I see your point. I think where my brain was at was the use of trans or cis as applied by others, to others. Cause I've seen a heap of that, especially online. it's a very casual use of a descriptor. I've done it online, though I do make an effort to avoid it as much as possible. If someone self identifies, fab. But just like the "just me's" who ask what the name is for those who don't ID as butch or femme, because having a dichotamy infers only two choices - what is there for those who don't feel cissticks properly? Sometimes I am, sometimes I'm not. I personally don't think I'd fit into that - femme fits me because for me, it is it's own gender - therefore I can do anything with it and I don't need anything else.

I wouldn't want to remove terms from those who have a home in them. I'm quite attached to mine, so I know the feeling.

I guess I don't really have certain kinds of conversations any more in my flesh life, even though I hang out with mostly genderqueer people of various different shades than I ever did on the west coast. I wonder why that is. I never ask people how they define any more, I honestly don't care. However if they want to talk to me about it, I'm perfectly happy listening. I'm happy talking about all kinds of ID they have in regards to sexuality (pan, bi, lezz, heteroflexible wotever...) or gender, but I only really debate it much when I come *here* to this sight. Not that it's a bad thing, but slowly, it's getting more and more foreign, I think.

I dunno perhaps my brain just stalled about five years ago and the damp has set in.

You know, that's a good question. Why don't we have these conversations anymore? Is there a shift in what is considered important? Am I overlooking something? Have you evolved past wanting to pick apart these things? Is it okay that I am still knee deep in wanting to know why and how and throw myself into all the experiences I can because I want to know how it feels and how I can help? Will I some day be able to leave this crazy turmoil of having to defend my opinion?

I don't know the answers to these questions, and I thank you for inspiring me to take a closer look. Maybe I am getting too bogged down and failing to see the forest for the trees.

This is what I think happened....
 

Not that I actually know the history, but.....

I think it rolled just like it did with the terms transgender and transsexual.

People mean transsexual when they say transgender.

People mean cissexed when they say cisgender.

The difference is we have accepted that when someone says transgender they actually mean transsexual. When it comes to cissexed/cisgender, some people are still wanting to hold onto the actual definitions of the terms (and good for them!)

Personally, it still annoys the fuck out of me that people use the terms transsexual and transgender interchangeably. But, that's just me.

ETA: What I meant by the above. I think what has happened here in the past is that people have used the term cisgender when what they meant was cissexed. Folks who don't know what the term (cisgender) means looks it up. The reader becomes frustrated because what they read is that the term cisgender means a person who fits society's gender expectations in looks and behaviors. They cry foul b/c that doesn't fit for many here. As well they should. The speaker was referring to people who don't have gender dysphoria (cissexed). If the speaker had used the correct term to begin with (cissexed), all would be well.

Just my opinion as to what I have seen.

There's a bunch of interesting tangents going on in this thread. I'm going to try to tackle them one(ish) and time.

Perhaps the conversations aren't happening as much anymore because it feels like the terrain has gotten too complicated, the language so diverse and usage so idiosyncratic that it becomes difficult to even have a conversation that gets much beyond "This is what I mean by that term, what do you mean by it?" "I don't use that term anymore, I use this other one." So although these conversations are still possible, I think it's more challenging.

There may also be an element of been-there-done-that for some people. I'm a total wonk for this kind of stuff though, so I'm content to go there and do that again and again.

I do think there is still desire to have these conversations, as evidenced by the popularity of events like the Femme Con and the Butch Voices Conference. I just would like to see an organization that does not focus so much on a big once-a-year thing that winds up reaching only a tiny fraction of the community. I'm hoping Butch Nation will do things differently, and Jeanne Cordova indicated to me that she was going to take my butch org wish list to the BN planning committee, but given that they have already annouced a big national conference for next year, I'm inclined to think that it will be more of what we already have.


And ScandalAndy, maybe don't think of it as defending your opinion, so much as explaining it. All you have to do is try to be thorough in your thought processes, clear in your explanations, and be open to hearing other perspectives and rethinking things if need be. Now, if you are in a discussion with someone who is not entering it with similar intentions, then a different strategy might be called for. But even that would be about protecting yourself rather than defending your opinions, per se.

Honeybarbara, I totally know what you mean about feeling like the brain has been in mothballs for awhile. A couple months ago, I was looking through old threads on "dash" and I found myself thinking, among other things, "Cripes, I used to be so smart. What happened?"

I've tried. Most of the queer folks I know (1) don't really ID with the queer community as a whole, or (2) seem to have moved past it. But then again, I don't really have a queer circle of friends here, and the last time we had a discussion about it, we were all three sheets to the wind and it was about 3 am.

I tried bringing it up with my ex, but conversations like this bored her. She knew who she was, was happy with it, end of story. She wasn't interested in theory (and she also thought she wasn't smart enough to talk about it in detail) -- she, to quote her, was "just living (her) life the only way (she) knew how."

I miss discussions like this.

Before we break out the stone tablets and enshrine what Wikipedia offers up as the definitions, let's acknowledge that these are not "official" definitions and may or may not reflect actual usage all that well.

But what I am really interested in is, if possible, stepping back from these words as identities and trying to nail down exactly what work we want this language to accomplish and then seeing how close or far it is from accomplishing that. Because I think this language was essentially rushed out into common and academic usage while it was still in the beta-testing stage and not all of the bugs had been worked out yet. Basically, it's a linguistic Windows Vista.

I realized though that this thread is probably not the place for that, so I'll poke around in the other forums looking for a suitable home.

Yes, people should have the right to free thoughts and enjoy there life the way they want it to live. You can't bar someone's freedom unless you have good reasons to do so. Lesbians have nothing against other innocent people, they just want to be lesbians, so let them be lesbians.

You don't have to do the dividing, use of the term "CIS" does it nicely.

As to: "There is, to me, trans, cis, and everything in between, including transmasculine, transfeminine, genderqueer"....

Those terms - except for "CIS" - are not the terms I have difficulty with. People are free to label themselves - I'm free to buy into those labels or not. It's one thing to label oneself, it's another thing entirely to label others as in the case of "CIS".

Where it gets offensive for me is when people start hijacking other people's identities - identities that are at once personal and political - and redefining them, and doing so for reasons that have not, yet, been fully examined or parsed.

I've knocked around LGBTQ communities for a long time, it seems that not all identities are afforded equal protection under queer theory. Can you imagine if I started claiming to be a WOC when, in fact, I'm the recipient of unearned white privilege?

This "CIS" business, among other things, is divisive and in some cases, an intentional attempt at obfuscation. Claiming that "CIS" and other queer neologisms are attempts at deconstructing the gender binary are convenient justifications, except that they don't remotely do that. Such terms only have meaning within a gendered culture, particularly, CERTAIN quarters of the LGBTQ community. The overwhelming majority of the human race could give a rat's derrière about how "we" label ourselves, or to what extent some of us are marginalized and invisiblized. Patriarchy is chuckling somewhere over this.


ScandalAndy, you are at liberty to define yourself anyway you wish. It's when you presume to label others or redefine the meaning of their labels that it gets offensive.

If this is the first time anyone has heard that the use of the term "CIS" as offensive to many, many lesbians, color me amazed.


Most lesbians don't use the definition of "woman" as defined by the patriarchy".

When referring to lesbians, how about using the definitions most lesbians prefer? As in, "lesbian", "femme", "butch" and leaving it at that....

Because it needs to be excavated.... There is a clear bias inculcated in your above statement, ScandalAndy.... There's also an implied hierarchy of "gender introspection".... Many straight women - not to mention lesbians - do heaps of "gender introspection". Being heterosexual or lesbian does NOT automatically confer gender mindlessness or the absence of gender introspection. ALSO, there is a difference between self-preoccupation and introspection. Patriarchy keeps people preoccupied with gender - it makes of us, gender consumers.


I don't think you "intended" to be offensive. I think the presumptions about gender evinced by gender theory - which are creeping into many people's lexicon and consciousness - are offensive. They have depoliticized, hyper-personalized and reauthorized gender constructs.

"In the act of performing the conventions of reality, by embodying those fictions in our actions, we make those artificial conventions appear to be natural and necessary. By enacting conventions [even with a twist], we do make them "real" to some extent (after all, our ideologies have "real" consequences for people) but that does not make them any less artificial...." - Dino Felluga


Oh, please.... Just because I don't have the time or the inclination to launch into a lengthy explanation of my understanding of I-politics doesn't mean you're being dismissed. This is a dynamic conversation, I'm trying to stay abreast. My understanding of I-politics is folded into my comments.


I don't report posts. I respond to them, or not....


You don't have to do the dividing, use of the term "CIS" does it for you.

As to: "There is, to me, trans, cis, and everything in between, including transmasculine, transfeminine, genderqueer"....

Those terms - except for "CIS" - are not the terms I have difficulty with. People are free to label themselves - I'm free to buy into those labels or not. It's one thing to label oneself, it's another thing entirely to label others as in the case of "CIS".

Where it gets offensive for me is when people start hijacking other people's identities - identities that are at once personal and political - and redefining them, and doing so for reasons that have not, yet, been fully examined or parsed.

I've knocked around LGBTQ communities for a long time, it seems that not all identities are afforded equal protection under queer theory. Can you imagine if I started claiming to be a WOC when I'm not? This "CIS" business, among other things, is divisive and an intentional attempt at obfuscation. Claiming that "CIS" and other queer neologisms are attempts at deconstructing the gender binary are convenient justifications, except that they don't remotely do that. Such terms only have meaning within a gendered culture, particularly, CERTAIN quarters of the LGBTQ community. The overwhelming majority of the human race could give a rat's derrière how "we" label ourselves, or to what extent some of us are marginalized and invisiblized. Patriarchy is chuckling somewhere because of this.


ScandalAndy, you are at liberty to define yourself anyway you wish. It's when you presume to label others or redefine the meaning of their labels that it gets offensive.

If this is the first time anyone has heard that the use of the term "CIS" as offensive to many, many lesbians, color me amazed.


Most lesbians don't use the definition of "woman" as defined by the patriarchy".

When referring to lesbians, how about using the definitions most lesbians prefer? As in, "lesbian", "femme", "butch" and leaving it at that....

Because it needs to be excavated.... There is a clear bias inculcated in your above statement, ScandalAndy.... There's also an implied hierarchy of "gender introspection".... Many straight women - not to mention lesbians - do heaps of "gender introspection". Being heterosexual or lesbian does NOT automatically confer gender mindlessness or the absence of gender introspection. ALSO, there is a difference between self-preoccupation and introspection. Patriarchy keeps people preoccupied with gender. I think of this as gender consumerism.



I don't think you "intended" to be offensive. I think the presumptions about gender evinced by gender theory - which are creeping into many people's lexicon and consciousness - are offensive. They have depoliticized, hyper-personalized and reauthorized gender constructs.

"In the act of performing the conventions of reality, by embodying those fictions in our actions, we make those artificial conventions appear to be natural and necessary. By enacting conventions [even with a twist], we do make them "real" to some extent (after all, our ideologies have "real" consequences for people) but that does not make them any less artificial...." - Dino Felluga


Oh, please.... Just because I don't have the time or the inclination to launch into a lengthy explanation about my understanding of I-politics doesn't mean you're being dismissed. This is a dynamic conversation, I'm trying to stay abreast. My understanding of I-politics is folded into my comments.

I don't report posts. I respond to them, or not.

I'll leave you to your molecules and, instead, say: When I see terms like "CIS" or "trans", I see people, not molecules. But then, I'm a scientist, too, but of a different order (Human Services). I spend 60+ hours a week trying to disavow teenage girls of their misbegotten notions of gender. Notions that are contributing to their being exploited, abused, impregnanted and infected with STDs and HIV. Notions that keep them depressed and abusing their bodies ("cutting", eating disorders, substance abuse, etc.). Their modern day hero(in)es keep them gender, self-preoccupied, too; it's often fatal. It doesn't matter which gender construct or deconstruct one buys into, it still keeps the myth of gender constructs alive. We're all gender consumers under patriarchy. Reinterpreting gender and performing it with a twist, doesn't eradicate gender constructs - it simply re-envisages constructs.

Lesbians/women like me, who's life's work it is to keep young women from being systematically (systemically?) murdered by gender constructs, find the self-preoccupation with labels and gender identity maddening.

Here's a thought.... How about dropping the concept of gender altogether? Constructed or deconstructed, it's still all about gender.... Everyone is a gender consumer under patriarchy. There's no escaping it. Reinterpreting gender and performing it with a twist, doesn't eradicate gender constructs. The myth of gender has to go.

How about jettisoning the concept of gender entirely? I know, it's a lot to get ones brain around. Patriarchy is counting on that.

The leap to meaningless is, well, quite a leap.... But no, it doesn't render anything meaningless. It does render it open to discussion.

Different ideas about identity politics and how they work are good, that is, until they don't work for everyone.

I already responded to my being "dismissive" of ScandalAndy in a prior post.

The utility of the term "CIS" doesn't serve lesbian women. In this thread about lesbian pride, I'm arguing for those it doesn't serve - lesbians.


I didn't think you were "suggesting that lesbians or women had created it".

Yeah, I know....

I agree that trans identity politics "intersects and interacts" with sexism differently than other oppressions. In fact, I'm arguing that very point in my way.

What gets overlooked in most identity politics, especially when ally-ship is expected (demanded?) of other groups, is the need for excavation.

Not all identity "conceptual structures" carry equally well. Especially, when they dilute another groups identity politics and/or carry forward the seeds of the system's oppression they presume to challenge. The sexism within the Black Panther Movement by luminaries like Carmichael, Cleaver, Newton and most recently Malik Zulu Shabazz is well documented. And then, there's the lesbianphobia, racism and class privilege of many 2nd Wave Feminists to consider.

A claim to oppression even when valid, does not ensure an absence of horizontal oppression.


Someday, perhaps, some linguistic wizard will clarify how "tone" is conveyed in posts and text messages. Until then, I'll consider "tone" a feature of perception based in unanimity of thought.

It's just been pointed out to me that not everyone is familiar with certain terms and concepts. Thank you to the person who graciously pointed this out to me without jumping to the conclusion that I'm being "dismissive".

It's difficult to have discussions of complex issues that require years of accumulated knowledge, lived experience and herstory.

It's not possible for me to always qualify what I'm saying for a number of reasons. I IMAGINE this is how POC feel while having discussions about racism and white privilege. They can't always set aside what they are doing in a conversation to impart their meanings, perspectives and accumulated information to others.

Thanks to the person who gave me the heads up.

"What is required for the hegemony of heteronormative [patriarchal] standards to maintain power is our continual repetition of such gender acts in the most mundane of daily activities (the way we walk, talk, gesticulate, etc.).... That style [of gender performance] has no relation to essential "truths" about the body but is strictly ideological. It has a history that exists beyond the subject who enacts those conventions...." Dino Felluga

hijacking identities? Identity is established by the individual. I'm not telling anyone who they are or who they aren't.

Are my thoughts less important because I haven't been in the community as long?



Well since I said it was surprising to me, feel free to get out the markers and color yourself amazed. This was the first time I have come across the term being offensive.



I beg to differ. There may be clear bias to you, but that bias is not clear to me. I don't believe anyone strives to be biased.


So because I learned that particular brand of gender theory, I am unintentionally offensive because gender theory is presumptive. I have no idea what to make of this, but you are entitled to your opinon.





I find it contradictory indeed to say "you're not being dismissed, i just don't have time and don't care, you should be able to figure it out from my comments" when I made a distinct point of telling you that was how i was feeling. Conversely, you have every right to not give a rat's derriere about how I feel. My emotions are my responsibility.


This is a repeat, so I'll just leave it at that.




I refuse to be drawn into the oppression olympics with you. This whole statement smacks of "holier than thou" and is positively infuriating to me.



These two statements are redundant but you have a point. The concept of eliminating gender is the only thing I will take from this so-called conversation.


I find your tone and responses to be ageist and dismissive, and it is clear to me that you and I are unable to have a productive dialogue on this subject. You are clearly quite intelligent and I'm sure will continue to contribute to the threads in productive ways. With that in mind, I wish you all the best and hope that you and I can limit our interaction regarding this subject in particular to discussions about the weather.

SA,
It's been my experience that most people who use the term 'cis' are very surprised to learn that someone finds it offensive. Like you, they've learned that it's a way to acknowledge the struggles that trans people face, and the alleged lack of similar struggles that people who have never been trans supposedly get to avoid. We've spent quite a bit of time discussing the real problems such a term brings up, (Heart, will you run for President?), and the way some of us have felt ambushed by the rapid, community-wide adoption of this term that feels quite erasing to us. We didn't get to consent to this. To complete the erasure, many of us who object to the term have been repeatedly silenced by others who tell us that makes us transphobes. No wonder you haven't heard anything about 'cis' being offensive thus far. The power of being labeled a transphobe is so great that it took the establishment of a lesbian zone on a website catering to butch/femme people, the vast majority of whom ID as women who partner with women, for us to feel safe enough to have a discussion about the offensiveness of 'cis'.

Like most of us here, I would like to get back to the important topic of lesbian pride. As it has in many other parts of our community, arguments about trans inclusion have diverted us. We can't seem to keep from letting those arguments divert our attention in this thread any better than we can in the lesbian community at large, or so I perceive it.

Like many, I deeply resent that feminist thought, which I hold as my touchstone, has been dismissed and derided in favour of gender theory in academic circles. That brings me to the second of your statements which I quoted. This is the very crux of the problem I perceive with current gender theory getting in the way of my lesbian pride. I understand that this statement about eliminating gender came up in the context of an acrimonious argument between you and Chazz, but it's telling.

My understanding of gender theory is that it seeks to undermine binary gender by simply declaring that there is no such thing. The world isn't made up of women and men, the world is made up of millions of beings of indeterminate gender. Those beings should be allowed to declare whatever gender they understand themselves to be at any point in their lives, or not, and that designation may change many times over their lives. Current gender theory holds that it's inherently oppressive to name a baby's gender based on her or his genitalia and chromosomal make-up, and that birth designation should no longer be practiced. There, now. We've eliminated gender.

I'll admit that it's an interesting intellectual exercise, to a point. Then the Emperor's New Clothes moment happens and I laugh my head off. SA, I understand that gender theory is your field of study and that you're attached to complex ideas that I've just reduced to very broad brush strokes. Please don't imagine that I'm dismissing you for any reason, especially not for your age. You're clearly sincere. So am I.

I live in a world where that intellectual exercise of pretending that there's no such thing as gender erases the real struggles of actual oppressed people. Those people are called women, and when gender theory is discarded for the next hot theory in future academic circles, women will still be oppressed, raped, sold, disrespected and, at best, paid less than men. In my world, the work of stopping rape and sexual slavery, domestic violence and the systemic oppression of half the world's population, has been accomplished by feminists devoted to the betterment of the condition of all women. That feminist model of universal empowerment is my personal model.

What does all this have to do with stepping on my lesbian pride? My definition of a lesbian is a woman who partners romantically and sexually with women. If there's no such thing as gender, and 'woman' is a suspect societal construct, where do lesbians fit in? If 'woman' is a suspect societal construct, what happens to women's space? To make the argument stone simple, if you strive to eliminate gender, you strive to eliminate lesbian identity.

Cheryl, thank you for brilliantly verbalizing what I have been unable to state, and even if I had attempted; would not have done so articulately and eloquently.

Bravo Cheryl, Bravo.

I didn't continue to engage in this thread because I have little heart and energy left. But SA, you directed a post to me earlier and I'm sorry I didn't respond. At some point it gets repetitive. That's not meant as a dismissal, it's just self-preservation. I'm sorry to see you personalize what Chazz is saying because regardless of the tone, it hits many crucial notes.

What you individually mean with the use of the term "cis," is not the issue. I'm sure you don't hold with something as reductive as "appropriate gender behavior." The point is that in breaking down gender binaries/identities conceptually and theoretically, much of gender theory seems to minimize the impact of institutionalized patriarchy/misogyny. Feminism is the movement that addressed not only oppressive concepts, but also oppressive institutions. Which is why it's so important, IMO, for gender/queer theory to be fully grounded in feminism.

Your description of what trans men and women may experience via gender dysphoria combined with misogyny and violence is poignant, and actually reinforces my point about the importance of under-girding gender/queer/trans theory with feminism, but it strikes me that you are the one creating an oppression olympics by implying that transfolks somehow experience the pinnacle of oppression. Maybe, maybe not. How would you compare the experiences of a white transman with a lesbian of color? Not that we should compare, but do you see my point?

I get that cutting edge scholarship is about multiple gender presentations and identities being recognized and I think that's valid, I just wish it had not been so separated from feminist theory. I don't disagree that an individual has the right to choose their label, (one of the central tenets of gender theory), but asserting that continues to miss the point (that I think I tried to make) of what a privileged position it is to self-label. Why am I saying that? Not to dismiss self-identity, but to remember that the extraordinary majority of women do not have that option, in fact do not have any options with regard to any kind of self-actualization, including who or if they will marry, and whether or not they will control their own reproduction.

Until that changes, gender theory has a whiff of privilege that makes it suspect to me. For me, activism needs to be directed at the institutional subjugation of women as a group. I just can't get too excited about parsing gender identity while millions of women, regardless of their self-identity, are being sold, raped, enslaved, and murdered.

Heart

Cheryl,

A couple of thoughts. First I would like to point out that it was Chazz and not ScandalAndy who argued that all genders are constructs of the patriarchy, are therefore invalid, and should be eliminated. In your remarks, you seem to be speaking as though this argument came from SA. I apologize if I am misreading you.

I wonder though, why you don't think it would work to talk about sexism in terms of sex instead of gender. In your paragraph about feminism why couldn't 'woman' be replaced with 'female'? What do you think would be lost? Same for your definition of lesbian. I'm not arguing, as Chazz did, that genders are inherently bogus. I'm just curious why you think, in this particular context, making the same points with respect to sex instead of gender does not work.

I'm puzzled about your first question since I don't think I suggested that SA made any specific arguments about gender constructs with which I disagree. Was I unclear? I freely admit that I deliberatively made some reductive statements about gender theory for the sake of brevity. I connected those to SA because her field of study was gender theory.

As for the difference between woman and female, I don't usually make that distinction in my own life. Neither do rapists, violent criminals, sex traffickers, or people in positions to hire or negotiate salaries. Sure, go ahead and replace 'woman' with 'female'. What does that do for you?

I may be wrong, but isn't the definition of "woman" adult female? Girl= juvenile/ non-adult female?

I am more confused than ever.

Woman does equal an adult female. Is this really in question now?

Honestly....

Well one thing it does for me is allow for the possibility of females having a gender other than woman. And I wasn't really arguing for one nomeclature or the other. I was just uncertain why you thought, for instance, that the lesbian identity couldn't exist just fine without gender (by using a sex instead). I'm not arguing for the elimination of genders, I just couldn't see what you felt would be lost in those specific circumstances and wondered what I was missing.

As for the other part, I misunderstood you. You were addressing SA, but arguing against a position put forth explicitly by Chazz and I simply misunderstood your intent.