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To these people, the only thing that matters is the subjective "lived experience" of people who are not straight white men. I experienced this in a discussion
by icanhackit 11y ago
To these people, the only thing that matters is the subjective "lived experience" of people who are not straight white men.
I experienced this in a discussion several years ago with a young lesbian university student (I'm not trying to shoehorn a complex individual into a category - I'm merely adding context). She referred to me as "cis" meaning Cisgender or that my sexuality agrees with my gender. The way she used it was in the white-straight-guy sense of the term, which to translate further meant any perspective I held was probably tainted, unremarkable, and privileged. I was quite a bit older than her so that possibly added an extra layer of distrust.
Getting back to Cisgender, I'd never heard the term before that point but I thought it was fascinating: that by defining people by gender and sexuality it becomes a kind of matrix. You could define yourself as a gay male sexually while possessing the gender of a female. In effect you're in a straight relationship (female and male) but really it's more granular. I actually like the idea. At least by asking about gender-sexuality matrices I was able to turn the discussion into something a bit more positive with the student. But...yeah, in those situations just ask questions. Your perspective isn't welcome.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- drdeca 11y agoMy understanding of the topic isn't great, but I think a more common definition of "cisgender" would be something like, "with gender matching the 'sex' they were 'assigned at birth'". I don't think it's generally in terms of sexual attraction? I think "cisgender" is at least mostly (maybe completely?) synonymous with "not transgender". This is my understanding of the terminology, based mainly on tumblr posts probably.
- superuser2 11y agoYep. Cis is the opposite of trans. (From the Latin, and used that way in chemistry.)
- icanhackit 11y agoYou're right in that cisgender is gender matching the sex they were assigned at birth. I sort of went on a tangent without fleshing it out properly. I was interested in the idea of breaking apart sexuality and gender identity but it may have sounded like I was describing cisgender later in my rant (which I earlier described poorly - sexuality was the wrong term and made the definition totally incorrect). When I mentioned matrices I was trying to describe how you could identify, gender-wise, as a male yet have the physical sex of a female and sexually identify as a homosexual (attracted to other males), which results ultimately in a (physically) male and female relationship...which could then be defined as homosexual if the (physical) male were to accept the (physical) female as transgendered and for him to identify sexually as homosexual and male gender-wise. I was hoping to illustrate if you break apart gender identity, physical sex, and sexuality you can come up with combinations that are best explained in a matrix or grid (two dimensions) because linear descriptions can seem convoluted.