Monday, June 29, 2009
Cisgender Privilege
Posted by Jackson at 8:41 AM
http://queersubversion.blogspot.com/2009/06/cisgender-privilege.htmlAs is typical for me, I wrote a very long essay about this and then cut it down when I realize I can say what I want to in fewer words. This is about the prefix "cis." Cis men. Cis women. Cis people. Cisgender was coined as a way to describe people who are not transgender. And recently, at a lot of normally trans-friendly hangouts, non-transgender people are starting to rebel against the prefix "cis."
In a number of these cases, in other words every argument I've seen while giving leeway for the arguments I have not, what has actually happened is somebody was triggered by their transphobia into anger about the subject at hand, but failing any useful contribution to the conversation they instead complain that we used a "slur" against them. Often the subtext is "trans women are members of the patriarchy, and are calling women cisgender to oppress us," or "I am a white gay male and it is my agenda that should be supreme."
