Google her name. Google “die cis scum”. Now, how widespread? How do I know? My LGBT friends all say they don’t mean “me” but they do say it’s hardly ever used in a positive way.
And she showed there are alternatives.
Here’s the point, if a transgender person says “Hey don’t use ‘tranny’”, I think we’d all go along with it, right? But if a non-transgendered person says "Ok, then don’t use “cis” there’s argument. Why?
That’s absurd. “Racist” is subjective, and no two people are going to characterize the rest of humanity into two boxes, racist and non-racist, the same way.
Two responses:
I’ve cited a clear dictionary definition that matches the classic use of the word multiple times in this thread. It is no more subjective than the word “chair.” We don’t have to have perfect matches for this word, any more than we have perfect matches for any other word. But unless you’re some sort of Lacanian Deconstructionist (note my use of a label), you can use words nonetheless. Wittgenstein has already solved this nonproblem for us.
The disagreement in the gray area does not extend to disagreement on clear-cut cases. See my previous analogy to mountains: while we may quibble over whether a 200-foot-hill should be classified as a mountain, we can agree to give Everest its due. Similarly, we may argue over whether Daniel Patrick Moynihan was racist, but there’s no need to quibble over David Duke.
I agree that term fits just about perfectly. I’ve used it and the simpler ‘racist’ in my commentary of others’ posts and never received even a raised eyebrow until the other day.
I would never call somebody a racist simply because they disagreed with me on the topic of race. I would only call a person a racist if they do things like spend a lot of time on message boards arguing that black people tend to perform more poorly on standardized tests because of their genes.
Please. You think everyone uses the term exactly the way the dictionary describes it? That’s a “very unique” view of how language works.
And maybe the mods don’t want to open the door to the slippery slope that is bound to happen since many of us are going to disagree on where the boundary is between “obviously racist” and “maybe not racist”.
I’m going to pick a nit. “Cis” is a shortened version of “Cisgender”. Not all nicknames are offensive. But some are, notoriously so. “Cis” sounds plausibly pejorative. To determine whether it is in a general sense, we would have to convene a usage panel. I quip, but my point is evidence must be weighed.
Cisgender is superior to non-transgender, because the 2nd is analogous to a double negative. That’s not a decisive argument though, merely something to consider. At any rate this cis-guy hasn’t encountered any cisphobia or non-transphobia (your choice) at least without looking for it, so he isn’t yet prepared to be offended or perturbed by the prefix in question.
I hate coming across a word I have to look up, and then find it is a made up word, which is meaningless.
You can’t compare a made up word to the well known insult/descriptive word “racist”, which in our politically correct world is an absolute insult. It’s a top level insult. You get that label slapped on you, true or not, you are in deep shit.
Couldn’t you use an example everybody can understand here?
Like, “Idiot is not an insult if somebody really is an idiot”.
Or, “Moron isn’t an insult if somebody is obviously a moron?”.
Please consider your audience when arguing that you should be allowed to insult somebody in GD, if they really are as you perceive them.
No, I don’t think that. Nor did I say that; nor does that bear any relationship to the thread.
Due respect, have you read this thread before responding to it? If you have, you’ve missed posts that directly respond to your concerns.
Cisgender is made-up, that’s true. But the other words in my sentence, including is, made-up, that’s, and true, weren’t unearthed by archeologists in the 1920s in a cave deep in Afghanistan. All words are made up.
This is not true.
We know. It’s like discussing if “quackohnutjob” is an insult.
It is almost entirely unlike that, except inasmuch as in both cases we’d be discussing whether a word is an insult. Otherwise, nothing alike.
IMO Part 1:
Just to get this right out from the start, I see no reason why discourse along the line of “black africans are intrinsecally less mentally or morally apt” should be granted a “respectable” descriptor other than racism/racist; however even yielding on that we’d just be asking to go into the same spiral as with other words that once upon a time were respectable descriptors and eventually became unacceptable (e.g. “retarded”).
What is the problem with rac(ial)ism? The whole problem IS an unmentioned “…therefore…” . [Race/ethnicity X] have some intrinsic defficiency relative to the established dominant group… therefore… no need to invest additionally in education and affirmative action; …therefore… [place of origin] is and will ever be an irremediable hellhole; …therefore… [Race/ethnicityX] will never really “get” what it takes to really have democracy and rule of law and are a threat to America… etc.
Try the following sentence: “Racialists subscribe to a point of view and advocate positions that have been previously described as racist.”
Apt? Inapt?
IMO Part 2:
Which I suppose that cuts two ways in the question on whether it is fair play to use it. There is using it as a descriptive and there is using it as a “nuclear option” to shut down the argument now and going forward. See also: “hypocrite”. See also: “bigot”.
Deprecative: “Oh why should I listen to a known racist like [poster] on any subject matter?” “I said go away, bigot”.
Descriptive: “That argument is based on premises that have been promoted by racist and supremacist organizations.”
IMO Part 3, the Hijack:
“Cisgender” is a perfectly good word to use in specific descriptions of gender identity issues. We have had a thread about it before, in which we discussed that it really need not be brought up in regular conversation unless the conversation IS about something where the cis/trans/queer differences are relevant.
Cromulent: “To arrive a consensus about accommodation of gender diversity, the conversation must include cis and trans participants in a mutually respectful approach”
Unnecessary: “Class, say hello to your new teacher, Miss Hugelsnarfer, she’s a cis lady and a recent graduate from State U.”
Idiotic: “die, cis scum” (And while at it, whoever coined “die cis scum” ripped off “die yuppie scum” so they are uncreative on top of [insert descriptor that does not offend you but conveys my disapproval here])
“Cisgender” is an idiotic made up term, that is functionally meaningless to most people, and it if is an insult, it’s a meaningless one. Dragging it into a Meta discussion about “Idiot isn’t an insult if the person really is an idiot” would be a red herring.
Nice try, but the topic isn’t about made up terms.
Let’s use an example.
A person who doesn’t believe (insert almost anything you believe in) is a bigot. It’s not an insult, it’s just a simple fact of definition.
I shouldn’t get a warning for calling somebody a bigot, when they are a bigot.
If you can’t see why a Mod would deny you “the right” to call somebody names, then there is no reason to keep arguing this point.
Now describing why somebody is wrong, or why you view their words as wrong, that is certainly allowed, even encouraged. But to just use a label, or name calling, it results in a downward spiral of acrimony and bad feelings.
Except that definition of racist is not “made up”, it’s the standard definition we’ve worked with for generations.
Actually, it was made up pretty recently it seems, with the first usage attributed to Trotsky.
However, Ngram shows it used in 1922, here is the source.
Certainly Trotsky didn’t make up the word. It just doesn’t show up in literature much before that. Does it still mean what Trotsky used it to mean?
…which would mean it’s been used for generations, unless you’re talking land tortoises.
And no, a position I disagree with isn’t the definition of bigotry. I encourage you to explore various dictionary definitions of bigotry. As an aside, I think most dictionaries miss the most commonly used definition of bigotry, but I won’t wander down that garden path if others won’t :). Here, the dictionary definition of “racist” matches how it’s commonly used and will suffice for the conversation we’re having.
None of that changes the point. Is ‘bigot’, or ‘racial bigot’ an insult here or not?
Whether “bigot” is an insult isn’t something I’m prepared to go into at this point. “Racist” can be an insult if applied inaccurately, inasmuch as it claims someone holds socially unacceptable views. However, if a person explicitly claims to hold the views described under the definition of “racist,” it’s the only descriptive term that applies.
The insult, in other words, comes in claiming someone has those views. If the person has claimed that for themselves, using the word is no more insulting than the insult they’ve already given themselves by claiming those views.
As to the term “racist”, it wasn’t used as a descriptive, but the idea behind it dates clearly to the french writer Arthur de Gobineau , who clearly lays out the concept of a master race and racism in his work An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races
He states that the ‘white race’ is superior and that the Aryan branch of it in Northern Europe was the ‘Master Race’. You can read it online, so don’t take my word for it. So while in 1915 the term wasn’t yet being used, the ideas certainly were being discussed.
To call some body racist pretty much means you are claiming they believe as Hitler did, that Gobineau was right. Even if you are thinking of some other race, the idea of calling somebody “racist” almost always means “white person who thinks they are superior to everyone else”.