Normal is terribly nonspecific. If you say you are normal, do you mean you are a 16-59year old, right handed, neurotypical, cisgender, ethnically Chinese, in the most common earning bracket, heterosexual Chinese male?
“This is Sue. She’s a normal woman. This is Beth. She’s Jewish.”
You’re saying you would be bothered by that, cm?
Just curious – what is the origin of “cis”? Was it just made up, or was there related meaning or whatever?
(At this point, all the arguing over the term is getting really stupid. Yeah, it’s an odd sounding word, but it’s not insulting or anything like that)
Latin. “Trans” means, roughly, “other side of.” “Cis” means “this side of.” “Gallia Cisalpina” was a Roman province, as contrasted with “Gallia Transalpina,” which was on the other side of the Alps.
Should we apply similar reasoning to people who choose to be circumcised? I don’t want to pick on you for your religion, but this seems like a pretty apt comparison. Unless you’re comfortable calling circumcised men “abnormal,” you might want to look at how folks find it stigmatizing to be labeled with that word.
I mean, one step further: there are parents (including mine, TMI) who decided to circumcise their babies. Are you saying they’re choosing a life of abnormality for their children?
I don’t, not really. When is it REQUIRED to use them?
Well, maybe you can explain how a word is only offensive depending on where you are in the world?
And also, maybe you can explain how the word “ladyboy” is offensive at all? I mean, what is the proof? According to Miller, it’s INHERENTLY offensive. How can it be INHERENTLY offensive if there exists places in the world where there is no controversy over whether or not it is offensive?
Maybe you can define what you mean by ‘supportive’?
I don’t help, work with, or am materially or substantively supportive to transgender persons. I don’t know any. I wouldn’t say I am supportive beyond the fact that I don’t care if someone is transgender or not. If I was at work, and someone came to me and said “Hey, I’m transgender” I would say the same thing I would say to someone who told me they were gay, or Christian, or Athiest or Muslim or married or a single parent - “I don’t care, good for you.” The use of the word “cisgender” to describe myself has absolutely nothing to do with transgender people at all. As a result, any “fighting of the good fight” has nothing to do with transgender people, and everything to do with labeling myself with words that others say I should label myself with.
What do you call someone who DOESN’T have diabetes?
Is the contrast to a “transnational” corporation a “cisnational” corporation?
Is the contrast to a “transverse” wave a “cisverse” wave?
How about you? Is this a “some people are saying” sort of conversation?
So let’s see, you state here as absolute fact that “Non-transgender and cisgender aren’t even the same thing”. And I’ve just finished showing you that in many commonly accepted and authoritatively supported usages of those words, they are exactly the same thing. You have asserted as indisputable fact something that you have failed to support and that is, at best, a controversially narrow interpretation of the terms. You have an interesting way of saying “I guess I was wrong”. But you’re welcome anyway. Glad to help.
What is astonishing here is your persistent denial of clear facts. #182 establishes that (a) according to multiple sources including several explanatory articles and dictionaries, “cisgender” and “transgender” are mutually exclusive complementary opposites, (b) that “cisgender” refers to the normative condition defined in the Oxford and other dictionaries and that transgender is anything that is NOT that, and (c) this complementary opposition is further supported by cites from the literature that “transgender” can function as an umbrella term for many other gender conditions such as genderqueer. Which specifically answered LHoD’s question, and which is important inasmuch as LHoD, you, and others seemed to believe that “cisgender” and “transgender” don’t denote mutually exclusive binary conditions in authoritative interpretations of those terms. But they do.
You provided what you regard as a “qualification” of that in the Wikipedia article. You seem not to understand what that word means, either. No, the quote you provided doesn’t “qualify” anything, it directly contradicts my quote from the introduction, and it contradicts the entire section titled Other Categories in that same Wikipedia article which supports my stated position. And the cite for your contradictory quote leads to a dead link. Here is the correct link, and it makes no such statement.
But even if there was a source for this, a reasonable person might conclude that there is disagreement in the literature about the words in question, so one has to weigh the relative authoritativeness and thoroughness of the sources, and both the online Oxford dictionary and my cited source for “transgender” as an umbrella term in my opinion offer authoritative support for the view I have advanced. Some might consider the exercise an interesting exploration of both linguistics and social change. You, however, mainly seem interested in asserting your infallible correctness despite a paucity of evidence, and turning this into a discussion about the immense value of your time. That’s a conversation you can have with yourself as it holds no interest for me.
And BTW, I don’t believe “dark cabal” ever entered into my description of anything. I have no vested interest on either side of this issue, other than a shared abhorrence of the human rights violations against the LGBT community that still occur in many places, but I was curious about the origin of the word “cisgender” and the rationale for it. As I said earlier, language can serve cultural and political purposes, and sometimes it does so to beneficial effect, sometimes not. As already noted, some competent researchers feel the word is unnecessary and promotes the perception of a divisive gender binary; others may disagree. My dislike of the word is not a slam against the LGBT community but a reflection of the fact that sociopolitical movements often spawn fanatical advocates whose zealotry may do more harm than good.
That last part is just my opinion and you are certainly free to disagree, but at least now we have a better understanding of what these words mean. I think any further discussion with you would be futile. Thank you for your time as I understand from your previous missive that it’s extremely valuable, and I hope not to trespass on it further with cites from the dictionary or quotations from gender studies researchers. :rolleyes:
Qualification is to make less absolute.
For example, I could qualify the statement “manson has made the dumbest post to this thread recently,” by saying “oh, wolfpup is here.”
Please use my whole username when trying to insult me so I can find it in a Google search. Thanks!
I don’t think anyone is saying you should label yourself cisgender, it’s just a term that is useful in certain contexts to avoid being rude or possibly offensive.
Trans people go through a lot of emotional and mental anguish related to their gender identity, and certain sentences could, in their company, be rude/insulting.
What are those contexts? How can you be rude or possibly offensive by NOT labeling somebody?
I understand that transgender people go through a lot of emotional and mental anguish related to their gender identity. I just don’t see how using terms like “cisgender” abate that anguish or emotional harm.
The term “Paki” is very offensive in the UK, and not really considered offensive in the US. Culture can determine whether words are offensive.
You don’t think so? Try calling someone a “Paki” on this message board and see where it gets you.
I don’t know. It simply is. I’ve been there and personally been in their society now.
It’s often offensive to transgender people in the US because it’s (almost) always used in a pejorative and bullying context. Like the word “tranny.”
I’m not sure what you accept as proof. I live and work in the community every single day, and have met, known, or know in total thousands of transgender persons. I travel the US giving speeches and participating in panels and presentations on these subjects. The word simply is considered to be offensive in most contexts. So much so that when I lecture on transgender, third gender, and intersex communities from around the world, I have to preface my first use of the term “ladyboy” with a disclaimer, otherwise there’s this <GASP!> when I use the word.
Do you want Webster’s to tell you that it is? Start asking real, actual, non-internet transgender people if it’s offensive. Ask a hundred of us. I’ll wager 75% answer that it’s offensive.
yes, I’ve been there too. And “ladyboy” is not offensive.
If that were true, you would think some sort of dictionary would label the word “ladyboy” as offensive, like they do for “tranny” but I haven’t found any that do.
I would accept as proof the same sort of site or documentation that says “tranny” is offensive.
Start asking real, actual, people who are not transgender whether or not cisgender is offensive. Is there some sort of percentage that an informal poll has to reach before a word is considered offensive?