"Cis" and "trans" are different types of a person's.... what?
What are cis and trans alternate types of? I don't think it's "gender identity" because wouldn't that just be man, woman or nonbinary regardless of whether they're cis or trans? Cis/trans just being a qualifier?
If the answer is "I am cis" or "I am trans", what is the question?
Edit: Someone came up with the term "gender congruity" and (after looking up the definition of "congruity") I think this describes what I'm talking about perfectly.
To a first approximation, they describe the match or mismatch between a person's gender identity and their assigned gender at birth (AGAB).
"Cis" = "my gender identity matches my assigned gender at birth"
"Trans" = "my gender identity does not match my assigned gender at birth"
The question being asked is, "Given that when you were born they thought of you as a (boy/girl); are you now expressing or experiencing a (male/female) gender, or a (female/male) one?"
Logically speaking, this is an xor operation; it asks if two things are the same or different. If boolean variable a represents your AGAB and boolean variable b represents your gender identity, then "are you trans?" is a xor b — is your AGAB different from your gender identity?
Again, this is to a first approximation. There are people who don't fit binary labels, and so an xor operation on binary labels doesn't fit them either.
I like the way you express this. "Cis / Trans" isn't about your gender, it's about whether your gender has CHANGED. (Although it may not be your GENDER that changed, but what people THOUGHT your gender was.)
In a similar way, I (a cis male) usually call myself "straight", but that's not really accurate. I don't feel like I'm attracted to whatever gender is different from mine (which happens to be women); I feel like I am attracted to women (which happens to be the gender that's different from mine).
Putting it differently, if some magical spell were to transform me into a woman, I don't imagine that I would then be attracted to men, I imagine that I would be attracted to women. So instead of calling myself "straight", I should probably be saying that I am "gynosexual" (attracted to women).
I really really love the way you phrased that. Just thought I would let you know. Bookmarking your comment as a discussion point for the future as well.
At first I was thinking that this would make cis and trans properties of gender, but I think we’re specifying a a set of properties or maybe a state of affairs (assessor,world,time,gender,etc)
I think the confusion is coming from the fact that cis and trans really only have context of an expectation. In this case, it would be the expectation of society.
You are correct that if you identify as a woman or a man, you are a woman or man. If you have a penis, or a vagina, or some mix or lack of those, then those are just parts of your body and that isn't really up to interpretation.
In broad strokes, society expects your body parts (penis, vagina) to correspond to how you identify (man, woman). Humans are kind of just built this way. Our brains take a lot of shortcuts and categorize the world around us. It is statistically likely that if you have a penis, you identify as a man.
As we've evolved as a society, we have come to understand and recognize that these statistically likely correlations not always hold up (it's just likely, not a guarantee, after all). So cis and trans are descriptors of whether or not the correlation between your gender identity and your physical characteristics match (cis) or don't match (trans) society's expectations.
Please note I’m typing this as a trans man.
Being “cis” or “trans” stems from someone’s gender.
Basically, do you identify as your birth gender (not sex, gender and sex are different)? If the answer is yes, you are “cis”. If the answer is no, like I my case, I was born female, I identify as a male, then you are are trans.
I understand what they are, I'm asking if there is a name for the category of characteristic that they both belong to.
You're not getting an answer to your question because the question, as stated, is incomprehensible. You're asking for a "category of characteristic" that a pair of antonym adjectives "belong to"? That doesn't make sense. They apply to a whole host of characteristics, because they're not describing a specific characteristic, but how a characteristic relates to the whole. Just like "homo" and "hetero"; homozygous, heterogenous, homocystine, and heterophony are all words that use the "homo" or "hetero" prefix to describe how those words relate to other concepts in their category. It's the same with "cis" and "trans". The prefixes don't "belong" to a category of characteristics, they explicitly exist outside of the characteristics of the words their modifying.
That's the best I can do with the way you've chosen to phrase your question, and I admit it's a reach, but your question is gibberish.
There is no such category. Being cisgender or being transgender describes the relationship between 2 variables. The first being your assigned gender. The second being your gender identity. Cisgender means there is an equivalence of those 2 variables. Transgender means there is not an equivalence of those 2 variables.
The reason we use the term trans which means roughly "other side" to describe this is because you cannot know you are transgender at birth. Your gender identity is assumed to be cisgender, it is assumed to be the same as the gender you are assigned. So when you reveal your gender identity to in fact be something different you are moving to another side of gender. At least in literal usage of the terms cis and trans.
Shouldn't it be that you identify with your birth sex? If gender is a social construct you don't have a gender at birth. When the doctor says "It's a boy" they're referring to the genitalia you have, not assigning you a social position.
You might not believe in the social construct at birth, but the social construct believes in you. Children are treated differently based on assigned gender from birth.
No, gender is a social construct and the doctor is assigning a gender to you when you are born based on what he sees as your genital configuration. This is then used to determine nearly everything about you through the social framework of gender.
What colors you're allowed to like, what games you can play, what names you can have, what words are acceptable to refer to you with, who you're allowed to be friends with, what foods your supposed to like, what clothes you're allowed to wear, how people should speak to you, how people should praise you, how people should scold you, whether or not misogyny should be applied to you, and so on and so forth.
Those things are determined based on the gender you are assigned at birth. Those things are enforced across all society at all social levels and in all settings. Parents are the first people to enforce gender onto their children, intentionally or not. Then every single other adult and child they meet or interact with throughout their childhood will continue to enforce gender upon them until they themselves become adults and repeat the cycle with their own kids. Media perpetuates gender, government laws enforce gender, education systems are filled with people who systematically enforce gender upon children.
Thats what we mean when we say gender is a social construct. And you're assigned one at birth.
Basically, do you identify as your birth gender (not sex, gender and sex are different)?
The additional explanation actually confused me. Let's compare the two sentences:
A) Basically, do you identify as your birth gender?
B) Basically, do you identify as your birth sex?
I assume biological sex can be identified by looking at your body as a new born baby, and gender is usually inferred accordingly. So I would assume new borns are being assigned a gender which mathes their biology, although they probably don't have any opinions themselves on the topic.
Anyways, what's the difference between A and B? I feel you felt it was important to point it out, and I just can't see any.
Cis and trans are terms that came before their application to gender identity. I learned themin organic chemistry in reference to chemical isomers.
Wikipedia: The prefixes "cis" and "trans" are from Latin: "this side of" and "the other side of", respectively.
As applied to gender, "this side of" you are the gender of the sex you were born as. "The other side of" means you have switched your gender to the other side of the sex from which you were born.
Edit: to answer your question more directly, your gender is cis or trans of the sex you were born as. The question you ask for is: "is your gender cis or trans of your sex?"
I think it's an alignment, like parallel vs. perpendicular.
If you identify with your sex at birth, whatever it is, your identity is aligned with your biological sex at birth, that is called Cisgender. Parallel.
If your gender identity is not aligned with your biological sex at birth, it is at an angle to it, perhaps perpendicular (you were a boy baby but are a woman) perhaps a different angle (perhaps were born a girl and are non-binary). Anything other than that parallel alignment is thrown into the Trans bucket, but particularly the perpendicular arrangements.
You made it perfectly clear. What happened was people who don't understand that cis and trans are real words with real meanings that weren't just made up to describe ones relationship to ones gender at birth decided that they would weigh in on the subject.
"I'm making a website. Drop-down 1 has options like [male, female, nonbinary] and goes into a column called "gender" in the database. Drop-down 2 has [cisgender, transgender, prefer not to say]. What is the name of the column for drop-down 2?"
I thought it was pretty obvious what you meant. Even the title alone was enough IMO. But I guess this is something most people don't even consider. And even if they had put some thought into it. And a lot of transphobes don't think women are women or men are men.
You can think of 'cis' and 'trans' as meaning roughly 'this side' and 'other side'.
In a gender context the 'sides' are male and female and the items are physical gender and mental gender. If both genders are on the same side, both on 'this side', that's 'cis'. If they are different, one 'this side', one 'other side', that's 'trans'.
So, if the answer is "I am cis/trans" the question is "Is your mental gender the same as your physical gender?" "I am cis" then means "My mental gender is the same as my physical gender" and "I am trans" means "My mental gender is not the same as (or maybe 'is opposite') my physical gender".
Note that 'physical gender' is not always clear. Some people are born with ambiguous genitalia and may be surgically altered to make their genitalia more closely resemble the commonly recognized pattern for 'male' or 'female', and some may be left as-is. In some cases this can be a reason for a trans gender identity.
You can think of 'cis' and 'trans' as meaning roughly 'this side' and 'other side'.
Before “cisgender” became a widely publicized term, about the only time I ever heard the term “cis” was discussing Cisalpine versus Transalpine Gaul in ancient Rome. (Cisalpine Gaul being northern Italy and Transalpine Gaul southern France, more or less - the parts of Gaul that were on the same side or the opposite side of the Alps from Rome).
Cisgender means the person has a gender identity that matches the sex they were assigned at birth.
If you are a man and you were assigned male at birth, you are cis.
If you are a man and you were assigned female at birth, you are trans.
Non-binary can mean anything from not having a strong specifically male or female identity to closer to switching identities (bi-gender falls closer into this) to just having a lot of serious fluidity, but typically speaking at least part of the time the identity doesn’t match the assigned sex at birth.
CIS is simply opposite of TRANS - they simply describe someone's identity in terms of their physiology.
Confusion rises, somewhat, when you factor in masculinity/femininity to the equation - but basically 'trans' means that having a dick doesn't mean you're a man... 'cis' means that being a man means you have a penis.
They're still arguing over it in the starving nations too, who you sleep with and how you present as your gender is usually a bigger issue in starving nations with gender roles and presentation being very severely enforced. The "hungriest" countries are Yemen, Somalia, South Sudan and Syria, all countries where being gay will get you jailed or killed. Also at last count only 10% of the world's population is affected by hunger and The World Food Program estimates that 345 million people will be food insecure in 2023. Again these figures have increased since 2020 and it sucks and is not a good thing that anyone is hungry, but it is no where near 50%. Now you know.
It's not a bad thing, isn't it. I think the goal should be that the whole world is stable enough that no one is worried about their next meal and everyone has the privilege to ruminate about gender.
So you're suggesting America should definitely go back to forcing queer people to hide in the closet in desperate fear for their lives? Newsflash, my brilliant little gobstopper, trans people exist in every country. In America they can get the help they need instead of being beheaded. We're trying to keep it that way. Think before you try to join the grown up's conversations, mmkay?
If the answer is "I am cis" or "I am trans", what is the question?
The question would, to be blunt, be "are you cis or trans?", because "cis" and "trans" are just shorthand for "cisgender" and "transgender".
It's a question of very limited scope -- even if you were to reword it -- because in modern society, the exact detail of if someone is cis or trans isn't really practically important. If someone is a man, say, society cares a lot more about them being a man rather than being a cisgender man or a transgender man. (I'd say the same about women, but there's obviously a subset of society that is in the process of demonising trans women, so...)
I think the core issue you've found is that cis/trans-ness is something that only makes sense in the context of something else, the gender identity of the person in question.
I agree with what you're stating and I hope that that's where we are headed - there just being man, woman, and non-binary gender identities. For now though, as I see it, cis/trans become relevant in three ways (off the top of my head):
Medical situations - self explanatory
In pursuance of romantic/sexual relations - society is still at the stage where the visual perception of a person lead to certain presumptions. Not everyone may be okay with dating/having sex with a person who has different genitalia than they presumed that their partner would have.
[This point is my personal opinion] The visibility of people openly owning their journey can be a source of information, give courage to others who are undergoing the same journey and are scared or confused. I knew about my orientation way before I realized that there's a term for it or that their are others like me.
Simply, a cis person identifies with the gender they were born with. You were born a man and identify as a man, a cis man. A trans person identifies themself with a gender different than what they were born with. You were born male but identify as female, a trans woman.
I'm not sure if it is their origin, but in organic chemistry nomenclature, cis refers to a molecule whose interesting bits are on the same side (imagine both of your arms up or both of your arms down), and trans to one whose interesting bits are on opposite sides (like if one of your arms is up and the other is down). In the gender metaphor, the two 'interesting bits' are your current identity and your birth identity - cis for when they are the same, and trans for when they are different.
They're literally opposites. They're prefixes that mean the exact opposite thing from one another in exactly the same way that North and South mean opposite things.
...Behaviors and lifestyle choices. They do not rise to the immutable characteristics that qualify for civil-rights protection.
And yes; I've seen the sleazy Wiki edit that attaches "perceived" to the definition of "immutable". 'I just have to believe...' belongs in a child's fairytale book.
Why do you care more about what the law requires you to do than you care about simply treating people decently? You can recognize a person's rights even if the law doesn't demand it.
And why do I get the feeling that you wouldn't recognize the civil rights of those who you do view as having "immutable characteristics" if the law didn't tell you that you had to?
The law is there because of people like you, to make you recognize peoples rights because you seem to be incapable of doing so otherwise.
Your entire argument reeks of you asking "What kind of shitty behavior can I get away with?"