OK, it’s in the Oxford English Dictionary – but do you know what ‘cis’ means?
|
Version 0 of 1. Are you a man or a woman? Have you always felt like one of the two? Do other people generally tend to agree with you on this point and, if so, was this always the case? If the answer is yes to all three of these questions, congratulations, you’re cisgender. Lucky you. Not that I’m saying your life has been a bed of roses or anything, but unless you were “born in the wrong body” – to indulge in a hideous cliche – and have had to convince your friends, family and colleagues that you are who you say you are in the man and woman stakes, you are as cisgender as I am transgender. The Oxford English Dictionary has added “cisgender” to its compendium of recognised words. Cisgender is officially a thing. As is “hot mess”, and twerking, which also gets a nod from the academics that decide such things at Oxford University Press – people I’d pay good money to see twerking, by the way. Related: It's all a bit meh as twerking thrusts its way into Oxford English Dictionary Having a word to describe people who are not trans is, of course, quite a useful thing. But I’m not a huge fan of cisgender, or its related terms, “cissexual” or simple “cis”, because it doesn’t pass what I call “the hair salon test”. If I can’t say a word to my hairdresser and expect to be understood, it’s not, in my view, a good word. Cisgender smacks too much of esoteric gender theory to me; all very well if you get a kick out of discussing the minutiae of identity politics all day, but I’d rather talk about important stuff. Like lipstick. I tend to use “non-trans” in my writing, simply because it is clearer to your average reader and the primary purpose of my activism is to spread the message that trans people deserve love, respect and decent healthcare to as many people as possible. This is a pragmatic approach – if cis gains wider currency, I’d be happy to use it more. You could argue that its inclusion in the Oxford English Dictionary is evidence that the use of cis has become mainstream. Hardly. Put it in, by all means, but I’d rather use words that don’t need to be looked up in dictionaries because they’re already firmly embedded in the vocabulary of your average Joe, Josie or gender-neutral J. People often ask me why I use “problematic” terms like “born male” to describe my situation. The answer is because everyone understands what it means. It’s the most efficient way to express meaning. It’s shorthand. It may not be perfect, but people get it. But cis does have its uses. It demonstrates, for example, that we all have a gender identity, much in the same way that terms like “heterosexual’, “bisexual” and “homosexual” make clear that everyone has a sexual preference. I’m sure many people would like to think of themselves as plain old “normal”, and would be quite happy to continue marking out transgender people as “other”, but the days when you could get away with that are fast disappearing. Another term from the trans community that we could take for the wider lexicon is “gender non-conforming”, which describes anyone who doesn’t quite fit into generally agreed expectations of gender. So it would be perfectly possible, for example, to be both cisgender and gender non-conforming. Confused? Nobody is saying that you have to be a certain type of man or woman to be classed as cisgender – you could be a cross-dresser or a butch lesbian and still be cis. The important distinction is that you are cis if you identify yourself as a man or a woman and your genitals have backed up this position from the day you were born. It isn’t black and white, and there’s a danger of setting up a new binary between ‘transgender' and ‘cisgender' Of course it isn’t black and white, and there’s a danger of setting up a new binary between “transgender” and “cisgender”, which overlooks a growing body of people who identify outside traditional western gender categories. When Facebook changed its settings last summer to allow users to choose from a variety of new gender identities, many people were introduced to terms like “genderqueer”, “androgyne” and “non-binary” – terms that previously had little traction outside the blogosphere. Well, bring it on, I say. Add as many fine gradations as people want. Do away with gender altogether for all I care – I’d be quite happy to identify as “hot mess” in this post-gender utopia and leave it at that. But the fact is that, in the world today, the overwhelming majority of people identify as either men or women, so expect the idea of cis and trans to be around for a little while longer. By anybody’s standards, western civilisation is in a state of transition at the moment in terms of how we think about gender and, in particular, transgender people. Language is part of that change. Caitlyn Jenner’s Vanity Fair cover is another. Janet Mock’s New York Times bestseller Redefining Realness is another. Laverne Cox in Orange Is the New Black is another. The list goes on and on. I welcome the inclusion of cisgender into the OED, but it’s just one of many small steps in a global rush towards greater awareness, understanding and acceptance. |