A Point About Cis:
Cis is not targeted at gay white men, nor is it targeted at feminist women, nor is it targeted at any one particular demographic. Cis people are everywhere. At the most liberal interpretation (highest number of trans people, plus genderqueer and intersex people) I’m aware of, cis people make up ~480-495 out of every 500 people on Earth.
Cis is not an insult, it’s not a slur. It is, however, as much of an identity as trans is, even if most cis people never stop to think about the fact that they’re cis, that they just assume that being what they are (“I’m just a person, I’m not cis/white/het/able-bodied!”) is the normal way to be.
Being cis doesn’t make anyone a bad person. Having privilege doesn’t make anyone a bad person. When you sit back and you think “that person who’s calling me cis is saying I have privilege and thus I AM A TERRIBLE PERSON” consider that the trans person who says that may be white, heterosexual, middle-class, able-bodied, or otherwise privileged. That trans person who says that may even have come to terms with hir own privileges, and does not take it personally when her privilege is pointed out to her.
And what does this privilege really mean? It means several things. Having privilege means is that it’s something you don’t have to think about. As far as you’re concerned, culture is designed to accommodate you in this particular way, treat you as if you’re normal, the human default with regards to gender identity (if you’re a male and identify yourself as a man, or you’re a female and identify yourself as a woman). You don’t have to think about your gender identity because everyone considers it natural. People may consider how you do gender to be wrong, but they don’t question whether you are a man or a woman. They may think that a man attracted to men or a woman attracted to women is doing gender wrong because you’re not heterosexual, but that is homophobia, and is not the same thing that trans people experience. I say this as a trans woman who is also a lesbian.
Transphobia is when I’m told that I’m not really a woman at all, that I’m supposed to be a man. Transphobia is when someone decides I must really be a gay man because I transitioned, despite the fact that I’m attracted to women. Many many many cis gay men and lesbian women make this mistake – I really love it when a cis gay man starts loudly complaining about how trans people are just giving into heteronormativity by transitioning, as if all trans women are really cis gay men who want to naturalize their attraction to men as heterosexual, or all trans men are really cis lesbian women who want to naturalize their attraction to women as heterosexual. And at least acknowledge any genderqueer people, who may identify as both man and woman, or neither, or as in-between, or whose identification may shift. And acknowledge trans people who don’t transition and express their gender in other ways.
Transphobia was when I had an ID card that claimed I was male, even while living as a woman, because surgery is required to change your documentation in many states. Transphobia is when I had to out myself every time I applied for a job, purchased alcohol, or entered a night club. Transphobia is when I go to the emergency room, and once it comes out that I’m trans, regardless of the state I’m in, the conversation is not about why I’m in the ER, but what my genitalia looks like.
Being cis means not dealing with those things on a systematic basis. You may deal with similar things, and you may occasionally deal with some of those things. I know more than a few butch lesbian women who have been asked to leave or even forced out of women’s restrooms, but at the same time, I don’t know any who were asked – as I was – to use a restroom two blocks away when I was attending a business school because they felt I was too dangerous to allow in a restroom with cis women.
And when someone (cis or trans) talks about bigoted cis people, just because you’re cis, does not mean that it’s about you. Not all cis people wallow in anti-trans bigotry to the degree that John Aravosis does. Just because society is built to accommodate you and exclude me in one particular does not mean that every reference I make to the group you belong to is actually specifically about you. If you don’t think it’s about you, and you’re not being called out, don’t take it personally.
This is what’s wrong with the conversation that went down on Pam’s House Blend, and is still going down there now – that so many people are making the fact that transphobic cis people exist into an attack upon them. And by doing so, they end up saying and doing things that fulfills the label they’re trying to reject – the cis person who says bigoted things about trans people. Congratulations. Now, do the easy thing, and stop making it about you. Stop taking rightful criticisms directed at John Aravosis personally. You didn’t make him say those things, and if you don’t agree with them, why are you getting defensive when someone refers to John and his supports as transphobic cis men?
Why does this even need to be explained?
I almost forgot to add – read this post about the need for cis terminology.
Carto,
Just cause I like sticking my neck out on the chopping block, wouldn’t it be fair to say that plenty of (for lack of a better term) gender variant cis women are attacked for similar reasons as transphobia? Restroom issues with butch women comes to the top of my mind rather quickly.
Amanda in the South Bay
July 8, 2009 at 8:55 am
I hope my comments didn’t come off sounding like I thought Rachel was in some way appropriating. I just wanted to point to some personal stuff that could explain why/how misunderstanding in this vein can happen.
rioTgirl
July 8, 2009 at 9:11 am
I don’t think that’s the case at all. I don’t think Voz did either, although she said she wanted to head the possibility off at the pass, which I can sympathize with. I just wanted to add that I don’t believe Rachel would go there.
Lisa Harney
July 8, 2009 at 9:17 am
@Amanda: Well, yes: my experiences of transphobia have been mostly either about my one time rather genderqueer looks, or about my past – i.e. about me not being cis, but the past had to be divulged in some way (medical records, in case y’all are interested). It wasn’t about my identity, it was definitely either about my looks or about my transness: gendering me as trans was something other people did and then went on to behave badly.
So yeah, I do think the crap butch women or feminine gay men get is very much related to transphobia, if not transphobia itself.
Carto
July 8, 2009 at 9:18 am
Thanks, Lisa.
And just to clarify, I don’t equate the pressures put on a genderqueer or otherwise non-gender-conforming cissexual person with the experiences of a trans person. And that was never my intention. And I have owned my cis privilege in this thread and others. Repeatedly.
But I do think that, just as it’s helpful and relevant at times to differentiate transsexual from transgender, it’s also useful to differentiate cissexual from cisgender, since there are varying combinations of these that have a big impact on how a person is situated in our heteronormative cultural landscape. And my point was just that this is another way that cis terminology is an incredibly useful tool, in addition to it’s non-othering nature.
Rachel_in_WY
July 8, 2009 at 10:08 am
@rioTgirl: I understand how those misunderstandings develop. But if our experiences as genderqueer, gender variant or having shifting or unknown identities are so much different in terms of the kinds and types of privilege we experience, perhaps we shouldn’t be supported in the same spaces and the same conversations.
To me, there is a pretty significant conflict between including all those identities as trans*, and the lines in the sand being drawn here.
CBrachyrhynchos
July 8, 2009 at 12:18 pm
I am definately trans first before I am genderqueer female. Mostly because I have next to zero trust for the cis dominated queer female community.
And even if I think I’m gonna take some “not trans enough” shit from femme trans women, I know that in the end of the day trans females will stick together out of necessity if nothing else.
Estrobutch
July 8, 2009 at 4:45 pm
[...] July 4, Lisa posted A Point about Cis, reiterating that Cis is not an insult, it’s not a slur. It is, however, as much of an identity [...]
The Thang Blog » Are we really doing this again? (OR: The Great Trans Blogging Shakeup of 2009, pt 2)
July 11, 2009 at 11:54 pm
[...] Continuing discussion on Questioning Transphobia – http://questioningtransphobia.wordpress.com/2009/07/04/a-point-about-cis/ Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)Trans Men and Ciscentric Male PrivilegeWhat gets [...]
Resources on cisgender, cissexual and cis privilege « Living My Life
July 13, 2009 at 9:20 am
I know that in the end of the day trans females will stick together out of necessity if nothing else.
I hope so. It’s so easy for trans female’s concerns to be sidelined by more privileged women’s concerns or by a total misunderstanding of intersectionality. This happened on both sides with NOWHC, and so many other places.
It is a constant danger which I am hyperattuned to by long, bitter experience.
Also, what CBrachyrhynchos said. I think that question needs to be explored at length. I really do.
voz
July 13, 2009 at 1:07 pm
CBrachyrhynchos -
We as a community do need to have some discussions about levels of priv. and types of oppressions – but I’d almost fear some sort of oppression olympics dynamic happening. Or even worse, a Trans-er Than Thou” kinda thing.
If we could talk about this in a meaningful way without the need for hierarchies I’d be all over it. Having some passing ID from “sissy” to (trying to be) HomoQueer-straight-acting-yet out, to big femme queen, to finally trans-whateverthehelliendedup. I would actually appreciate this type of discussion and see how cis-priv plays out for all of us under the TG umberella..ella..ella
rioTgirl
July 13, 2009 at 5:37 pm
resurrecting a ten-day-old sentence of voz’s:
i’m not sure if “privilege” is the best possible word for that. let’s see if i can explain…
“privilege”, to me, brings connotations of some extra goodies over and above the baseline that everybody else gets; of added benefits received by people who haven’t earned or deserved them. but that privilege which blinds its recipients to its existence, i think, isn’t quite that.
“cis privilege”, or “white/male privilege” — in this sense of blinding its recipients, at least — seems to me more like what ought to be the baseline level of respect and consideration which every human ought to get, but which some groups are unjustly denied. i think, if i’m right about that, that it’s no wonder folks are blind to receiving what they (just like everybody else!) should receive. it’s shame on us (yeah, white cismale speaking) for failing to notice some others are unfairly denied it, but perhaps not quite so much for failing to notice we ourselves aren’t denied it.
still, “privilege” is the word we’ve got for that condition, and even if it doesn’t quite fit we might have to live with it. language isn’t perfect, i guess.
but then there’s cis privilege in the sense of taking “cissexual” as an insult, and that doesn’t (i don’t think, anyway) fit this pattern any longer. believing one’s own experience is and ought to be so normative that merely giving it a name is to denigrate it… that’s petty and egocentric, and i can’t quite understand that mindset.
Nomen Nescio
July 14, 2009 at 9:03 am
Thank you for writing this. It helped me a lot. =)
Willows
August 30, 2009 at 2:30 pm
[...] to get some of those thoughts down here. Particularly with all of the discussion that’s been happening lately in blogs and on Twitter about the topic. (links so not in chronological order, [...]
Why I use “cis” « Bi-Furious!
November 20, 2009 at 6:12 pm