"Cisgender" is not a slur, John Aravosis
by Zinnia — 18 November 2011
http://zinniajones.com/blog/2011/11/cisgender-is-not-a-slur-john-aravosis/In response to a post about a recent glitter-bombing, gay activist John Aravosis claims that the words "cis" and "cisgender" are somehow "a slur" against people who aren't transgender. The term originated as a neutral counterpart to "transgender" in reference to the Latin prefixes "cis-" and "trans-", meaning "on the same side" and "on the other side". In contrast to people who are transgender, people who are cisgender experience an alignment of their gender identity and their physical sex. The term is not intended to carry negative connotations - just as the word "transgender" is not a slur against trans people, neither is the word "cisgender" a slur against cis people.
Aravosis, however, seems to think that calling cis people cis is comparable to calling straight people "breeders", or calling trans people "->-bleeped-<-s". But it's not exactly helpful to throw that out there without any explanation. If anything, it's like calling straight people "heterosexual" by analogy to "homosexual" - a dispassionate and equitable way of referring to sexual orientation. Is "heterosexual" a slur against straight people? Hardly. It's not a term of disparagement, and neither is "cisgender".
