As I said previously, the game industry is particularly sensitive at the moment to gender issues. There’s a lot of concern over treatment of women in the industry. There’s a large trans development community. Gamergate and it’s harassment is still a fresh problem. Anita Sarkeesian has released a number of high-profile videos about representations of women in games.
So, for the audience I happened to be talking to, “diversity” meant “how do we make the industry more acceptable to people who aren’t straight white guys.” If the game industry had spent the last year having a conversation about how awful it was that guys in wheelchairs were getting harassed at work, I probably WOULD have described myself as “ambulatory”.
You guys have weird ideas about how language works. You seem to think that words have some absolute meaning independent of context.
Neurotypical is a common term for people not suffering from a neurological disorder. Do you object to the existence of that term, as well?
You just contradicted yourself. Is there a use for the word, or not?
Oh, wait, I see that there is:
See how much easier that sentence was to write with the word “cisgendered?” Try to write it again without that word, while retaining the same meaning. Not impossible, obviously, but certainly less succinct.
Very confused, here. Where have I said that something was useless in this thread?
Both false and wrong? Geez, guess I really screwed that up.
Mind explaining how? I don’t understand what “white didn’t really mean the same thing,” means. Also, what’s the cut-off point where it’s suddenly appropriate to identify groups with adjectives? ~10% seems a pretty low percentage to me.
Right, I know. Kind of my point - that’s the sort of thinking we should be moving away from as a society. I’m not sure why you’re advocating it here.
Okay. You’re objectively wrong.
How so? No one is forced to use any gender identity on Facebook that they don’t want to use. How is that “foisting” it on anybody? Is this one of those things where it’s somehow insulting to the majority of people to be reminded that a minority even exists? Like when two guys holding hands in public is “forcing” their sexuality on everyone else?
Holy shit, did you genuinely not recognize that as a joke?
Hetero and Homo as prefixes refer to situations involving parrings or groupings. Scientifically, Hetero means "things which are paired or grouped with things unlike themselves (e.g.: Male and Female), where as Homo means "things which are paired or grouped with things like themselves (e.g.: Female and Female).
Well, such parallel descriptors don’t tend to get coined so readily just to express the absence of actual illnesses or deficiencies. Schizophrenia is generally perceived not merely as a neutral/normal/acceptable alternative to not having schizophrenia, so we don’t use a parallel “this or that” categorization to talk about it.
But being homosexual, or being left-handed, or even being deaf, etc., is widely understood as a neutral/normal/acceptable alternative to the corresponding majority status. So we have parallel descriptors like “homosexual or heterosexual”, “left-handed or right-handed”, “deaf or hearing”, etc., instead of “homosexual or normal”, “left-handed or normal”, “deaf or normal”, etc.
And the whole point of our culture’s recently developed trans awareness is the recognition that transgender is also a neutral/normal/acceptable alternative to the majority status. So we don’t say “transgender or normal”, we say “transgender or cisgender”.
Simple as that.
wut?? You mean, TPTB (whoever TPTB are) are trying to force cisgendered people to specify their cis status in situations where it’s not relevant?
Well, as I said to manson1972, that’s definitely not appropriate. But that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with talking about trans/cis gender identity in situations where it is relevant.
I don’t understand this at all. How would one even be able to use the term “cisgender” disrespectfully? Are there transgender people going around calling cisgender people “cissies” in imitation of the disrespectful term “tranny”, or what? I need an example here.
Brace yourself; it’s definitely catching on. (And indeed, I think it’s quite useful when people talking about autism spectrum and similar developmental issues need a term to specify “not on the autism spectrum”.)
Aren’t they? Except for discussions on messageboards and elsewhere specifically about gender-identity issues, I literally never see the word “cisgender”. Airline booking forms don’t ask me whether I’m transgender or cisgender. Tampon boxes aren’t marketed “For the Cisgender Woman Who Wants Sports-Level Protection”. Maybe I’m just woefully out of touch, but I really don’t see the words “transgender” and “cisgender” used irrelevantly.
Myself, I’m with Una – it is context-dependent and if specifically identifying trans- v. non-trans- is not relevant to what I’m speaking/writing about then there is no imperative need for the “cis” prefix to be called up and shoehorned into the discourse. There is no need for my biography to start with “JRDelirious (1961- ), is a cis-het male born in…”. But when it *does *help to get your point across (e.g. “trans women have been disappointed by the lack of solidarity and even hostility by a segment of cisgender women…”), it’s a very fine and useful construction.
Oh, and “neurotypical”? I’m all for it! Just look at it: it merely says these are the people who are “typical” of the overall population. No implications of “normality/abnormality” involved.
If you call transgender people abnormal, or if you distinguish trans women from real women, you actually expressing a bigoted viewpoint. “Bigot” often means something different from “person I don’t like.”
How about “common”? If, as people have been heard to claim, the word “normal” is being used in a strictly numerical sense, “common” is no better or worse.
I’m not going to call you that “from now on.” I’m not likely to call you that personally, individually, at all. I am going to continue to use “cisgender” to refer to people who are not transgender in contexts in which that attribute is pertinent.
“Transphobic,” by analogy to “homophobic” (and likewise straying a bit from the strict etymological meaning) means considering trans people as lesser, or treating them as such. For example referrig to them as “abnormal” or “unnatural.”
… bearing in mind that your answer is followed by a tacit “which trans people are not.” So if you want to say that trans people are not normal, or natural, or real, I suppose I can’t stop you, but at least own it.
Do you actually read the posts? Yes, I would object if the term became common as I think it’s stupid.
Try reading for comprehension. Obviously, given we are discussing the word, I am going to use it. Further, I have never said the word wasn’t useful in very strict contexts.
Cisgender and Non-transgender are about the same length. Further, far more people would now what the latter means.
You said my person feelings in usefulness do not imply something is or isn’t generally useful, and I responded that you personal feelings don’t either.
Whiteness is a relatively recent term used to be inclusive of all European immigrants.
More than a fraction of a percent I would think.
Okay, YOU’RE objectively wrong. See how easy that was.
Because you are redefining a term that works the vast majority of the time for dubious reasons.
Yes, I saw the comment after. My point was that rather than answer the question, you dodged by making a lame joke. Do you think such a restaurant menu procedure would make sense, or would it just be an annoyance to most people?
How is an illness like Schizophrenia not “neutral”? Regardless, no one feels the need to state how they are not suffering from an illness like one of the above, so why must you do that for being trans?
Further, it’s a hard sell to say being trans is a neutral/normal thing given it’s rarity and the steps needed to transition or take corrective procedures.
Just to piggyback on a recent thread here, is having body integrity disorder normal in your opinion?
I think when a gender box Facebook example is apt here. If we are still operating under the premise that there are two genders (male and female), then being trans has nothing to do with the question, and is largely irrelevant. The intent of the question typically isn’t to probe into whether you think your genitals match your soul or body.
I agree. I just think the times it is relevant are sparser than you think.
I think the disrespect largely revolves around the idea that not being transgender confers privilege in the way being rich or White does.
… bearing in mind that your answer is followed by a tacit “which trans people are not.” So if you want to say that trans people are not normal, or natural, or real, I suppose I can’t stop you, but at least own it.
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Thank you, that was a nice addendum, you said that much clearer than I.
Why are you attaching a value judgement to the term “normal”? Do you contend there is no human behavior, orientation, characteristic, or state that is normal? Is having 10 fingers normal? Are non-conjoined twins normal? Is having 46 chromosomes normal?
Why? We do not need a word for every frickin’ thing that you can be the opposite of. I’m male. If you’re a transgendered male, then you can call yourself that. What if I don’t have a shoe fetish? Do we need a term for people who are the opposite of those who have a shoe fetish?
Language has a funny way of working these things out naturally. If there are enough transgendered people around, then a term for not transgendered will make its way into the vernacular. If there aren’t that many, then it’s probably not going to happen that there will be a word to describe what 99.99% of the population is.
I’m not qualified to have an informed opinion on that issue; my uninformed opinion is that it doesn’t seem to be. But if research and medical assessment ends up determining that bodily integrity identity disorder is a normal and acceptable though rare variant of the human psyche, I won’t have any problem with somebody coining a new term like “bodily-integrated” or whatever to designate people who don’t have it.
I am an old and don’t have much truck with Facebook, so I have no direct experience with this, but it’s my understanding that Facebook lets you define your own gender identity as you wish, or you can just leave it blank. So I don’t see how anybody is being forced to assume a gender identity that they don’t want.
Speaking as a white cisgender person myself, I think it’s pretty self-evident that not being transgender does confer privilege in the way being white does. (Rich is a somewhat different issue, because being wealthier than most other people is objectively advantageous in many ways, not just a socially constructed privilege.)
The core of “white privilege” is that in historically-and-majority-white cultures, being white is what’s seen as the normal, default identity: white people are assumed to be the ones who automatically “belong” in that culture. And yes, that constitutes to some extent a privileged status compared to the status of non-white people.
Similarly, in strongly gender-binary cultures, cisgender people are seen as the normal, default, “belonging” ones. Historically, transgender people in such cultures are perceived as not only less representative but as downright abnormal/deformed/delusional/unnatural. How can we not acknowledge that being the type of person who’s automatically accepted as “normal” in such a culture means we’re privileged vis-a-vis the “not normal” people?
Welp, okay, I promise not to call you “cisgender” except in situations where we’re actually discussing your gender identity. And in fact, I rather doubt that anyone in the world is calling you “cisgender” except in situations where you’re actually discussing your gender identity.
So why do you find it annoying that other people are voluntarily choosing to reveal more about their gender identity? No skin off your nose, I’d have thought.
Yes. Yes they do. They want equal rights to the words male and female and men and women, which means the rest of us are going to have to give up our exclusive claim to those words.
You are male. A trans man is also male. If you want to specify that you are a man who is not trans, you don’t get to just say “male”. How does it hurt you to have a word that means “not transgendered”?
No, but when such a word actually gets coined and becomes widely used, that generally indicates that many people find it useful.
Being on Team Neology and all, I’m a bit sad that the coinage and dissemination of new words seems to irritate people so much. I thought we were having such fun
Anyway, it’s not like we’re stuck keeping the new words around forever and looking after them if it turns out we don’t need them after all. They’ll just die a natural death and decompose back into phonemes to nourish the rest of language.
Yeah, this is starting to remind me a bit of the debate over the term “same-sex marriage”. Same-sex married couples are married. Transgendered males are male.
It would be silly to insist that same-sex spouses are “same-sex-married” instead of just “married”. Likewise, it would be silly to say that transmen have to be called “transgendered-male” instead of just “male”.
And given that the more we know about the human psyche, the more we normalize rare variants, don’t you think this process is going to become a bit cumbersome and unnecessary?
Is the concept of privilege useful if it describes 99%+ of people? Does it make sense to argue I have privilege because I wasn’t born as a conjoined twin, or tay-sachs? Yes, I am more fortunate to have been born relatively healthy, but the idea of privilege is more than just not having a terrible disease.
That’s because it is normal.
See above. Such a definition is too broad to be meaningful given the near infinite number of ways one can be disadvantaged.
Because the expectation is that others must use the same language.
Two of the first three definitions in Merriam-Webster have a value judgement (the first doesn’t apply here). The first two definitions in Witionary incorporate value judgements. I have a feeling if I looked at the last 20 times you used the word “normal” outside this thread, very few of them would be in the statistical sense.
perpendicular; especially : perpendicular to a tangent at a point of tangency
2a. according with, constituting, or not deviating from a norm, rule, or principle
2b. conforming to a type, standard, or regular pattern
occurring naturally
Where is the value judgment in any of those things?
wut?? You mean, TPTB (whoever TPTB are) are trying to force cisgendered people to specify their cis status in situations where it’s not relevant?
