A Point About Cis:
Cis is not targeted at gay white men, nor is it targeted at feminist women, nor is it targeted at any one particular demographic. Cis people are everywhere. At the most liberal interpretation (highest number of trans people, plus genderqueer and intersex people) I’m aware of, cis people make up ~480-495 out of every 500 people on Earth.
Cis is not an insult, it’s not a slur. It is, however, as much of an identity as trans is, even if most cis people never stop to think about the fact that they’re cis, that they just assume that being what they are (“I’m just a person, I’m not cis/white/het/able-bodied!”) is the normal way to be.
Being cis doesn’t make anyone a bad person. Having privilege doesn’t make anyone a bad person. When you sit back and you think “that person who’s calling me cis is saying I have privilege and thus I AM A TERRIBLE PERSON” consider that the trans person who says that may be white, heterosexual, middle-class, able-bodied, or otherwise privileged. That trans person who says that may even have come to terms with hir own privileges, and does not take it personally when her privilege is pointed out to her.
And what does this privilege really mean? It means several things. Having privilege means is that it’s something you don’t have to think about. As far as you’re concerned, culture is designed to accommodate you in this particular way, treat you as if you’re normal, the human default with regards to gender identity (if you’re a male and identify yourself as a man, or you’re a female and identify yourself as a woman). You don’t have to think about your gender identity because everyone considers it natural. People may consider how you do gender to be wrong, but they don’t question whether you are a man or a woman. They may think that a man attracted to men or a woman attracted to women is doing gender wrong because you’re not heterosexual, but that is homophobia, and is not the same thing that trans people experience. I say this as a trans woman who is also a lesbian.
Transphobia is when I’m told that I’m not really a woman at all, that I’m supposed to be a man. Transphobia is when someone decides I must really be a gay man because I transitioned, despite the fact that I’m attracted to women. Many many many cis gay men and lesbian women make this mistake – I really love it when a cis gay man starts loudly complaining about how trans people are just giving into heteronormativity by transitioning, as if all trans women are really cis gay men who want to naturalize their attraction to men as heterosexual, or all trans men are really cis lesbian women who want to naturalize their attraction to women as heterosexual. And at least acknowledge any genderqueer people, who may identify as both man and woman, or neither, or as in-between, or whose identification may shift. And acknowledge trans people who don’t transition and express their gender in other ways.
Transphobia was when I had an ID card that claimed I was male, even while living as a woman, because surgery is required to change your documentation in many states. Transphobia is when I had to out myself every time I applied for a job, purchased alcohol, or entered a night club. Transphobia is when I go to the emergency room, and once it comes out that I’m trans, regardless of the state I’m in, the conversation is not about why I’m in the ER, but what my genitalia looks like.
Being cis means not dealing with those things on a systematic basis. You may deal with similar things, and you may occasionally deal with some of those things. I know more than a few butch lesbian women who have been asked to leave or even forced out of women’s restrooms, but at the same time, I don’t know any who were asked – as I was – to use a restroom two blocks away when I was attending a business school because they felt I was too dangerous to allow in a restroom with cis women.
And when someone (cis or trans) talks about bigoted cis people, just because you’re cis, does not mean that it’s about you. Not all cis people wallow in anti-trans bigotry to the degree that John Aravosis does. Just because society is built to accommodate you and exclude me in one particular does not mean that every reference I make to the group you belong to is actually specifically about you. If you don’t think it’s about you, and you’re not being called out, don’t take it personally.
This is what’s wrong with the conversation that went down on Pam’s House Blend, and is still going down there now – that so many people are making the fact that transphobic cis people exist into an attack upon them. And by doing so, they end up saying and doing things that fulfills the label they’re trying to reject – the cis person who says bigoted things about trans people. Congratulations. Now, do the easy thing, and stop making it about you. Stop taking rightful criticisms directed at John Aravosis personally. You didn’t make him say those things, and if you don’t agree with them, why are you getting defensive when someone refers to John and his supports as transphobic cis men?
Why does this even need to be explained?
I almost forgot to add – read this post about the need for cis terminology.
Wonderful post.
I remember how damn defensive I got when someone first told me I was cis… they actually pointed me to a DAR comic to explain, though, which wasn’t the best source.
RMJ
4 Jul 09 at 7:19 am
*applause*
geopunk
4 Jul 09 at 8:06 am
I really like this post. lots. Maybe be can collectively stop giving cis-101 and point the here? Oh wait that hasn’t worked the hundred bazillion times before.
This is a REALLY good post though. Very well put.
rioTgirl
4 Jul 09 at 9:16 am
One common perception is that trans people are “imposing” this category, which supposedly did not exist before we named it, on cis people against their will.
No, that’s not true. The situation exists whether or not we name it; it’s reality. Cis people are a privileged group in cis-dominant society; cis status is rewarded and trans status is not.
I will add this, though — I’ve been speaking of “cis” broadly here. We do need to make some distinctions, going forward, between cissexual and cisgender, and work out how those are all different, just as transgender and transsexual aren’t equivalent words.
Kynn
4 Jul 09 at 9:19 am
You’re right on both counts, although in practice, “trans” gets abbreviated the same way to mean both or either.
But yes, trans people didn’t invent the category of cis people. Cis people have always existed, just as trans people have always existed. All that’s happened is that the category has been named.
So we can tell people what it means and what it looks like, or what both categories mean and what they look like.
There’s some other stuff too – I don’t think it’s a strict binary where you’re EITHER cisgender or cissexual OR transgender or transsexual, and of course transgender and transsexual or cisgender and cissexual do not mean the same thing (which you pointed out, but I wanted to expand). There’s pretty much room for any kind of gender identification (some butch lesbian and lesbian bois don’t identify as trans in any way, but cis doesn’t fit them either, and I don’t think all genderqueer people position themselves as trans).
But in general, it’s not really hard to tell when someone’s benefiting from either kind of cis privilege.
Lisa Harney
4 Jul 09 at 9:24 am
Whenever an oppressed group of people start to publicly struggle for their rights, there is the inevitable need to address how language is used with respect to that group. Our ideas and thoughts are guided by language and so, language and power are deeply intertwined. That is why the language police come out of the woodwork whenever an oppressed group challenges the lexicon of the day. Challenging language is part of the process of challenging the balance of power. That inevitably upsets people.
This is a really great post, Lisa. As others have suggested, I’m going to put this one in my trans 101 links. I’m going to link to it in a post on my blog, too.
timberwraith
4 Jul 09 at 10:06 am
Thank you, and I’m glad to see you comment here again.
Lisa Harney
4 Jul 09 at 10:07 am
But in general, it’s not really hard to tell when someone’s benefiting from either kind of cis privilege.
Not true if the someone is the beneficiary of cis privilege. Privilege is noteworthy for blinding people.
Naming is an act of power. That’s why the cis ppl at PHB are so pissed off. We broke the rules by taking the naming power society denies us, and they are ready, willing and able to smack our asses down for it.
Privilege does not take kindly to being named.
voz
4 Jul 09 at 10:10 am
Point taken.
Yeah, I left out the all-important “it’s not really hard for trans people to tell”
Lisa Harney
4 Jul 09 at 10:12 am
@Lisa yeahs..a minor glitch.
More generally, its frustrating when oppressed people plainly see what is conspicuous only by its absence.
This leads squarely into the crazy/angry oppressed person trope. After all, people who see things that “nobody” else does are often called “crazy.”
And oppressed people usually don’t count as “anybody” by the dominant group.
It’s a big part of how privilege maintains itself, and the power of naming it.
They are frightened half to death, and it shows.
voz
4 Jul 09 at 11:22 am
Great post. The anger and denial are aspects I just don’t understand at all…
When I started to realize my cis-privilege, it was as if a flashlight in the dark pointed it out to me, hiding in the shadows.
My first thought? “OH! So that’s what it is!”
Why on earth would I be offended by a truth that I didn’t previously know about myself?
melouise
4 Jul 09 at 11:50 am
Yeah, Voz, that.
Melouise,
Yeah. I always have to shake my head when someone protests “Why can’t I just be a person?” and they expect sympathy for this point of view from, say, me, when they’re implying that identifying the fact that they’re cis and not trans somehow detracts from their personhood, as if I am somehow incapable of seeing the obvious corollary: That perhaps being trans is seen as detracting from my personhood.
Lisa Harney
4 Jul 09 at 6:10 pm
Oh, Voz, like this.
Lisa Harney
4 Jul 09 at 6:11 pm
“We do need to make some distinctions, going forward, between cissexual and cisgender, and work out how those are all different, just as transgender and transsexual aren’t equivalent words.”
True, that. I’m trying to re-find the first few places where I saw that particular issue discussed, after a friend commented on being cissexual but not quite certain about being cisgendered (yes, the entry itself is on DW and that comment is on LJ; I’ll explain why I post the way I do if anybody here wants to know, but I don’t really expect anyone to care).
I found it interesting that the person raising a real problem with ‘cisgendered’ was a cissexual person who didn’t take offense at the term. (Well, more ‘telling’, than ‘interesting’, really, given that I was already four-fifths convinced that the original offense over labelling at PHP was contrived or feigned.)
d'glenn
4 Jul 09 at 9:17 pm
One common perception is that trans people are “imposing” this category, which supposedly did not exist before we named it, on cis people against their will.
I think that’s hitting the nail on the head. Reminds me of how white people often are when they are pointed as being white people. It’s that same “why can’t we just be PEOPLE” thing.
whatsername
4 Jul 09 at 11:13 pm
Yeah, right when all this started, I got into a conversation with one of my nieces about white privilege because another niece (who’s NDN) is getting a scholarship for being NDN. And my niece said that almost verbatim.
Lisa Harney
4 Jul 09 at 11:37 pm
Just as a slight addendum:
There is no such thing as trans privilege.
Lisa Harney
4 Jul 09 at 11:52 pm
There are definitely genderqueer people who don’t position themselves as trans.
Hi. ;)
(Cissexual, genderqueer, definitely not transgendered.)
Dw3t-Hthr
4 Jul 09 at 11:59 pm
“There is no such thing as trans privilege.”
“Privilege is noteworthy for blinding people.”
Many here a blinded. And at PHB too. Of course there is trans privilege. The comments *reek* of it.
I have come to see that most cis* references used by trans* seem now to be intended to punish the privilege with a thousand cis* pinpricks. This was not the intent. But the results are clear have watched the eruption on PHB, here and other places.
Ginny
5 Jul 09 at 7:17 am
Please define trans privilege.
Use the actual anti-oppression definition of privilege. Please demonstrate how trans people have social, systemic, entrenched, institutional advantages over cis people.
There’s parallel terminology wrt racism and sexism – men like to invoke reverse sexism and white people like to invoke reverse racism. Thanks to discussion at PHB, we now have cis people invoking “trans privilege.” These concepts are only coherent from a position of privilege (where one can get away with saying things like this and expect to not be challenged for it by others with similar privilege), and fold like a house of cards under any decent analysis.
Lisa Harney
5 Jul 09 at 7:37 am
That is to say, trans people experience oppression relative to cis people. One tool to perpetuate that oppression is to fallaciously flip things around to try to frame the oppressed as the oppressor and the oppressor as a victim.
Lisa Harney
5 Jul 09 at 7:42 am
yeah, because attempting to stand up for ourselves will *always* be construed by the privileged class as out of line.
PLEASE DEFINE TRANS PRIVILEGE. I am sitting here asking and waiting, and have yet to be given one definition.
I assume, Ginny, you know the definition of privilege.
jayinchicago
5 Jul 09 at 8:09 am
As a cis person, I can answer that:
“Trans-privilege” occurs when trans people get to be correct about their oppression and we cis people have to suffer the pain of having this pointed out to us.
We cis people don’t want to hear about it. We have important things to do, and your correct definition of our privilege is messing with our high opinion of ourselves and our desire to see ourselves as perfect people.
You trans-privilege people are demanding that we grow and learn and become better people. Frankly, we cis people don’t want to do that. We want to believe we are one big happy movement with no inner tensions or contradictions.
Also, some of you trans-privilege people aren’t even trying to be nice about it. You are getting angry and calling us out every single time we try to bury the issue and use evasive language or pretend the argument is about something else.
Don’t you understand? When we pretend to apologize, you have to pretend to accept it! This is such a simple concept!
Then, when we throw up our hands in disgust and say, “I suppose I can’t say anything without you twisting it!” to point out how unreasonable you are being, you still insist on being truthful and correct and expose our lame tactics to avoid looking at ourselves.
Lisa, you are the worst. You keep on being reasonable. It would be so much easier to dismiss your arguments if you would use a gender slur or maybe swear a little. Your insistence that we cis people are correct about so many things, but not about this particular issue makes it really hard for us to claim you are a raving lunatic.
I have a solution. Can some of you trans-privilege people start mentioning Nazi’s? Because that would really help me to dismiss your point of view. And I don’t think that’s ever been done before, has it?
/sarcasm
OK. That felt good. Not that it helps anything.
I am impressed by this forum’s ability to avoid the derailing tactics and all these worn-out avoidance strategies that have been thrown at you.
Ravenmn
Ravenmn
5 Jul 09 at 8:32 am
Trans privilege? What the very fuck.
Here is a handy hint about privilege: it is backed up by the REST OF THE BLOODY WORLD – governments, institutions, workplaces etc. It means that you get to be an expert on *other people’s* lives and to the average person, that will be understood as “common sense.” It means you never have to experience the oppression in question, never have to think about it.
Name one way that cis people are oppressed for *being cis*. ONE.
Privilege doesn’t mean being mouthy or having a forceful way of expressing yourself.
FFS.
queenemily
5 Jul 09 at 8:45 am
ravenmn, you forgot to quote Daly or Greer or anybody else in that stable! you need to do that before your definition of trans-priv is correct ;o) [/sarcasm]
now the serious part: “lame” is ableist. may i suggest “busted” or “broken”?
GallingGalla
5 Jul 09 at 11:00 am
GG, you are so right. I know that and try to avoid it. But I fucked up here. Thanks for pointing it out.
Ravenmn
5 Jul 09 at 11:13 am
Can anyone comment? I think Pam’s shut down my ability to comment now, which speaks volumes about her ‘free speech zone.’
Has Pam addressed the publishing of a trans woman’s info from another site? Ban people, sure, but WTF.
gudbuytjane
5 Jul 09 at 11:49 am
Hi Lisa… all I can think that the “can’t we all be PEEEPULLL?” is a whiny complaint/deflection.
A few years ago, I read a comment on a friend’s site of “we all have to own our own shit”. Took awhile for that idea to truly gel in my head, but now I completely understand it- honest people DO own their own shit, whether or not they know all of what that entails- and when more is pointed out, they acknowledge it.
I may be a raging asshole on occasion, but I do try to be honest, especially with myself- even when it hurts to do so. To do anything less is disingenuous.
melouise
5 Jul 09 at 1:13 pm
LOL, the same people who shut down — with Autumn Sandeen’s support — trans people for using that offensive, “weaponized” word “cis” have now turned on Autumn herself for using the word also.
See, that’s the thing about playing the role of the appeaser to the privileged. You’re never really one of them, and as soon as you don’t fully sell out and comply, they’ll do the same things to you that they did to us.
Kynn
5 Jul 09 at 1:44 pm
While coining a term that literally means “not trans” would seem like a useful concept, in practice, “cis” actually obscures the reality that trans people face in mainstream society. What counts in real life is not whether you are in fact trans or cis, but whether or not you are perceived as trans.
What posters here refer to as “cis-privilege” is what we have long called “passing privilege”. Regardless of how we each choose to deal with it, passing is one of the core issues that isolate trans people in mainstream society, either externally for those who do not pass, or internally for those able and willing to maintain stealth.
Pointing out “cis-privilege” to non-trans people obscures the uncomfortable fact that many of us are able to take advantage of those same social privileges by virtue of passing. And it has nothing to do with how authentically we each embody our true gender identities, and everything to do with how we are perceived by other people.
In the extreme case, some of us fortunate enough to fully transition, both surgically and socially, refuse to accept any sort of trans label and insist on nothing short of full recognition as non-trans women. They explicitly identify as “cis-women”, at least as emphatically as anyone else we might apply the term to. Should the term more appropriately be applied to anyone who claims not to be trans?
Lish
5 Jul 09 at 1:56 pm
I feel a little bit bad for Autumn, but I suppose that’s a lesson that needed to be learned. :\
whatsername
5 Jul 09 at 2:23 pm
I don’t feel bad for Autumn, since she had every opportunity to make this right and kept failing to do so each and every time.
It’s karmic payback, really.
She gets to be known as the person who introduced the concept of “weaponized” terminology to the debate.
Kynn
5 Jul 09 at 2:53 pm
I just tried to ask wht exactly were exmples of “cisphobia” and how that compares to “heterophobia” and it wouldn’t take my post again.
I thought maybe the thread was locked the first time, but other folks have posted since my first try. Curious…
rioTgirl
5 Jul 09 at 2:55 pm
You’re not the only person reporting this. (Obviously, I can’t test it myself.) I’m wondering why this all happening given that this is supposedly still the “free speech experiment.”
Kynn
5 Jul 09 at 2:57 pm
Actually, Lish, there have been extensive conversations about being passed as cis by cis people in the past, and how this is access to privilege, but it’s not the same as cis privilege.
For example, when my ID said I was male, I was frequently passed as cis, until someone saw the M. That meant finding work was complicated by outing myself every time I tried to get a job.
And now, in the US, if you get hired as female, and social security has you in their records as male, they send a no-match letter, outing you to your employer. This doesn’t typically happen to cis people.
There’s also the fact that being trans is discreditable. If you’re passed as cis by cis people, that works until someone founds out you’re trans (not guaranteed, but it can happen), at which point your identity becomes, well, discreditable.
I don’t think that, if we’re going to talk about the ways cis people pass trans people as cis, that we need to focus on how trans people gain access to privilege, but how cis people are never really at risk of losing that privilege.
I am willing to talk about the conditional nature of passing privilege, however. I think that people tend to elide that, and pretend it’s a solid foundation.
Also, not all trans people have access to passing privilege, and many only have access to it some of the time.
I’m also not really interested in the idea that going stealth erases trans history. I fully support that any trans person should be able to live stealth, and claim to be cis if they can, and that if they are able to live stealth and claim to be cis, and be passed as cis without having to deal with transphobia, more power to them.
But that doesn’t make them cis, and if they’re outed they have to deal with the consequences of that outing. I’ve heard of women living in deep stealth being outed and losing their jobs, for example. Cis people don’t have to worry about that.
Lisa Harney
5 Jul 09 at 3:19 pm
Lisa, I don’t disagree that trans folks who go stealth have to face issues that non-trans people almost never have to consider or worry about. These concerns can have very real practical and psychological effects on your life. But as long as you are able to maintain stealth, the possibility that you may one day lose it does not lessen the privilege you currently derive from it.
Acquiring passing privilege did not “erase trans history” in my own mind. It instead put into stark contrast the differences in how people treat me depending on whether they perceive me as trans or not.
In my view, calling it “cis privilege” implies that it’s something that trans people are denied, when in fact many of us are very familiar with the experience. That’s why I think it fails to be a useful concept in practice.
Lish
5 Jul 09 at 3:49 pm
@rioTgirl
I can’t comment anymore, either. Autumn put up a vague comment that I think is suggesting they’ve locked some of us out but that they don’t need to tell us why. Oh, Autumn.
@Lisa
I don’t think that, if we’re going to talk about the ways cis people pass trans people as cis, that we need to focus on how trans people gain access to privilege, but how cis people are never really at risk of losing that privilege.
Thanks for pointing this out. I’ve been meaning to write something about passing “privilege” for a while now, and you’re so right in how complicated a concept it is, and is by no means a gold standard of trans living.
The price for losing passing-as-cis privilege is sometimes getting killed or violently assaulted. To try to suggest passing erases trans privilege is to, what, suggest some of the trans women who are dead because their murderers found them out didn’t pass well enough? It’s a very slippery slope, framing any kind of “passing” privilege as eclipsing one’s “hidden” oppression, and is ultimately about blaming victims.
gudbuytjane
5 Jul 09 at 3:57 pm
But as long as you are able to maintain stealth, the possibility that you may one day lose it does not lessen the privilege you currently derive from it.
“As long as you are able to maintain stealth”. And that is never ever a concern I will have to face. If that’s not a privilege I dunno what is.
whatsername
5 Jul 09 at 4:01 pm
I disagree, because you still don’t have cis privilege, you have passing privilege – you have access to cis privilege, and you know what it’s like (and, frankly, so do I) to be extended that privilege.
Cis privilege is something that trans people are denied. The only reason you’re extended passing privilege is because people don’t know you’re trans, and that’s conditional. In order to be accepted as fully human, you have to conceal your personal history from cis people.
Cis people don’t have to do that to be accepted as cis. They might hide other aspects of their personal history (for good or bad reasons), but those don’t relate to being cis.
This is why I’m distinguishing between passing privilege – the privilege of cis people passing/reading you as cis – from cis privilege.
I don’t care if trans people refer to themselves as cis people around other cis people, or just don’t ever talk about trans stuff at all. I mean, we all do what we have to do in order to survive, right? But I think that this conversation itself is actively obscuring the real, actual, institutional and social privilege that cis people have because they chose not to ever transition.
I’m not trying to deny your experiences, because I’ve had those same experiences. Because I’ve lived stealth (and still do, to some extent). But I never felt that being accepted as cis was just like being cis, because I am always aware that I could be outed.
And in fact, I was outed, twice, to wide swaths of people, which killed my chances of living stealth for the late 90s and early 2000s. It’s funny just how fast word spreads when someone drops a tidbit of confidential information, you know?
In the first case, it was a relative who knew my past because we grew up together. In the second case, it was someone who’d heard about me after my relative spilled the beans a few years before.
Lisa Harney
5 Jul 09 at 4:04 pm
Sure it’s a privilege to not have to worry about being outed. But that’s a private psychological benefit, distinct from the public social privileges that passing brings. While there’s a serious price we have to pay in order to acquire passing privilege, the payoff we get from it is no different that what those who consider it their birthright receive.
Lish
5 Jul 09 at 4:20 pm
Have you ever been outed?
Lisa Harney
5 Jul 09 at 4:24 pm
Yes, of course I’ve been outed, and often do so voluntarily. Getting outed never fails to make a difference, even with people who are genuinely open-minded about trans people. It especially makes a difference to other trans people, and I’m just as guilty of harboring that bias as anyone else.
Lish
5 Jul 09 at 4:30 pm
@lish
From my expereinces of passing as cis, which depends on the situation and how long I can ride on ppl’s dumb assumptions, your completely understating the “pschological benefits” cis ppl have vs what we experience. For me its nerve racking. And the pressure just piles on until sometimes I want to avoid the ppl who think i’m cis because I’m afraid if I’m around them too much they’ll figure me out. I guess its better than the zero respect for my gender that I get from most ppl who know I’m trans but it still sucks.
@goodbuytjane
“The price for losing passing-as-cis privilege is sometimes getting killed or violently assaulted.”
I think passing as cis is like stretching a rubber band. The more stealth you are, the more violent it is when the rubber band snaps.
Estrobutch
5 Jul 09 at 4:46 pm
That’s because a lot of trans people carry internalized transphobia, which shouldn’t be a surprise, because we’re raised by cis people who assume we’re cis and treat us as if we’re cis, and for some trans people, any perceived gender transgressions are punished (I experienced this from parents, teachers, and schoolyard bullies).
That trans people react that way is a reflection of growing up in a society that teaches everyone that trans people are objects worthy of hate, contempt, and pity.
Anyway, I think your comment about it being a private psychological benefit for cis people misses the point – it’s only a private psychological benefit for them because there’s no repercussions, no danger in it for them. This isn’t a balanced equation, and the possibility of outing a trans person against hir will carries greater risk – losing friends, jobs, even family, being positioned as a deceiver or worse, and I don’t even remember how many times have I seen cis people suggest that a trans person who has sex without disclosure has committed rape. That is part of the classic trans panic defense which so far has been successful more often than not.
There’s also other privilege at work – for example, the ability to pay for surgery is itself a privilege, and one that many trans people are unable to manage.
Lisa Harney
5 Jul 09 at 4:54 pm
That is, I don’t want to minimize your own experiences as stealth (or my own, for that matter) but taking your argument as true – that since stealth trans people who are passed as cis have access to cis privilege, this obscures the point of identifying cis privilege, would make it practically impossible to discuss the fact that society privileges cis people over trans people in multiple ways.
Like, you know, you’ll never see Jimmy Kimmel joking about killing a woman with an axe after discovering she’s cis.
Lisa Harney
5 Jul 09 at 5:11 pm
I’m in total agreement about all the obstacles and prejudice trans people have to cope with in order to acquire however much passing privilege we each desire and manage to achieve. Even at best, it’s nothing like a level playing field and we all had to take on enormous personal burdens just to get to square one.
But the fact that non-trans people are fortunate in not having to deal with the crap we endure is not an act of oppression on their part. If the only thing “cis-privilege” is intended to mean is freedom from the hazards of being trans then fine, but I don’t think anyone disputes the fact that trans people face much tougher challenges than most people have to bear.
The social privileges of passing, however, are not exclusive to non-trans people, and I think that lumping those benefits under a term like cis-privilege obscures that fact. What’s a very real issue is why passing privilege is denied to so many trans people for a variety of reasons, and how that core issue affects those of us who pass as well as those who don’t.
Lish
5 Jul 09 at 5:43 pm
Cis privilege is oppressive, even if cis people are not being actively oppressive (deliberately or accidentally).
There’s a reason that, for example, every news article on the net about a trans person fills up with complete crap, and those comments come from cis privilege and ideas informed by cis privilege (that trans people are less than cis people, less valid than cis people, etc. are seen as natural assumptions that no reasonable person would question).
But just having privilege by itself doesn’t make anyone automatically a bad person out to stomp on someone else’s neck, and I’m not sure why you’re taking that away from the post or the comments.
The social privileges of passing, the availability of passing privilege, and the way cis people prevent passing privilege when they can (by outing trans people) are also functions of cis privilege.
And it’s not an either/or where you either deal with cis privilege or you deal with how passing privilege is denied trans people. As I said in the last paragraph, the fact that cis people deny trans people passing privilege if and when they can is itself a function of cis privilege – and by denying passing privilege, I mean outing trans people.
What you mention is a very real issue, but so is the fact that society is constructed in a way that benefits people who choose not to transition and demeans people who do.
And this post isn’t a blanket discussion of cis privilege, but a response to a discussion going on at Pam’s House Blend.
I’m willing to put up a post about passing privilege if you like – it hasn’t been discussed extensively here, and I wouldn’t mind writing one and having more of this conversation there. But at the same time, I don’t want to spend all of my time defending the fact that cis privilege exists and is identifiable and can be discussed without confusion.
Lisa Harney
5 Jul 09 at 5:51 pm
Lisa wrote:
“The social privileges of passing, the availability of passing privilege, and the way cis people prevent passing privilege when they can (by outing trans people) are also functions of cis privilege.”
Yes, that’s very insightful, it casts cis-privilege as a type of meta-privilege – in this case, the privilege of controlling other people’s access to privilege.
An example familiar to many of us: while transwomen may be accepted as lesbians, it is not transwomen who have the privilege of deciding which of us are acceptable as lesbians.
This is what I’ve often regarded as “birthright privilege” – the presumption that the circumstances of a person’s birth grant privileges that others have no right to claim. What I find useful about this angle is that it suggests similarities between the experiences of trans people and those of immigrants.
Much as immigrants’ rights to migrate across political borders are policed by self-empowered nativists, our rights to migrate from our assigned birth sex to our true genders have been dictated to us by those who consider themselves to be “native” men and women.
Lish
5 Jul 09 at 6:27 pm
Yes, that. :)
Lisa Harney
5 Jul 09 at 6:29 pm
Slightly off-topic, but I wish Autumn and her cronies would stop misusing selective quotes from Martin Luther King and other people of colour for their own agendas.
Rebecca
5 Jul 09 at 9:08 pm
Lish, I am probably missing something here and welcome a comment explaining what it is (seriously – I know how bright my noob light shines), but it seems to me that the crucial distinction when it comes to passing is that cis people aren’t passing. Passing privilege is for those who can put up a sufficiently good act for the purpose. But cis people aren’t putting on an act to persuade others of their sex (even though there are many dimensions of performance both cis and trans people engage in). So it makes sense to me to separate the cis privilege of assumptions about sex and history from the passing privilege.
Now I get more clues. :)
Ceri B.
5 Jul 09 at 9:12 pm
Passing isn’t about putting on an act, it’s about being passed by cis people as cis. That is, that cis people assign you a gender when they see you – if they assign you your correct gender, they’re more likely to treat you with respect than if they assign you the wrong gender.
Cis people pass each other all the time, the difference being that the chances of a cis person misgendering another cis person in a way leading to transphobia is pretty low. It does happen, and I can think of two instances that made the news in the past couple of years, but you can even see how privilege plays out once people realize that the person was incorrectly read as trans.
Lisa Harney
5 Jul 09 at 9:15 pm
Thanks for that great reply to Ceri, Lisa.
It brings home how the terminology of “passing” isn’t really appropriate for our situation. For starters, it’s not something that we do, it’s something that happens in other peoples’ heads and is done to us.
Kynn
5 Jul 09 at 9:17 pm
…and when it does happen and leads to a fucked up situation, there’s suitably more outrage for the “poor offended” cis person than for all the trans people who’ve suffered through that combined…
z
5 Jul 09 at 9:18 pm
Of course, trans people assign gender too, but if you’re known as trans, then what you say about other people’s gender is seen as valid as what you say about your own, and if you’re passed as cis, then of course, you’ve got that going.
Lisa Harney
5 Jul 09 at 9:21 pm
And also, since trans people are positioned as deceivers and tricksters, cis people frequently don’t see us as having enough feelings to care about being outed. Like when you see trans women outed in the media, they’re portrayed as just being sassy about it, or not caring at all, and not having to deal with the fallout that ensues. The real injured party is always portrayed as the cis man tricked into flirting with or having sex with a trans woman.
Lisa Harney
5 Jul 09 at 9:24 pm
Yeah, I don’t have a problem with any of that, particularly in the aspect of it being about how others deal with us. But there’s a question still in my head that I’m having trouble articulating. I’ll go off and ponder it some; I know I’m tired and stressed about semi-related things.
Ceri B.
5 Jul 09 at 9:25 pm
I have always disliked “passing” as a term. I like Monica Robert’s use of “blending” for the same reasons she cites as well as I can’t help but thing the opposite of “pass” is “fail” and I just don’t like that.
@ z Yes. The poor duped cis person vs. the horrid lying liar trans person.
rioTgirl
5 Jul 09 at 9:27 pm
I like Monica Robert’s use of “blending” …
Sorry, after recent events, that B-word is dead to me.
I have no desire to be a “blender”.
Kynn
5 Jul 09 at 9:29 pm
Yeah, Riotgirl, that’s why I’m describing as passed… Which is like being passed through a gate.
Another word is gendering. They correctly gendered you or they incorrectly gendered you.
But passing is really problematic, and I’m kinda frustrated with how many times I used it here due to lack of a better way to say what I was trying to say.
Lisa Harney
5 Jul 09 at 9:32 pm
“Passed…” like if you swallow a cherry pit.
Kynn
5 Jul 09 at 9:35 pm
On reflection, it seems likely that whatever is lying around still semi-verbalized in my head rests on some transphobic assumptions.
Ceri B.
5 Jul 09 at 9:48 pm
Ok…
Trans privilege does not exist outside the trans community.
It does, however, *within* it. And, as such, it can be wielded against close allies, but that’s exceedingly rare since they have the comfort of cisprivilege.
Trans privilege exists because we have a peculiar hierarchy within the community itself, since trans is enormous in scope *right now*.
RIght now, trans includes groups that likely don’t have a particularly named structure — the recent posting on genderqueer identity is part of the exposure of transprivilege (and, fortunately, we are aware of the concept overall, so the posting was well received, whereas outside of this site, it might not have merited the same reaction.)
We have a structure whereby the default concept within the community overall is essentially that we are assumed to be transsexual. This is systemic — the conflation of the concept of transgender with the idea of transsexualism is an example.
Symptoms of such are widespread (to be frank, only a relatively small number of transfolks are aware of the concepts here, and many of those that are are so only peripherally).
I could speak to it at length, but fatigue has kicked in, blah blah etc etc and truthfully, right now, I’m sorta bummed out over it.
Dyssonance
5 Jul 09 at 10:04 pm
That’s not trans privilege, that’s related to cis privilege, or limited ways to access cis privilege.
And transsexual visibility and transgender invisibility, or trans female visibility and trans male invisibility or trans visibility and genderqueer invisibility are not strictly privileges or oppressions, and these visibilities are largely constructed by cis people.
Further, for example, visibility doesn’t mean that transsexual people (or trans female people wrt trans male people) are privileged in that they’re more visible, but that they’re generally more frequently the targets of cis contempt.
Lisa Harney
5 Jul 09 at 10:15 pm
That is, that the hierarchies of visibility and such you’re describing are related directly to how cis people construct the idea of transgender, transsexuality, sex, and gender in society.
Lisa Harney
5 Jul 09 at 10:17 pm
For example, trans female visibility is about shemale porn, about how trans women are really cis men who have a fetish, or are gay men who want to legitimize their attraction to men, or how in a hundred ways we’re sick twisted people who can’t be trusted near women or children.
When you talk about genderqueer vs. binary-identified trans people, for example, you’re talking about how binary identification is privileged over other identifications, how a trans person can at least expect to be pronouned correctly some of the time while a genderqueer person might never be pronouned correctly outside of spaces that are designed to be genderqueer-friendly.
But at the same time, many genderqueer-oriented spaces are hostile to transsexual people, and often specifically hostile to trans females, and genderqueer people have access to cissexual privilege that transsexual people do not.
Lisa Harney
5 Jul 09 at 10:22 pm
I think we can talk about hierarchies and positions among/within trans populations (for lack of a better term) without using the nonsense phrase “trans privilege”. [x] privilege means something, and what you are talking about doesn’t fall into the linguistic pattern of naming [x] privilege(s).
My honest 10 years of experience identifying as butch, then genderqueer, then ftm, then male has given me first hand experience with a lot of inter-trans community hierarchy, and it’s not straightfoward at all and it is not monolithic.
jayinchicago
5 Jul 09 at 10:23 pm
I’d also like to point out just to give me trans-male centric experience a whirl that many “ftm” spaces are openly hostile to male identified FAAB men.
which is not to say oh poor pitiful me. i am quite aware of how I move through and am taken in a world as a gender normative, cissexual-appearing (usually?) man.
jayinchicago
5 Jul 09 at 10:28 pm
fair enough on all points, I will give it more consideration and analysis going forward.
I liked the points made, and see the structure, but must examine in more depth.
Dyssonance
5 Jul 09 at 10:31 pm
This idea of “passing privilege” is a difficult one for me (as a cis woman) to wrap my head around. Definitely, there is privilege in not being “outed” whether that outing is as a person who identifies as trans, or any other marginalized group.
But I don’t see it as ‘real’ privilege (in terms of cis privilege or white privilege) because it can be taken away at any time. And hiding oneself (while often necessary) can do great psychological harm.
I am reminded of a friend of mine who is completely ‘stealth’ except for a few friends and family members (the latter of whom have for the most part rejected him). He lives in fear every day of being outed – which he believes (realistically) could mean he would lose his job (best case scenario) or be killed.
Sure, he has privilege in that he still has a job and is alive. But I don’t see this as real privilege in the same way that I have cis privilege.
As a bi woman who is in a heterosexual relationship, I have heterosexual privilege. But this assumption that I am straight renders invisible a part of myself. This is not a great parallel to trans passing privilege because I am not going to lose my job if outed (in fact, my work knows I am bi) and I don’t live in terror of being outed. But beyond the fears of being outed and the consequences, ‘passing’ trans people have to hide a part of who they are, which I think can cause great psychological harm.
As for the discussion on the term ‘cis’, yes, people who are trans get to dictate the term for the privilege I experience and the oppression they experience. Duh.
monika
5 Jul 09 at 10:41 pm
Anyway, Dyss, it’s not that I think all your points are invalid, I just think privilege (in the context of oppression) doesn’t work to describe it.
And the whole visibility vs. invisibility thing is something that kinda bothers me – neither is particularly good for anyone, and both have advantage and problems in how they manifest.
I do think there’s a point to talking about how cisgender privilege reflects the interaction between binary-identified transsexual people and non-transitioning genderqueer people, because it does have an impact. Also how cissexual privilege interacts between both groups, and how cisgender and cissexual privilege impact transsexual genderqueer people.
Lisa Harney
5 Jul 09 at 10:46 pm
Monika,
I don’t know if the going stealth and hiding causes great psychological harm, although I did find that staying quiet when people were being transphobic did eat at me.
Thanks for the comment. :)
Lisa Harney
5 Jul 09 at 10:54 pm
Monika,
“stealth”/”out” is a flawed concept, really. most trans people i know aren’t all one or the other. i prefer to be assumed cissexual in employment because i consider it [my trans status] private medical history. in fact, it would cause (and has caused me) harm to have my trans status discussed where it isn’t material. it’s too bad we probably will never see cis status in the same light.
jayinchicago
5 Jul 09 at 11:34 pm
monika –
I commented a while back at Fetch Me My Axe that my experience of ‘passing privilege’ was ‘the privilege to constantly be expected to lie about something important’. I think that’s the gist of what you’re saying there?
I don’t actually know how that definition applies to trans issues; it was conceived in terms of poly issues and accepted by some of the queer folks in the conversation as accurate. It seems to me that trans issues are a different category of thing – the important stuff can be completely personal/private, unlike publically denying status as a partner, which affects others.
Dw3t-Hthr
6 Jul 09 at 12:30 am
It is a spectrum, very much so, and I think that causes some confusion sometimes.
z
6 Jul 09 at 12:33 am
Dw3t-Hthr: I think you’re pretty spot-on there. And while it can be completely personal/private (at least with acquaintances), being stealth means there’s a whole bunch of things about my past that I can’t talk about with a few close friends – which is hard when dealing with some things that happened back then is having a huge effect on my life now.
Rebecca
6 Jul 09 at 2:18 am
Fair enough, Dw3t-Hthr & Rebecca
Those with the lived experiences of being trans are certainly the experts. (I don’t think that that necessarily needs to be said, but we live in a culture where people with cis privilege get to name the experiences of trans people, and I certainly don’t want to perpetuate that)
I guess I was just thinking of those aspects of myself that I hold ‘stealth’ that I wish I could share with others but fear repercussions and thus don’t. In my case, I feel like holding these ‘secrets’ contributes to shame. I was also thinking of my friend who holds his trans status as such a ‘secret’ and feels so relieved when he gets to share with others who are accepting.
I imagine that there is a diversity of experiences, where some people feel like they are holding a burden of a secret, and others, who feel like being trans is (like other things) a private aspect of oneself that doesn’t need to be shared with the public.
While it isn’t your job to enlighten cis people, I appreciate the opportunity to learn.
Now, I will go back to shutting up and listening :)
monika
6 Jul 09 at 6:43 am
Oops! I didn’t read jayinchicagos & Lisa’s comments.
Lisa, once again, your experiences are ‘expert’, and while I can apply it to my own (cis) experiences of having to hold something as private and what my friend has told me about his experiences as a man who is trans, these are more like ‘observations’ versus lived experiences, and are akin to a white person commenting on the status of racialized people. This observer status is, of course, not even close to the lived experiences. And thus, (IMHO) must be fluid, and changeable with the input of trans people.
jayinchicago, you are absolutely right, these terms are flawed in that they are very binary and don’t reflect people’s real experiences. My friend keeps his trans experience quite private, but has disclosed to a handful of people.
Now I really will go back to ‘shutting up’; I just didn’t want to appear like I was ignoring these other comments :)
monika
6 Jul 09 at 6:53 am
Those with the lived experiences of being trans are certainly the experts. (I don’t think that that necessarily needs to be said, but we live in a culture where people with cis privilege get to name the experiences of trans people, and I certainly don’t want to perpetuate that)
The continual failure of cis people to actually practice this (as opposed to simply wish it were true) is one of the main underpinnings of transphobia, and a core element of the social engine that maintains and energizes it.
Cis people are notorious for spewing stupid shit about trans lives and pronouncing it gospel with the full weight of their corpulent privilege hammering it down and crushing trans voices.
Naturally, few can admit this, and even fewer can act on it in some productive way.
voz
6 Jul 09 at 11:46 am
“Trans privilege”…is that by any chance related to reverse racism? Mmm-hmm. I thought so.
And regarding the distinction between cissexual and cisgender waywayway upthread (I was off in the woods all weekend)… I never had an issue with “cis,” but I did have a “lightbulb experience” when the cissexual/cisgender distinction was made. Some of us are cissexual but definitely not cisgender. But the relevant fact is that, while I definitely don’t relate to this experience: “if you’re a male and identify yourself as a man, or you’re a female and identify yourself as a woman,” I have always benefited from cis privilege because I easily pass as a cisgendered woman. And although I get a lot of shit for being so “tomboyish,” I don’t have to defend my identity. Ever. So I agree with Dw3t-Hthr and others that making that distinction is incredibly helpful in conversations about identity and personal experience, although I wouldn’t expect it to change the attitudes of most of the people who object to “cis” in this current debate.
Rachel_in_WY
6 Jul 09 at 2:09 pm
I just registered at PHB yesterday and tried to post, but after I typed it all up and submitted it, I was told the page didn’t exist. I assume that new commenters are being shut out, or are at least being shut out of cis-debate related threads.
Butch Fatale
6 Jul 09 at 3:10 pm
what in the holy kripping fuck is “trans privilege”? is it the “privilege” that comes with being killed by a lack of access to medical care? is it that trans people, especially trans women, and doubly especially trans women of color, are unemployed at a rate well above that of cis people? is it that your protections under the ADA are very possibly likely to be voided for being trans, or repeated legal harrassment by the cops?
i mean, because if that’s “privilege”, trans people have it in spades. however, that’s either a kind of newspeak i’ve never heard before or you’re that bloody bigoted and hateful. i’m leaning toward the latter.
algormortis
6 Jul 09 at 3:35 pm
When stupid cis people say “trans privilege” they really mean “you have the privilege [sic] of calling me out on my cis-privileged statements, and that’s not fair!!”
Of course, the thing is, cis people — who are actual “allies”, or at least, anti-transphobia activists — have the same “privilege” too. Nothing stops a clueful cis person from telling a clueless cis person to stop it already with the cissexism.
Kynn
6 Jul 09 at 3:57 pm
Holy fuck.
Kim Pearson’s comments — ALL of them, including the “trans privilege” comment and replies to it — have been silently scrubbed from the PHB web site.
Kynn
6 Jul 09 at 3:58 pm
Rachel, You are talking about the sniffles. We are talking about lung cancer. Don’t let the idea that we both cough fool ya.
Tomboys do not even begin to approach not having a recognized, unchallenged gender.
I am saying this as a passing trans woman who works construction. The assertion that you are a “tomboy” does not even begin to approach understanding. And no, I seriously doubt your definition of “tomboy” corresponds with mine.
Call me when you actually have both a “male to female transition” history, and being a female in a traditionally male dominated field under your belt to directly compare, k?
I live this, and you just come here and spout off about how being a tomboy makes you not cisgender.
That is absurd as saying you are black because you listen to Eminem.
voz
6 Jul 09 at 4:23 pm
what in the holy kripping fuck is “trans privilege”? is it the “privilege” that comes with being killed by a lack of access to medical care? is it that trans people, especially trans women, and doubly especially trans women of color, are unemployed at a rate well above that of cis people? is it that your protections under the ADA are very possibly likely to be voided for being trans, or repeated legal harrassment by the cops?
i mean, because if that’s “privilege”, trans people have it in spades. however, that’s either a kind of newspeak i’ve never heard before or you’re that bloody bigoted and hateful. i’m leaning toward the latter.
Quoted for extreme truth, and because it needs to be said again, and again, until it is fully appreciated, and the cis people’s occasionally lethal personal problems rectified.
voz
6 Jul 09 at 4:29 pm
@voz
I don’t think Rahel was really comparing her tomboyishness (is that a word?) to actually being trans. At least how I read it was that the discussion about cis-sexuality and cis-genderdism gave her an “ah ha” moment and something to apply personally.
Also, I’d say being a tomboy in some situations would compromise cisgender, but not always cissexuality.
@Kynn
PHB is on full-tilt WTFery
rioTgirl
6 Jul 09 at 4:39 pm
Didn’t Zoe say she had “trans priv” at some point in all that PHB mess? I remember wondering what she was taking about and didn’t really get into specifics – or I could be totally wrong (happens from time to time)
rioTgirl
6 Jul 09 at 4:41 pm
@rioTgirl
She did say that, but Zoe says a lot of stuff and some of it makes no fucking sense, while some of it is brilliant.
Unlike Lisa or voz, for example, who are 100% brilliant.
Kynn
6 Jul 09 at 4:43 pm
@Kynn I agree on all accounts. Lisa and Voz are both pretty amazing in very cool and different ways. Before I turn this into a hippy love fest… I think I dig most of the regular posters here and I did have a bit of a fan-girl moment the first time Lisa and Emily posted on my weedy little blog.
rioTgirl
6 Jul 09 at 4:49 pm
Zoe Brain did, but she referred to something that’s true, but it’s not a trans privilege – that is, that sometimes people will let her get away with saying stuff because she’s trans, because they don’t want to call her out. Because, she’s trans and they don’t want to appear transphobic.
This isn’t something I’d call a trans privilege, it’s something that tends to come up a lot when privileged people who are trying to be anti-oppression aren’t sure how to engage with oppressed people, and let, say, guilt govern their responses more than anything. It doesn’t really grant any social benefits, except perhaps getting listened to a bit more frequently about one’s own experiences.
I agree with rioTgirl’s take on what Rachel said.
Lisa Harney
6 Jul 09 at 4:50 pm
http://www.pamshouseblend.com/diary/11875/dropping-ones-pants-to-prove-ones-sex
Example 564 what “what is Cis” is so GD annoying – watch the derail in the comments on a freaking important story.
rioTgirl
6 Jul 09 at 4:54 pm
I don’t think Ra[c]hel was really comparing her tomboyishness (is that a word?) to actually being trans. At least how I read it was that the discussion about cis-sexuality and cis-genderdism gave her an “ah ha” moment and something to apply personally.
Also, I’d say being a tomboy in some situations would compromise cisgender, but not always cissexuality.
Thanks. I agree. I really do. I just felt the need to force a clarification before somebody tumbled down the garden path of “trousers make a cis woman trans” or some such nonsense.
Discomfort with some aspects of gender role or sexism do not a trans experience make.
I love ya, but, if you wanna talk about “tomboy” possibly “compromising” gender, come by a jobsite where I’m working sometimes, and watch me around the boys. I think you may find “compromising” to be a bit of a ridiculous overstatement.
Or are you seriously claiming that I might lose a lil womanhood every time I grab an R60 welding rod, twist a regulator knob, and spark a torch?
That said, it’s a slippery slope for cis women to conflate their experiences of sexism and discomfort with how they are treated as unchallenged womenwith what trans women experience, and that conflation has been exploited enough at our expense to justify extreme caution and maybe just a lil bit of preemptive line-in-the-sand drawing.
voz
6 Jul 09 at 5:28 pm
@voz
Totally get wanting to nip that in the bud.
I also come from a family of construction workers where most of the family worked for the business at some point. I’d never make the mistake of saying using any tools caused a loss of womanhood. Even if I don’t know the difference between a power saw and anything else we have in the garage. I did, however, tend mason for one long hot summer – hated it
rioTgirl
6 Jul 09 at 6:07 pm
voz, I don’t think that being genderqueer (if I’m allowed to apply that label to myself) is the same as transitioning. At all. And I realize that my conveniently easy female appearance has always given me cis privilege, my whole life. However, I have never, not even for one day, felt like a woman, identified myself as a woman, or felt comfortable in the conventional feminine script. I don’t think that makes me trans, but it also doesn’t make me cisgendered. But there were no words for this when I was a kid – I didn’t want to be a girl, but I didn’t want to be a boy either, and having a more clear and nuanced vocabulary for it (beyond the whole “tomboy” shtick, which was a title always imposed on me externally) would have been helpful to this cissexual but not cisgendered person. That’s all.
Rachel_in_WY
6 Jul 09 at 10:17 pm
@rioTgirl
Thanks. So many FAAB wannabe genderqueer people conflate gender role discomfort with gender identity discomfort, and it smacks of appropriation and erasure. Thanks for getting it. These blinded, privileged, people can inflict quite a lot of damage on trans lives, and it ain’t no fun at all dealing with them as they suck up to transness.
You wouldn’t make that mistake because you see the difference between gender role, gender presentation, and gender identity.
Also, masonry is hard, difficult work…I hate it too. I’ll do it tho if the price is right. :-)
voz
8 Jul 09 at 7:21 am
Yes voz. You know, better than me, what my gender identity is. You know, better than me, that I must be cisgendered, regardless of what I may say about my own experience. For some reason I have no right to self-determination or self-identification. I will always be a wannabe who’s lying about my lived experience in order to insert myself into a space where I don’t belong.
Whatever. Fuck that.
Rachel_in_WY
8 Jul 09 at 7:50 am
I think genderqueer is a very useful label as it names a nuanced place within a spectrum of identity without appropriating terms, such as “Two-Spirit”.
What I have seen happen, particularly within queer feminist spaces, is actually an appropriation of trans experiences in an attempt to erase trans women. For example, butch cis women saying that their rejection from an early age of the affectations of “femininity” is the same as my understanding of myself.
Their rejection of dolls and dresses and ability to ID as a woman is used to dismiss my understanding of myself. In a “I could do it, why can’t you be a ‘different kind of man’” kinda way. Their status as a cis person who may not easily be described as fully cis-gendered is used to make them more radical, more feminist, more genuinely womon than I.
I think genderqueer is an important identity along with bi-gender and cross dresser, and non-gendered identities. I’ll admit I don’t quite “get” the last two, but I don’t really need to in order to support us all.
rioTgirl
8 Jul 09 at 8:12 am
@Rachel: It’s not really about how you identify, it’s far more about how others identify you. If they ID you as trans, you’ll notice soon enough. But in all likelihood, a tomboyish woman is not ID’d as trans, and thus not subject to transphobic reactions, no matter how she/ze feels about it.
Carto
8 Jul 09 at 8:28 am
I think the point’s been made – both rioTgirl and Voz have described the ways that genderqueer identities can be used to minimize trans identities, and Rachel’s made it clear she understands her experiences are not trans, and I don’t think she was going to go there – I’ve talked to her in the past on other blogs, and while I didn’t agree with everything she may have said, I don’t recall her ever saying anything like that.
Lisa Harney
8 Jul 09 at 8:53 am
Carto,
Just cause I like sticking my neck out on the chopping block, wouldn’t it be fair to say that plenty of (for lack of a better term) gender variant cis women are attacked for similar reasons as transphobia? Restroom issues with butch women comes to the top of my mind rather quickly.
Amanda in the South Bay
8 Jul 09 at 8:55 am
I hope my comments didn’t come off sounding like I thought Rachel was in some way appropriating. I just wanted to point to some personal stuff that could explain why/how misunderstanding in this vein can happen.
rioTgirl
8 Jul 09 at 9:11 am
I don’t think that’s the case at all. I don’t think Voz did either, although she said she wanted to head the possibility off at the pass, which I can sympathize with. I just wanted to add that I don’t believe Rachel would go there.
Lisa Harney
8 Jul 09 at 9:17 am
@Amanda: Well, yes: my experiences of transphobia have been mostly either about my one time rather genderqueer looks, or about my past – i.e. about me not being cis, but the past had to be divulged in some way (medical records, in case y’all are interested). It wasn’t about my identity, it was definitely either about my looks or about my transness: gendering me as trans was something other people did and then went on to behave badly.
So yeah, I do think the crap butch women or feminine gay men get is very much related to transphobia, if not transphobia itself.
Carto
8 Jul 09 at 9:18 am
Thanks, Lisa.
And just to clarify, I don’t equate the pressures put on a genderqueer or otherwise non-gender-conforming cissexual person with the experiences of a trans person. And that was never my intention. And I have owned my cis privilege in this thread and others. Repeatedly.
But I do think that, just as it’s helpful and relevant at times to differentiate transsexual from transgender, it’s also useful to differentiate cissexual from cisgender, since there are varying combinations of these that have a big impact on how a person is situated in our heteronormative cultural landscape. And my point was just that this is another way that cis terminology is an incredibly useful tool, in addition to it’s non-othering nature.
Rachel_in_WY
8 Jul 09 at 10:08 am
@rioTgirl: I understand how those misunderstandings develop. But if our experiences as genderqueer, gender variant or having shifting or unknown identities are so much different in terms of the kinds and types of privilege we experience, perhaps we shouldn’t be supported in the same spaces and the same conversations.
To me, there is a pretty significant conflict between including all those identities as trans*, and the lines in the sand being drawn here.
CBrachyrhynchos
8 Jul 09 at 12:18 pm
I am definately trans first before I am genderqueer female. Mostly because I have next to zero trust for the cis dominated queer female community.
And even if I think I’m gonna take some “not trans enough” shit from femme trans women, I know that in the end of the day trans females will stick together out of necessity if nothing else.
Estrobutch
8 Jul 09 at 4:45 pm
[...] July 4, Lisa posted A Point about Cis, reiterating that Cis is not an insult, it’s not a slur. It is, however, as much of an identity [...]
The Thang Blog » Are we really doing this again? (OR: The Great Trans Blogging Shakeup of 2009, pt 2)
11 Jul 09 at 11:54 pm
[...] Continuing discussion on Questioning Transphobia – http://questioningtransphobia.wordpress.com/2009/07/04/a-point-about-cis/ Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)Trans Men and Ciscentric Male PrivilegeWhat gets [...]
Resources on cisgender, cissexual and cis privilege « Living My Life
13 Jul 09 at 9:20 am
I know that in the end of the day trans females will stick together out of necessity if nothing else.
I hope so. It’s so easy for trans female’s concerns to be sidelined by more privileged women’s concerns or by a total misunderstanding of intersectionality. This happened on both sides with NOWHC, and so many other places.
It is a constant danger which I am hyperattuned to by long, bitter experience.
Also, what CBrachyrhynchos said. I think that question needs to be explored at length. I really do.
voz
13 Jul 09 at 1:07 pm
CBrachyrhynchos -
We as a community do need to have some discussions about levels of priv. and types of oppressions – but I’d almost fear some sort of oppression olympics dynamic happening. Or even worse, a Trans-er Than Thou” kinda thing.
If we could talk about this in a meaningful way without the need for hierarchies I’d be all over it. Having some passing ID from “sissy” to (trying to be) HomoQueer-straight-acting-yet out, to big femme queen, to finally trans-whateverthehelliendedup. I would actually appreciate this type of discussion and see how cis-priv plays out for all of us under the TG umberella..ella..ella
rioTgirl
13 Jul 09 at 5:37 pm
resurrecting a ten-day-old sentence of voz’s:
i’m not sure if “privilege” is the best possible word for that. let’s see if i can explain…
“privilege”, to me, brings connotations of some extra goodies over and above the baseline that everybody else gets; of added benefits received by people who haven’t earned or deserved them. but that privilege which blinds its recipients to its existence, i think, isn’t quite that.
“cis privilege”, or “white/male privilege” — in this sense of blinding its recipients, at least — seems to me more like what ought to be the baseline level of respect and consideration which every human ought to get, but which some groups are unjustly denied. i think, if i’m right about that, that it’s no wonder folks are blind to receiving what they (just like everybody else!) should receive. it’s shame on us (yeah, white cismale speaking) for failing to notice some others are unfairly denied it, but perhaps not quite so much for failing to notice we ourselves aren’t denied it.
still, “privilege” is the word we’ve got for that condition, and even if it doesn’t quite fit we might have to live with it. language isn’t perfect, i guess.
but then there’s cis privilege in the sense of taking “cissexual” as an insult, and that doesn’t (i don’t think, anyway) fit this pattern any longer. believing one’s own experience is and ought to be so normative that merely giving it a name is to denigrate it… that’s petty and egocentric, and i can’t quite understand that mindset.
Nomen Nescio
14 Jul 09 at 9:03 am
Thank you for writing this. It helped me a lot. =)
Willows
30 Aug 09 at 2:30 pm
[...] to get some of those thoughts down here. Particularly with all of the discussion that’s been happening lately in blogs and on Twitter about the topic. (links so not in chronological order, [...]
Why I use “cis” « Bi-Furious!
20 Nov 09 at 6:12 pm
[...] are other good discussions of this issue at the following posts: A Point About Cis and Semantics, Gender, and ‘Cis’. Share and [...]
Transgender Gainesville
22 Dec 09 at 2:40 pm