis” ? ---
**Author:** ![JR\_Brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d6d6ee/32.png) [@JR\_Brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JR_Brown)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2015, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-call-me-cisgender/718903/497 "2015-05-07T21:21:21Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > Really? So if you go back 100 years and ask anyone what it means to be a human male, they won’t say “A person born with a penis”? They would. Because 100 years ago, a question about whether a person belonged to the category “human male” was understood to be a question about that person’s _sex_. But gender is separate from sex; traditionally in English, ships are female-gendered despite not having a sex, and cats are female-gendered unless it is necessary to specify that they are male-sexed. But now we are moving towards an understanding that the correct criteria for human social interaction is _gender_, which through historical reasons happens to use the same terms as sex does. So if you ask modern people how to identify a human whose sex is male, “A person born with a penis” would be a pretty good answer (the various intersex conditions are for the most part very rare, so the vast majority of penis-bearing newborns are in fact male, and vice versa). But this thread is about people in the _social category_ of male, which is not defined by penis ownership. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2015, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-call-me-cisgender/718903/498 "2015-05-07T21:41:40Z")
> [@JR\_Brown](#): > > and cats are female-gendered unless it is necessary to specify that they are male-sexed. I never understood this practice, myself. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2015, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-call-me-cisgender/718903/499 "2015-05-07T23:55:47Z")
> [@JR\_Brown](#): > > They would. Because 100 years ago, a question about whether a person belonged to the category “human male” was understood to be a question about that person’s _sex_. But gender is separate from sex; traditionally in English, ships are female-gendered despite not having a sex, and cats are female-gendered unless it is necessary to specify that they are male-sexed. But now we are moving towards an understanding that the correct criteria for human social interaction is _gender_, which through historical reasons happens to use the same terms as sex does. > > So if you ask modern people how to identify a human whose sex is male, “A person born with a penis” would be a pretty good answer (the various intersex conditions are for the most part very rare, so the vast majority of penis-bearing newborns are in fact male, and vice versa). But this thread is about people in the _social category_ of male, which is not defined by penis ownership. I didn’t say that the modern definition of male was defined by penis ownership whether in a social category or any other category. I said in the past, the definition of male was “having a penis” and that definition has changed. This was in response to those suggesting that using ‘gender-typical’ would be too hard because OH NO we would have to expand the definition of a word. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2015, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-call-me-cisgender/718903/500 "2015-05-07T23:56:51Z")
> [@JR\_Brown](#): > > cats are female-gendered unless it is necessary to specify that they are male-sexed. what does this mean? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-call-me-cisgender/718903.md?page=24) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-call-me-cisgender/718903.md?page=26)