Why we say cisgender

Rather than respond to a specific troll who thinks cisgender is a slur, here’s an explanation on why cisgender has become the label for people who are not trans.

I’ve heard it said, “If you think cis is a slur, it’s because you think trans is a slur.” It’s people’s stigma against transness that makes them think cisgender must be bad.

But it’s a descriptive label for a category that didn’t have a label. In language, the default category often goes unlabeled, or gets the privileged label.

This goes for a lot of non-human things, like deep/shallow. When we ask, “How deep is the lake?” that lake can be deep or shallow. But if we ask, “How shallow is it?” it’s a question of how shallow. Deep is not an option expected in that question.

In this example, deep is the default for the dichotomy deep/shallow.  Similarly with tall for tall/short, heavy for heavy/light, expensive for expensive/cheap, old for old/young.

When talking about humans, this language really matters. Think about when all texts let “he” and “man” and “mankind” be the default. They claimed it included everyone, but when you come down to it, they really meant just men. Feminists pushed back, and rightly so, and language has changed.

We’ve been in a transformation where we are pushing these boundaries and saying “Who does this language include? Who does this language exclude? Who does this language render invisible?”

 When reading a book, and the text says, “a person walked down the street,” who we assume that person is? Male, white, non-Hispanic, straight, able-bodied, average height?  In our racist, ableist, etc. society, to be anything different, we would have labeled it as such: e.g., a woman, short, Latinx, Black, gay, in a wheelchair.

In our society, “person,” when unlabeled, defaults to the privileged categories.

It’s not just women speaking up about it now, it’s also neurodivergent people, disabled people, racial/ethnic minorities, Deaf people, etc, etc.

Who do you really mean when you say x?

Thus, language is changing to label the “default” category, too, so that not only the minority group gets a label (trans person, disabled person, Black person).  Everyone should get a label. It upends the privilege of the default.

Saying there are “women” and “people” isn’t fair; that makes women not people, which is of course ridiculous.

(Yet how many times have you seen “women and minorities,” as if half of those minorities are not women, too?)

Similarly, saying there are “trans people” and then there are “people” isn’t fair or accurate. That makes trans people not people, but of course trans people are people.

So how do we talk about those people who aren’t trans other than saying “non-trans,” which labels you by what you are not?

Or “normal” or “regular” people, which is stigmatizing by implying that trans people aren’t normal or regular, when we are?

Hence the term cisgender. It labels the unlabeled. 

Trans = across, on the other side.

Cis = on this side.

Both are Latin, and used in chemistry.

Labeling non-trans people “cisgender” is analogous to naming white people white, instead of just “people.” You can be cis without identifying as cis, or embracing the label of cis, just as I can be white without embracing the label of whiteness. But the fact is, I am white and that brings me certain unearned privileges in life.

So, too, does being cisgender.

This does not erase other categories; it does not erase womanhood, or the category of woman. It’s a different construct, in which some women are cis and some are trans. You can talk about women, but if you really mean those women who are not trans, then saying cisgender women is simply accurate.

If woman, man, and nonbinary are gender identities, trans and cis are gender modalities.