[Heart]

SA - there have been numerous ongoing discussions about why "cis" is experienced by some lesbians, butches, and women as erasing, and Chazz's use of "cisbutch" came out of a particular conversation and is used in a somewhat ironic sense, I believe.

Being cisgendered implies alignment with one's assigned gender, and while I was assigned "woman," and do not disagree with that assignment, being gendered as a woman is not a privilege in the context of patriarchy. That is the crux of the argument. Further, being assigned woman and being a lesbian and/or being visibly queer/butch further reduces the privilege of living as one's assigned gender of woman, adding homophobia to the misogyny/sexism that we live with every day.

Living as a woman (queer, straight, etc) is a risk, and the prefix "cis" can feel like it erases that reality by implying that if we are congruent with our gender, then all is well and we can sail forth without concern. That's pretty much a gross erasure of sexism and misogyny.

Chazz coined "cisbutch" as a means of indicating that she is NOT congruent with her assigned gender of "woman, in the sense of what "woman" is supposed to mean in a patriarchal culture. For that matter, I am also not congruent with what its supposed to mean to be a woman. But calling me a "ciswoman" erases that completely. If it were used in a very narrow sense of only comparing me to a woman of transgender experience, then it is accurate. But the fact is that much of the violence transwomen experience is rooted in the same sexism and misogyny that all women face. It feels to me that "cis" is used far more in the context of transmen who are not grappling so much with sexism/misogyny, but more with the boundary struggles they are having in women's communities.

Heart