That you know of.
Well, that’s your experience. It doesn’t make that the only valid experience, or indeed the normal experience. There are many factors that could be in play that cause you to hear the term only in an insulting or derogatory way.
The fight for rights don’t stop just because you’re sick of it, it stops when the work is fully done and its not fully done. Until you can imagine writing a similar rant for straight, cis people, then its not done and you’re just going to have to live with this fight for the rest of your life
The prefix comes from the Latin, so you can blame the Romans for that. It’s been used in the scientific world (e.g. cis–trans isomerism) for a long time without complaint. The first person to use “cis” in contrast with “trans” in the context of gender identity seems to have been German sexologist Volkmar Sigusch. In his 1998 (English-language) essay “The Neosexual Revolution” he wrote “For if there is a trans‚ a beyond (physical gender)‚ there must be a cis‚ a this-side-of‚ as well.”
According to Google Translate, in Sigusch’s native language “this side gender” would literally be something like “diese Seite Geschlecht”, which doesn’t really roll off the English-speaking tongue. So we should all probably be thankful he went with Latin instead.
The OP’s ire (will he ever return to this thread?) is completely misplaced. Trans folks are all the rage, and it’s the media that is “forcing” him to confront the issue on a daily basis. But he should keep in mind that the media played a huge role in societal acceptance of gay people, so whether you like it or not, media exposure is good for trans folks as well. Is it too much for us non-trans people to put up with a little overexposure (if it’s even that) to help their cause? If you must bitch, bitch at the media. Just know that you’re not helping those very folks by insisting you not have to deal with them.
And I don’t know if the OP lives in the US or not, but the struggle is far from over. As already noted in this thread there are lots of states with trans-unfriendly laws on the books.
As for not “getting it”, well BFD!! I don’t “get” being a woman at all, but so what? I’m not a woman, so why would I even expect to fully get it. Same with gay or trans folks. I don’t really “get” it, but it’s none of my fucking business anyway, especially when the weight of science comes down in favor of this not being simply a lifestyle choice. One might as well not “get” Global Warming because you live in area that had a shitload of snow last winter.
Perhaps that fatigue in the general population is necessary. 'Fine! Let <minority group> have <some basic dignity that doesn’t affect anyone else>. I do not care enough, let me move on with my life."
If there is a risk, it’s that those people committed to raising awareness over decades might eventually be considered fringe loons (like PETA). But that’s their problem.
What’s the difference between “genderqueer” and androgynous?
Tinny, horrible word!
For obvious reasons I can’t reply to everyone. I apologize to those that don’t get a response.
Tom… I’ve always thought you were a fucknut but I’ve never had reason to engage you. Now I do. You, good sir, are a pitiable fuckwidget. Your past actions are my cite.
You pretentious fucking cling-on. You’ve no idea what I do and don’t understand and accusing me of stupidity based on my post is beneath most people other than you. From you it is par for the course.
Listen Gidget. I was born in the body that my brain accepts. I cannot get a brain and body in disagreement. I also don’t get being a black dude in copland. This isn’t willful ignorance it is literal incapacity. Eat a dick - or a few. Or choke on a bag of them. I don’t much care. Fucknut.
No, I object to “cis” because it annoys me to be labelled in order to separate myself from people that, to my understanding, would rather not be segregated. I use “trans” because, to the best of my knowledge, that is the preferred term. If I’m wrong then I apologize to those to whom I applied the term. I’m happy to amend my phraseology.
You are still about as useful as tits on fish.
I am responding specifically to this line, “You can’t even get who to hate right.”
Fuck you you half-bright full-prick. I don’t hate any group - particularly groups that have to suffer for being what they are. Eat my ass you picayune motherfucker. Accuse me of hatred you self-righteous bit of sidewalk-sputum. Learn to fucking read and then re-read the OP - perhaps have mommy explain the words to you. Fucking slobber-monkey.
Nope. I’ve never been asked to take hormones. Have you? Are you trans?
No, you’re not.
You are a crusader defending the ones you feel are attacked because you feel it is the “cis-man’s duty” to leap in on their side. You are a fucking shadow dude. You are a list of issues you will dive into to prove your tolerance. Well done you fucking baby. Nutless defender of those who can speak for themselves - except that YOU think they need YOU to defend them because YOU need to feel like YOU are worthwhile.
Get bend you fucking lugnut. And here you fucking go <<<hug>>>
Learn to read and then get back to me.
And since YOU brought Yankmerican politics into it - sucks to be you for living in a country like Yankmerica. My country is civilized - as am I - get a passport, move to decency and shut the fuck up. What have YOU done to fix the problem? Specifics now Spartacus.
I’ll put my deeds against yours ya fucking keystroke gladiator and see who stacks up better.
Fuck sakes.
Agreed…and…it’s worse than that, because the work is never fully done. There are still overt racists and sexists in the U.S. There are still people who can say, with a straight face, that blacks and women should not be permitted to vote. Anti-gay and anti-trans sentiment will never go away entirely.
We can never “win” the way we won WWII. It’s a never-ending game of Whack-a-Mole, as evil pops its head up and chatters, and we have to clobber it. Again and again. (It’s kinda Orwellian.)
For the OP, do you react so strenuously when you hear about sexism, racism, or homophobia? Are you fucking sick and tired of hearing about that?
Those battles have been waging a lot longer, in the open, than the trans- issue. So, my lord, you must be sick and fucking tired of hearing about it! After all, you don’t “get” being black in copland, I believe you said, so god, why won’t they shut up about it, right? Or Roger Ailes, god, why can’t they stop talking about sexual harassment! the battle is won, protections are in place!
We’ll just have to disagree, as I regard the word as having the opposite effect – that it is unnecessarily factious and it not only emphasizes the divide between the majority default condition and the transgendered, but its ugliness implies – probably unintentionally – a hostility to that majority condition. I was going to include this quote from the first link in my earlier post but I forgot, and it is very fitting to include it here:
“For me, ‘cis’ reifies something that is mostly a fiction,” University of Southern California gender studies professor Chris Freeman, Ph.D. (pictured, left) tells The Advocate. “It creates — or re-creates — a gender binary, which is exactly what many scholars and activists have been fighting against for decades.”
“To me, ‘cisgender’ is a clunky, unhelpful, and maybe even regressive term,” Freeman concludes. “It does not move the gender conversation forward in a constructive way. Or in a productive way.”
Some of the early history of the word I admit I wasn’t aware of, and your descriptions seem to agree with various sources I’ve looked at. However the usage appears to have been limited to specific subcultures and not used that way broadly, the point being that in mainstream use “gay” still meant “happy” and “carefree” until relatively recently. Indeed I’m old enough to remember the word being used that way, though it may have been in writings that were a decade or two behind the times. The fact that many in the mainstream weren’t aware of a different usage in niche subcultures doesn’t make them either “sheltered” or “ignorant” in any meaningful sense of those terms; as any linguist will tell you and language descriptivists will enthusiastically endorse, what a word means is what the vast majority of its users think it means. It’s this shift in mainstream usage that occurred fairly recently, and I tend to concur that it was around the sixties:
The term [gay] was originally used to mean “carefree”, “happy”, or “bright and showy” … The sixties marked the transition in the predominant meaning of the word gay from that of “carefree” to the current “homosexual”. [My note: other sources place the origin earlier, around the mid-50s.]
No, I’m of the opinion that “black” and “white” are not linguistic opposites, they are simply descriptors that happen to represent the darkest possible and the lightest possible perceived brightness, or more accurately, the absence of color and the equal mix of all visible colors. If they truly were linguistic opposites, then non-white would mean black by definition. Sometimes negating an opposite might lose or change nuance of meaning, but since “transgendered” is defined as a specific condition and “cisgendered” is defined as precisely the absence of that condition, there is no nuance whatsoever to be lost. This is not a psychological or medical issue, it is a straightforward matter of language.
Since I’ve shown three different sources that say that “cisgendered” means “not transgendered”, I think it’s fair to conclude that that’s just what it means – i.e.- non-transgendered. Much like Jimmy Chitwood’s claim has now been shown to be the opposite of “right”, which with equal lack of ambiguity we can label “wrong”. It’s utterly irrelevant that there are other specific types of gender situations; if someone wants to talk about some specific situation like androgyny, they are free to name it and do so. Indeed it is the creation of a stupid term like “cisgendered” that reinforces the prejudicial notion of strict gender binaries, as noted above.
None whatsoever. As I said I fully support trans-rights. I think trans-folk ought to be treated with the same dignity and respect as anyone else. I don’t believe in giving people rights. I believe that people have rights and it is the height of idiocy to pretend that we grant or recognize those rights.
Who has the right to afford rights? No one. We all have the same rights and violation of those rights - whatever they may be - is an affront to our basic humanity.
Choke on a piece of shit you fucking mo-tard. Accuse me of “trans-phobia”. I’m not in the least. Check your fucking attitude and come back.
Yes, I agree with you with a but…
But the fight has been won. If a trans-person gets hassled they get lots of coverage and overwhelming support. Trans-issues are getting coverage because of the freak-show factor.
trans-people comprise what a fraction of a percent of the population but they get a disproportionate amount of coverage because they are “oddities” and t gives the left and the right a chance to feel good about themselves as the non-involved - I’m looking at you Tom… - fall all over themselves to align themselves.
I would suggest that you try a census of the people who “society” has told them to be something they aren’t.
Truth is that the majority of suicides have nothing to do with gender identity. The majority of beatings and murders have nothing to do with it. Do trans-people get beaten and killed for being trans? Yes.
Is this bare minority of people who are beaten and / or killed in hate crimes? Yes.
I’ll ask you to check the murder / suicide rates for kids that don’t fit in or fuck up on the internet and get back to me.
I’ll bet that cyberbullying (non-trans related) and real bullying take more lives - directly and indirectly - than trans-hatred.
You make a very good point and I’ll have to think about that.
Off the top of my head I suppose that it comes down to not needing a label. I am - among other things - a depressive. I do not refer to people that are not depressive as anything other than people. I am depressive; there is the distinction. If I say “depressives” that, by definition, explains that I am talking about those with depression. Anyone not covered by “depressives” has no need to be labelled.
I am not “cis-gendered” I’m a man. My wife is not “cis-gendered” she is a woman. Those who are man in woman or woman in man are transsexual.
But, again, you make a good point and I’ll need to think about this.
You can lick the shiny nuggets out of my lilly-white-cis-gendered-asshole.
I’ll make more when you ask for seconds.
I don’t recall saying anything to or about Leaffan. But frankly his kid going through this is no different than a “cis-gendered” kid that gets thumped on the daily for reasons they don’t understand.
Sympathy and empathy? Certainly. Special emotional status? Fuck no.
Then make it please. Or, in SDMB lingo, cite?
Another illiterate. Read the OP and come back with pie. Or just go have beers with Tom… and have a feel-good-righteous-warriors hugs about it.
Not in the least. The cause is out there. We are all aware of the issue. Right thinking people are on side with people being treated as people. I’m annoyed at the cause celebre factor and the ubiquity of it.
Frankly the OP was spurred by a bunch of things in my news feed, tacked on to reports about trans celebrities plus a show on the CBC radio.
Trans-people are NOT special. They are people with a significant problem who face persecution because of who they are. In that they are NO different than shittons of other people who face persecution (up to and including beatings and death) because they are who they are.
Other than the fact that it is NOT anger - it is annoyance - I agree with you 100% and I quoted you in the entirety because I think you are absolutely correct.
Thank-you.
I wish people would stop accusing me of being angry when I am not.
I’ll shout it for the benefit of the cheap seats, " I’M NOT ANGRY!!!"
I am annoyed. Not true, I was annoyed. I was momentarily annoyed. I am no longer annoyed by trans-stuff.
Some posters have given me something to think about - specifically my objection to “cis-gendered” - others have been knee-jerk fuckwits - Tom… - and have given me little to ponder.
I guess, to me, it comes down to we all have our own shit. Your shit is as important to you as my shit is to me.
I dare the family of a trans-kid to tell the family of a bullied suicide kid to say that their child is somehow special.
The seemingly unstoppable juggernaut of the Kardashians publicity machine.
There’s a great documentary film, Next Goal Wins which is about the American Samoan soccer team trying to bounce back from their record 31-0 defeat in a World Cup qualification match. Jaiyah Saelua, born Johnny Saelua was the first, as the Samoans call it, “third gender” footballer to play soccer at international level.
It’s a great film, not only about Jaiyah, but about fighting back against the odds and you don’t have to be a soccer fan to appreciate it.
Uh huh. Bless your heart, child.
I think Zeke must have just recently attended a “How to Make Friends” seminar!
Isn’t there a gym you should be getting kicked out of somewhere?
[Moderating]
Zeke, please read the rulres on acceptable language in the Pit, because you seem to have broken nearly all of them. No warning issued this time. Please be more careful so there isn’t s next time.
[/Moderating]
Speaking as someone who has criticized Ambivalid in the past: You are failing to win hearts and minds.
This whole thing looks like a petulant tantrum.
I really have no sympathy that you have to hear about an issue you don’t understand or are sick of. There are people suffering and they have just begun to speak out for reasonable treatment from society.
Im working on my current gym now. But I must ask for patience, as my current gym’s management seems quite decent. But I’ll find a way!
Yep, totally not angry. Can’t imagine why people might think he’s angry…