There have been many times in my life where I am looking at cisgender females. These cisgender women could be average, they could be not very attractive looking, or even have a really nasty personality. The bottom line is though, that they are women because they were born that way. Society treats them as such simply because nobody would think any different.
I have spent a good amount of my life trying to overcompensate by being really feminine and undeniably attractive. I only come to find out that there are times it really makes no difference and some people will still treat me the same as before anyways. This makes me very angry, but I suppose I have come to a place in my life where I have stopped mugging for other people's approval.
This is the way that I define cis privilege. When you are transgender and you transition, you are going to lose approval from some people simply because of that. When you are cisgender however, that is an issue you never have to/had to face.
So that is how I define cis privilege. If anyone else wants to add to the subject, you are welcome to do so.

For a lot of people, the word "woman" is reserved for natal females.  They literally can't conceive of any other meaning for the word, so trans people are just out of luck with them.  The world is changing, the gender nouns/pronouns are being gradually redefined to have a more social rather than biological meaning, but that is a slow process. 

I never really had what you define as cis privilege anyway. As a man I looked a bit out of place. As a woman I pass with no problems. End of the day I learned not to care about what people saw or didn't and if there is such a thing they can keep it. I like being me!

Cis privilege to me means I am treated like the man I should have been born as, even if its something as simple as being called "Mr. XXXXXXX," even if I mentally feel that "that's my Dad's name." [emoji1]

I don't want any special treatment, I just want to be seen and treated as a man. 

Ryuichi

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I never really thought about Cis priviledge before. Since I pass 100% of the time I guess I have cis priviledge though I'm not really sure what that priviledge is. People treat me as a female.

Quote from: CosmicJoke on May 22, 2019, 04:31:20 PM
This is the way that I define cis privilege. When you are transgender and you transition, you are going to lose approval from some people simply because of that. When you are cisgender however, that is an issue you never have to/had to face.
So that is how I define cis privilege. If anyone else wants to add to the subject, you are welcome to do so.

Hello again

Yes sadly one is likely to lose approval or respect or even friendship from some people when one transitions or even if one is transgender and informs someone without at the time transitioning. This has happened to me. However times are changing and we are gradually gaining acceptance and I believe we will not forever have to suffer this disapproval or fight these battles.

You asked for additional comments on cis privilege. I believe cispeople are very lucky to have been born cis but they usually do not realize their good fortune as the subject of gender hardly ever occurs to them.

Hugs

Pamela

So privilege is bestowed on those who apparently fit their gender ID. So if you identify yourself as trans, no matter what you look like, you lose that cis privilege. Why aren't passing trans people afforded the privilege of acceptance by people who know about them?

Part of my job is to teach biology to school children. We cover different animal biologies which include hermaphroditism and animals which switch genders through their lives. This confuses some students until we define females as the one producing eggs, and males as the ones producing sperm. This is the basic understanding of gender most people have. Our primary role for life is to reproduce, so much so that many animals give up their lives to do just that.

Being that reproduction is a fundamental role, we are basically judged on how we fill that role. Barren women complain that they don't really feel like women, and aren't accepted fully.  There are higher levels of understanding, but reproductive ability is the foundation. This is the very reason I feel I can never be a woman with natal privilege, and why most passing trans women protect their secret. Yes, lots are out and proud, but at the cost of that privilege.

Discuss.

Allie

in my view, privilege is earned, not bestowed.

I came from virtual poverty, I had very little privilege, I earned my way in life, I created my own "privilege".

I really don't worry about "cis" privilege, and I don't assume such. If someone calls me "she" "ma'am", "her" I gladly accept, if someone treats me as female, I gladly accept. I earned my womanhood, it was not bestowed upon me.

Good morning

C -

I seem to be "passing" nowadays, but it makes no difference to some of the people that knew me in the before-times. Even to those who are completely accepting, I will always have that "trans" prefix before "woman," and to some I will always be [deadname] in a dress. It's just one of the reasons I'm considering pulling up stakes and moving somewhere where nobody knows me, and starting all over in stealth mode.


Stephanie

I think it is simply being comfortable with the gender you were born as.  There are too many people out there that are not happy with the way they look, or the way they are treated in society for me to push it much further than that.  I suppose there are probably trans people out there, that are okay with being born the wrong gender as it gives them a different perspective of the world. 

I don't feel comfortable using the word privilege, and try to avoid it in my day to day lingo.  I hate to admit it, but when I see CIS women I usually think about how lucky they were to be born women.  Then I start to feel guilty about thinking that way.  It is not really fair to them, and I try to push it out of my mind. I remember once, when I was around 10 years old, talking to one of my girl friends and telling her how lucky she was to be a girl, she didn't take it too well.  I don't blame her, what an awkward conversation that was.

Cis privilege does not affect me at all in daily life.  I do worry about not having it in the event that I have to travel somewhere less enlightened, or if a less enlightened government gets elected here.

Lacking cis privilege means that I could be detained for using the proper bathroom; I could be hassled just for living openly as myself; in some places I could be denied services because of a business owner's religion.  I manage those risks by not travelling to places where those kinds of things happen, and by encouraging my friends and neighbours to vote for more enlightened parties.

So the lack of cis privilege has not impacted me yet. 

Well, not a lot, anyway.  I have a standing offer to visit my brother at his winter place in Palm Springs.  And while California is one of the less unenlightened places in the US, lack of cis privilege has forced my to put that whole country on my no-fly list.

Quote from: KathyLauren on May 23, 2019, 05:44:36 PM
Cis privilege does not affect me at all in daily life.  I do worry about not having it in the event that I have to travel somewhere less enlightened, or if a less enlightened government gets elected here.

Lacking cis privilege means that I could be detained for using the proper bathroom; I could be hassled just for living openly as myself; in some places I could be denied services because of a business owner's religion.  I manage those risks by not travelling to places where those kinds of things happen, and by encouraging my friends and neighbours to vote for more enlightened parties.

So the lack of cis privilege has not impacted me yet. 

Well, not a lot, anyway.  I have a standing offer to visit my brother at his winter place in Palm Springs.  And while California is one of the less unenlightened places in the US, lack of cis privilege has forced my to put that whole country on my no-fly list.

You have a standing offer to visit friends in Florida, too. But I completely understand. As much as I dislike the weather in the Great White North (having spent most of my life in Michigan), if the political climate here doesn't change next year, I may be seeking asylum north of the border. Assuming, of course, that the government there doesn't do something terrible.



- Stephanie

To me it just means that people just see me as any other lady. when Im traveling internationally I love my CIS privilege

Quote from: warmbody28 on May 24, 2019, 04:59:06 PM
To me it just means that people just see me as any other lady. when Im traveling internationally I love my CIS privilege

Exactly!! Any time I leave the area where people knew me in the before-times I've been recognized only as a woman - all over the US and overseas. I leave again in a few days for Europe and it'll be so good to just be me with few worries of misgendering, and zero worries of being deadnamed.

By the way, Warmbody, of course you enjoy cis-privilege. You're gorgeous!


- Stephanie

I find the various uses of the word "privilege" oft-abused these days, and I hesitate to apply such a thing to people to cis because at the end of the day there's nothing they or we can do about the fact that they are statistically more common than we are and that which is rarer is logically and typically not something we make the same provision for as what is average by definition. The whole carving up of society into sections with "privilege" has done little to heal divisions and much more to significantly widen them over the last 15 years, in my opinion. Instead of creating categories of privilege level we should have concentrated on saying things like "we are human too", "we are not all that different from you".   

You can't help that you're trans. They can't help that they're cis. We can't help that we are rarer than they are, and most people do not or can not understand what it is to be trans. They do not tend make provision for things they can not or do not understand until they have actually encountered them in a meaningful way in their own lives, and that is the way we all tend to be about most things. And for good reason - efficiency of navigating the world. If you concerned yourself with every section of society's issues that did not involve you, you would have little time left for navigating your own life. We think about what we are concerned about. We don't think much about we are not involved with. Most people are not involved with us.

Different sorts of people face different obstacles in life. If you don't have a heart condition chances are you'll not think about what it would be like to have one. If you don't live in a war zone, chances are you don't think about what it's like to be in one very often. They don't think about what it's like to be trans very often I am sure.

Strictly speaking, this "cis privilege" is the state of going unnoticed and the state of being a part of the average majority. Any outlier is likely to come in for greater notice, and greater disapproval, human (and animal) nature being what it is. It's not just human transgender individuals that face problems. Animals with hormonal aberration and genetic variance of this type also do when they live in social species - there are animals displaying 'transgender' features as well. And we shouldn't forget that animals that have colour aberration like melanistic or albinistic features or other kinds of differences often face problems because they are not immediately recognized by their peers in the wild. I'm afraid I see it less in terms of "privilege" and more in terms of how living things logically tend to categorize their world. Sameness and familiarity is logically of less hazard to them that what is not. That's where the instinct to avoid what is "different" comes from.

Yes, cis people don't have to face our unique problems. And those of us that go unnoticed have less of them.     

Kylo, you have put this succinctly and very precisely.  Thank you for your comment, I understand and agree with what you say, thus my reluctance to out myself if it is not needed. 

Those that need to know that I am trans, know.  Those that don't need to know, don't.  It is not only for my own safety, but simply under most circumstances, not needed for those outside of my medical team or my family (transfam as well as genetic) to know.   Those outside of these groups simply have no need to know.  Nor is it their business for them to know "what's in my pants."  It is simply not relevant.

However, I still participate in transgender-related Pride events and actions whenever I can.  I still co-facilitate my local transgender groups, and probably will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. 

The rest of the time, humanity should treat me like the man I am, and all will be good with my world.

Ryuichi

"Cis privilege" is a concept I never thought of until I came to accept myself as transgender.  Until then, I thought I was cis even though I had no idea what cisgender was.  Now that I'm in the path to transition, I have come to see cis privilege of being born in the right body.  Cis people do not have to come out, face discrimination and violence because of their gender, nor suffer in silence as dysphoria strikes in practically every facet of their lives.  Having been born in the right body is a privilege I have never known.