What’s the Point of Cisgender Anyway
The opposite of trans is nontrans.
Nontrans puts trans at the center.
Non allows us to communicate with others. Cis confuses people.
Do we want to be right or have others understand us?
Do we want to create a strong insider/outsider distinction in our language?
Yes, using non can create the following phrase: She has non privilege.
But the scales tip in favor of non, I think, when we want to single out someone as particularly egregious example of a boor.
She is so non.
Non sounds decisive.
§ § §
Non can mean any of the following in English:
not of the kind or class described. “nonbeliever”
not of the importance implied. “Nonissue”
a lack of. “nonsense”
By stating Jane is non, we say that she is not of us, not important and lacks trans.
Chances are we don’t have to explain what non means to anyone, unless English is a second or third language for them.
Cis can mean any of the following in English
on this side of; on the side nearer to the speaker.”cisatlantic”
historical
on the side nearer to Rome.”cisalpine”
(of time) closer to the present.”cis-Elizabethan”
referring or relating to people whose sense of personal identity and gender corresponds with their birth sex.”cisgender” .
denoting molecules with cis arrangements of substituents.
By stating Jane is cis, we say that her sex and gender match, which is fine, except then we have these other possibilities.
Is Jane on the side of us?
Is Jane historical?
And we won’t even discuss the possibility that Jane might be a chemistry term.
Besides muddled language, how many people will quickly understand us when we say cisgender?
And after we explain it, how quickly can they mock cis?
Non is hard word to mock.
§ § §
Clarity remains a bedrock of change. I had the honor of volunteering to overturn an antigay ballot inititiatve in Ypsilanti MI in 1998. The co-chairs of the Ypsilanti Campaign for Equality talked with dozens of activists across the country, many of whom had failed in their towns and cities with similar campaigns.
In determining why they failed, the co-chairs realized language played an important role in ballot wins. The fight was for gay rights. Period. Not human rights or one human family. But gay rights.
Using this language, we defeated the homophobes not once, but twice.
I am not telling anyone what language to use to describe nontrans people. I am asking what we achieve by using an ambiguous term requiring explanation that then often leads to mockery.
Who really wins and who really loses?
