Susan's Place Transgender Resources

This is a question I've had since I joined. I see cis male and cis female all around the boards but I don't know how to pronounce it and it's kind of just adopted the pronunciation of CSI to me, which I know isn't the correct one haha.

Joey

I've always said and heard it pronounced "sis."

the scis part in scissors

it's pronounced "sis" like cis/trans in chemistry =)

I've only ever heard it pronounced sis like in sister.

I always pronounce it 'sis'... but that's a bit ironic because I'm South African, and 'sis' is a common South African slang word meaning 'yuck' or 'gross'. ;)

Ag cis, man!

I may appear to be hopelessly out of touch, but I'm still trying to figure out what, exactly, it means and where it came from.

cis sounds a little derogatory frankly and my admittedly limited experience with hetros is they can often be quite aggressive, even violent.

I'd suggest an alternative such as hetlers, or perhaps normies, but I'm probably too late.

Still, it might be nice to, at least, have a derivation of cis.

Quote from: spacial on March 15, 2013, 08:50:35 AM
I may appear to be hopelessly out of touch, but I'm still trying to figure out what, exactly, it means and where it came from.

cis sounds a little derogatory frankly and my admittedly limited experience with hetros is they can often be quite aggressive, even violent.

I'd suggest an alternative such as hetlers, or perhaps normies, but I'm probably too late.

Still, it might be nice to, at least, have a derivation of cis.

Well, the primary reason the word cisgender exists is to provide an alternative to terms such as 'normal', 'biological', 'natal' etc., which inevitably cast trans people as being 'not normal'.

A lot of cis people complain about the term, but that almost always stems from a faulty concept of what the term means. It's often assumed to mean that someone's 'comfortable' in their gender role, but that's not (necessarily) true. It simply means the person in question has a gender identity that agrees with the one they were assigned at birth.

I do understand the point and the reasoning. It's just rather unfortunate that the word sounds like a shortened form of Cissy or perhaps a shortened form of something else.

We're often dealing with very sensitive people, not just because they might have a problem understanding why anyone 'Would Want to Change Sex'. It's surprising how many assume that any sort of varient is by choice. Recently, I watched a discussion program on TV (I don't get out much), where someone raised the issue of Tom Robinson getting married. (The guy who wrote Glad to be Gay). Though he has made it quite clear he is a gay man who got married to a woman, (as am I), it has been portrayed widely as, this most prominent of gay activists, renouncing his allegiance and becoming normal!

I don't think we have fully appreciated the confusion that many feel. They want to understand something that they simply can't.

I have said before, here, I can't fully understand why anyone would want to reject their female gender to adopt male. (FtM) I have a reference as a transgender gmale, so I can and do, fully sympathise and empathise.

But our cisgender associates don't. So, we call these people who know they are confused and misunderstanding / not understanding, CIS

That it doesn't seem to have any derivation, just makes it seem all the more underhandedly abusive.

"sis"

I normally only specify "trans", most people have an unspoken assumption the subject is cis, unless clarified.

If I must, I just say "born male/female with a matching mind" or some such. "Cis", imho, is like a code word among us, because "normies" (LOL) never use it to describe themselves.

Like Sappho said, it's used in chemistry, pronounced "siss". They're Latin roots: "cis" means "on the same side" and "trans" means "across".

Quote from: brainiac on March 15, 2013, 11:55:16 AM
Like Sappho said, it's used in chemistry, pronounced "siss". They're Latin roots: "cis" means "on the same side" and "trans" means "across".

Thank you and my apologies to Sappho. In my haste to have the discussion, I sorta missed that.  :embarrassed:

I always pronounced is Cizz, but I guess I have been saying it wrong.

QuoteIt's just rather unfortunate that the word sounds like a shortened form of Cissy or perhaps a shortened form of something else.

If anyone goes around calling a TG a "->-bleeped-<-," then them being a "cissy" is hardly undeserved.  Granted, it's provocative, and that may be too problematic to mess with, but it's not unearned either.  It might also serve as a good time to explain trans-isomer and cis-isomer bonds (chemistry).  But basically if the other person is going to throw down, turning everyone into "->-bleeped-<-s" and "cissies" has a weird poetic justice to it, and it has the perversely beautiful aspect of making identity irrelevant due to both of them (i.e. all people) sounding bad.

I'm still not really sure how to feel about it in general, but it's something I've thought about before, and it struck me as an amusing coincidence.

Exactly:  The ancient Romans called the area in northern Italy, which was occupied by the Gauls "Cisalpine Gaul", by which they meant "on this side" of the Alps.

Quote from: brainiac on March 15, 2013, 11:55:16 AM
Like Sappho said, it's used in chemistry, pronounced "siss". They're Latin roots: "cis" means "on the same side" and "trans" means "across".