There are lots of words in my vocabulary that I only pull out every year or so. “Klister”, “arthropod”, “cambium”, … Just because they don’t describe concepts I talk about every day doesn’t mean they aren’t useful words.
“Straight” comes to mind, that word is not inherently offensive to anyone.
But its accepted meaning in everyday speech is “heterosexual”, and you can be that and transgender.
Thus the problems with any labels … they’re never adequate, always divisive and provide futile ground for hatred … and we need to agree on what these labels mean. I have no way of knowing what the term “straight” means where you live, here it means masculine chromosynoptic males lovin’ on feminine chromosynoptic females or vice-versa. The next block over may well think differently.
This is my main objection to “cisgender”, we don’t need any more divisions between us, hard enough destroying what divisions we already have. Second, it sounds like a nonsense word someone like Lewis Carroll would invent … “Perhaps Looking-glass milk isn’t good to drink”.
I think that if there’s anything that could drive me to vote for Donald Trump, it’d be listening to Democrats whinge on about “Democrat Party.”
I don’t know where you live, but I can pretty much guarantee you that’s not what “straight” means there.
Thank you for the perfect example … just more divisions within a single word.
Let’s use the word “normal”, and apply it to everyone … as though it is “normal” for everyone to be different. There’s only one label that describes you properly … “Miller” … all others just short change you and are grossly inadequate.
There may be two things that could make me vote Trump…
Send me a dollar and I’ll vote for someone else, I promise.
C’mon man, there’s like, just one race, the human race . . . dig it? It’s a great big garden full of different flowers and they’re all the same in unique ways!
And dude, you’re Bogarting the bong!
CMC fnord!
What exactly is “chromosynoptic” supposed to mean?
hits bongos harder
Five results on Google . . . all this thread!
CMC fnord!
Why would you take offense at being called ‘normal’? Is there something inherently wrong with being called ‘normal’? Does a majority of society consider being called ‘normal’ offensive? Were ‘normal’ people persecuted throughout history for their normalness?
Most importantly, does it pass Miller’s “Test of Offensiveness”? If not, then you have no reason to take any offense at being called normal, mild or otherwise. You should just suck it up and get over it.
It’s a gift …
Well, since reality IS that everyone is different, yes, the differences ARE “normal”.
We know why “normal” is unacceptable for the cis/het/ablebodied/neurotypical/majorityaveragewhatever. Because of the history, already hinted at earlier in discussing a compound word, of the word having transformed from meaning “that which is the usual” into meaning “that which is good and right” – and that in turn leading to what’s “abnormal” being seen as something to be corrected, prevented, isolated or eradicated.
Um… replying to your questions so far.
Yes. That and the other things I’ve repeated about fifty times by now which I won’t repeat anymore because it’s just damn embarrassing for you by now. Yes that is my “reasoning” for why I personally chose to use different words to identify myself (so clever how you put the condescending apostrophes there!).
Honestly the only thing I’m thinking now is that my contempt for the word has grown far stronger after this thread, as it reeks of the typical modern-day liberal condescending pushy arrogance that I’ve grown numb towards by now. You’re probably not even aware of it which is the funny/sad part, but maybe seeing how many minds you’ve changed overall might give you a clue.
Tranny, oriental, negro, jap, whatever are terms that are not inherently offensive but are deemed such because of context in which they evolved. You said I should have no problem with cisgender because it is not inherently offensive in and of itself by definition. Lots of offensive words aren’t inherently offensive. End of story. You naming words that are does nothing for me.
Alright I’m cutting this short cause I’m just talking past you by now. I’m sorry my “reasoning” didn’t pass your test and I have not gotten your permission to have negative feelings about a word. My decision to personally use other words instead to describe the same thing displeases you. Maybe a few more arrogant condescending jabs will do the trick and make me see the error of my ways? Perhaps, we’ll never know, cause I don’t know what “my purpose” is in this thread and I’m off… ta!
You really sure you want to keep harping on the “liberal” thing in this particular thread? Because it says something not wholly flattering about you that you’re so incensed by “liberal arrogance” on LGBT rights but, apparently, unconcerned by conservative naked hatred. Yeah, it’s terrible that someone was pushy to you on the Internet. Clearly, you’re the real victim here.
That’s true enough. But it does bring up another point, which is that in all of those cases, there were multiple words with the same meaning, and one of them became the one that was freighted with prejudice and hatred, for whatever reason. That is, you could have described Asian people as “Asian” or “Oriental”, and due some societal or historical factors, “Oriental” became the one that was offensive.
Whereas, “Cisgender” is literally the only word that exists that means what it means. (“Non-transsexual” is obviously similar, but not quite the same). So sure, every time that someone wants to say something offensive about people-whose-identified-gender-matches-their-birth-gender they will use “Cisgender”. But so will people who are discussing gender issues in a completely value-neutral setting. So will people talking about white straight cisgendered privilege. It’s literally the only choice.
Something that might well happen in the future, but which certainly has not happened yet, is that “Cis” might become the offensive version, with “Cisgender” remaining the neutral version. Shortenings are often used derogatorily, ie, “Jap” for “Japanese”. But I don’t see real evidence that that has happened so far.
That’s the point i was clumsily trying to make. Although in practice, the word i hear spoken is “cis”. But i don’t think anyone here has tried to distinguish between then in terms of offensiveness.
It’s hard not to think that the offense is somewhere in the idea that you need to consider the possibility of trans. But i have learned from this thread that several apparently reasonable people are uncomfortable with “cis”. I’ll probably be more cautious about using it it “mixed company” going forward.