Linguistic troubles with cis/transgender
Daisy and Mattie chimed in on the discussion of this recent post about about the best way to describe an individual’s gender, gender identity, status as cis/transsexual, and a few other related concepts. Following some discussion at Daisy’s blog, Dear Diaspora, I came up with three spectra:
- Gender Identity as it relates to Self Presentation
- Gender Identity as it relates to Assigned Sex
- Subconscious Sex as it relates to Assigned Sex
Spectrum 1 was coming from Daisy’s use of cis/transgender at her above-linked post, Spectrum 2 is the commonly-used definition of cis/transgender, and Spectrum 3 is the commonly used definition of cis/transsexual. (If that doesn’t make sense, please take a look at my previous post for a more in-depth explanation of these concepts.)
Basically, Daisy got me thinking about how the commonly-used definition of cis/transgender and cis/transsexual are based off of a a person’s identity as it related to their assigned sex, whereas the definition she was using for cis/transgender was based off a person’s perception of itself as it related to their gender identity. That’s the long-story-short of where the three spectra came from.
With that background out of the way, I have a few more things I’d like to clarify before moving on with this post:
- After hearing Mattie’s thoughts, and thinking things over more myself, I agree that trying to change the definition of cis/transgender is ultimately tilting at windmills
- Perhaps more importantly, it would force people who do identify as transgender to have to massively rethink their own self-identification in a way I’m not comfortable with
- As such, I’ll continue to use the Spectrum 2 (commonly-used) definition of cis/transgender rather than caveating it all the time with phrases like “commonly-used.” Starting….now!
But I still do think there are two big issues which came up in this discussion that are worth examination by anyone at all interested in gender politics and identity issues, and the transgender and transsexual populations in particular:
- The value of having something along the lines of Spectrum 1 as a more widely-understood concept.
- The sloppy and problematic nature of the standing definitions of cis/transgender and cis/transsexual
Lets talk about that second point first – I’ll leave the first point for another post. As I mentioned in my previous post, the words “cissexual” and “cisgender” are structured to mirror “transsexual” and “transgender.” But, looking at their definitions, they don’t mirror them in such a way to avoid all confusion. Here are the definitions I’ll be using, shamelessly stolen from geopunk’s definitions (the only changes I’m making are using cis/transsexual instead of cis/transsexed, and slightly expanding geopunk’s definition of transsexual to include desire as a possible qualification for being transsexual):
Cisgender: Describes a person whose gender identity (and often gender expression) “matches” their assigned gender. This doesn’t necessarily mean that a person has to be comfortable with their society’s determined gender roles.
Cissexual: Describes a person whose physical body (i.e. genitals, reproductive organs, secondary sex characteristics), as far as they know, aligns with their assigned sex — and they have no desire to change their body to conform with their gender identity. Someone can be cissexual without being cisgender; for example, many genderqueer people fall under this category.
Transgender: An umbrella descriptor for a person whose gender does not align with the one they were assigned. May include crossdressing/transvestism, gender fluid, genderqueer, and/or transsexual individuals. Sometimes shortened to trans* (with or without the asterisk) when used to mean “transgender and/or transsexual individuals”.
Transsexual: Describes a person whose body does not align with their gender identity, and either desires to, is planning to, is in the process of, or has completed a process of changing it to align. This process of medical transition may include hormone therapy and/or surgery. There is no “one true way” to go about being transsexual.
I think cissexual and transsexual are pretty successful definitions, as well as being both etymologically definitionally (not a word, but you get what I mean) mirrored. That is, there words themselves imply through their structure that there is no concept in one word that isn’t mirrored in the other. Cis/transsexual describe whether a person’s body aligns with their gender identity.
On the other hand, cisgender and transgender aren’t so beautifully mirrored. Their structure and etymology implies they should be, but they’re not. Specifically, transgender is an umbrella term which contains transsexual – a transsexual individual is inherently a transgender individual – but cissexual person is not inherently a cisgender person.
I’m starting to think this is part of the root cis/trans arguments, because the definitions of cisgender and transgender feel so sloppy that people aren’t able to use them well or with precision. (Also, some people have intentionally gone out of their way to misunderstand how others used cis/transgender, but that goes back to Rule 1*. Not everyone is being intentionally obtuse when having disagreements over the use of cis/transgender.)
For example, crossdressing is generally included under the “transgender umbrella” but it seems narrow-minded to say someone can’t have a male gender identity and enjoy drag queen-ing or a female gender identity and enjoy drag king=ing.
I was recently convinced that, in most circumstances, simply using “trans” or “cis,” without specifying what one means, is problematic. I think the non-mirrored nature of cisgender and transgender feed into this.
I’m not sure where to go from here, though. Mattie convinced me that trying to entirely scrap the definition of cisgender and transgender, to start over, isn’t the path to take. (Even though I still sort of want it to be.) But is it possible to modify the definitions, to bring them greater clarity? I ask for two reasons. First, because I like elegance and having cis/transsexual mirror each other but cis/transgender trip and fail seems inelegant. Second, because that inelegance seems to keep causing problems with how different people define their identity and the identities of others.
Thoughts? I’d love for Cedar to chime in, so maybe I’ll shoot her an email…
*Rule 1: People are stupid.
Themocracy
I think you’re absolutely right that there’s a lot of confusion as to cis/transgender due to the fact that they’re not mirrors, and also that trying to change the definition at this point is probably not going to happen.
Having a vested interest in this as a non-binary ID’d person, it would be great if cis/transgender did work like cis/transsexual – it would help to avoid the erasure of genderqueer people who could also be categorized as transsexual, and it would also stop a lot of cissexual genderqueer people from being told that they’re not really trans. The other necessary shift, then, would be to using trans* as the umbrella term, which would then really firmly mean “transgender and/or transsexual”. Of course, genderqueer was originally intended to be a politicized umbrella term, but, it’s now morphed into specifically non-binary identities (and, often, problematically, in many people’s minds only those of masculine FAAB people).
I have seen some transsexual people with binary identities describe themselves as cisgender and transsexual in trans spaces, but even there, it creates confusion.
I think things that need to be clarified in the definition are:
1) transgender includes all genderqueer people (if they identify as such, but the main objection I’ve heard from “genderqueer but not transgender” people is that they feel they have too much access to privilege and thus would be appropriating), whether they are visible as such or not (this ties a lot into femmephobia and how masculinity is privileged), because having a gender identity that isn’t wo/man (or not entirely described as such) is inherently part of the umbrella, because it doesn’t follow from what you’re assigned at birth.
2) transgender also includes anyone whose gender expression is non-conforming, even if their identity conforms (if the person in question identifies as transgender). This would include male-ID’d drag queens, female ID’d drag queens, butches, femme men, as transgender, if they identify as such.
3) even more so than trans/cissexual, trans/cisgender doesn’t have firm boundaries, and people can have very similar identities and expressions and bodily histories, and see themselves very differently in regards to the terms.
4) cis/transgender doesn’t map strictly to privilege. Say, a FAAB genderqueer femme who is always read as a woman mainly suffers transphobia in being invisible/having their identity erased/and discomfort in relating to a binary gendered world, which has an entirely different set of experiences of with cisgenderism than a woman-ID’d FAAB butch who is seen as a very visibly gender non-conforming woman.
It kind of thrills me that the more discussion that occurs around the identities and experiences under the trans umbrella, the more definitions and borders break down – not that I think we’re going to conquer oppression by convincing everyone they’re a little bit trans/genderqueer, but I think it opens up more identity space for people. I think that we can all make some leaps to conceptualize identities/bodies that make our own deeply held feelings about ourselves make sense, but I’m 28 now, and I don’t think I could verbalize my current relationship to my body and identity fourteen years ago (when I first came out) or even a few years ago. So while I don’t think language is an absolute constraint on identity or expression of identity, it’s a lot easier to talk about how I want a body that is neither male nor female, that my gender is femme, and that I have a complicated history with my body having both a lot more language around to describe it and having encountered other genderqueer femmes who have similar identities/experiences/wants for their bodies.
Of course, as this post and numerous language debates (plus the classic “I’m not cisgender, I’m a tomboy”) illustrate, the expanding language and having a lot more labels can also lead to confusion and further categorization/presumption about people’s identities.
I think we’re doing ok in recognizing that cisgender/transgender and cissexual/transsexual aren’t strict binaries, at least when we discuss theory (there are people in both cases who don’t fit neatly into either category), and that they are primarily meaningful in helping to describe ways in which people relate to an oppressive gender binary system (and thus change with time and place), and they’re an attempt to describe oppressive binaries that were already in place…I think just more widespread realization that they describe a huge variety of experiences and relationships to privilege would help, because, really, as long as we have sexism, transphobia, and a gender binary, they’re going to be useful terms.
“female ID’d drag queens” should read female ID’d drag kings, obviously.
Welcome, anarchafemme. Thanks for stopping by, and for your comment.
Do you mean not simply using “trans” as shorthand unless you explicitly mean “transgender and/or transsexual?” Part of the objection I’ve heard from other people is that “trans” seems to work as an umbrella because transsexual is a subset of transgender, but the same isn’t true for “cis.” That is, (most) people who identify as transgender don’t have a huge problem being lumped in with transsexuals when talking about “trans people.”
On the other hand, I’ve seen people who identify as transgender but not transsexual object to the label “cis” because they don’t want to be lumped in with cisgender people – they want to make sure their identity as transgender doesn’t get lost.
I’m not sure how to accomplish that, though, if transgender is an umbrella term, but cisgender isn’t…
I think I’m going to be fighting a losing battle with this one, but I don’t really agree. I think there should be a separate concept (Spectrum 1 from my previous post) which deals with presentation, because I think it confuses things to lump presentation and identity together. Obviously, for a lot of people they are related, but not for everyone.
Specifically, I think it creates social and cultural problems to have an expectation that drag king/queens, butches, femmes, etc have the same identities as the more commonly-accepted transgender population (where “transgender” means “gender identity doesn’t equal assigned sex.”)
I completely agree that that’s a problem, and I’m not sure what to do about it. In my previous post, one of the things that came up is people have an emotional investment in their identities (which is a good thing!) so suddenly saying, “You’re not this, you’re that” isn’t going to go over well. So I’m not sure how to handle that issue without redefining terms (or, at the very least, clarifying them) but it seems like lots of people don’t want to let go of the definitions they have.
Again, I completely agree. I think it’s a problem that the two have become conflated, and I’m trying to figure out ways to communicate that they can be divorced concepts.
Exactly! Language is a powerful tool, and it grants people the ability to define who they are. That’s why I’ve become so frustrated with the existing terms and definitions, because I don’t think they’re granting people the power or the clarity to effectively map their own identities.
I’ll second that. Thanks again for commenting, and hope to see you around.
And, also, there’s that whole problem of cisgender being a silly word
I have a suspicion this is a troll, but I’ll bite – why is cisgender a silly word?
Well, linking me isn’t quite as good as emailing me, but it’ll do.
Of course, if you were going to link me, why didn’t you link topically? Pun so not intended.
So, I guess there are a couple things I want to say:
1)transgender/cisgender–in terms of gender expression–is messy. It has to be.
2)I’m not entirely sure why cisgender and transgender aren’t parallel. If transsexual is a subset of transgender, then (according to purely mathematical logic) cisgender is a subset of cissexual. A greater problem arises that “cis” by itself is used to mean “cisgender (gender expression+subconscious sex)” whereas the cis in “cis woman” is often used to mean cissexual, or at very least a larger range of people than should necessarily be included in “cis”. The usage “trans (wo)man” in this regard shows the problem–if someone id’s as trans in the sense of being gender atypical but ID’s as hir assigned sex/gender, you have the weird problem of that person being “trans” and “woman” but not “trans woman”–the only ways to resolve that problem are to either a)make trans a prefix (eww), b)make ‘trans’ specific to people who contest the gender/sex labels imposed by society, which means de-umbrella-ing it somewhat.
3)I’m not sure how well these combine with your spectra, but in Yes Means Yes! I used this 3-part-separation to explain why I use “gender coercion” rather than “The Gender Binary”®:
4)I think that the umbrella-term definition of “transgender”–to include “masculine women/feminine men”–is frequently stated and rarely meant. I think we generally recognize that the difference between being a cissexual man who’s so feminine as to be “not-male” and a cissexual man who’s wearing a pink shirt is pretty fucking different. Drag queens frequently fit into the former category, but saying “feminine men” brings up images of, and includes, the second. (this is related to 5)
5)Lastly, I say this in my post, but it’s my primary objection to your points here, so I’ll say it again: the fact of my transition and use of medical technology is almost (not completely, but almost) irrelevant to my experience as a trans person–the center of it for me is the invalidation and related punishment, and this feels definitional in a stronger sense than homophobia defines queer. (Being raced is actually similar–Italians and Irish folks are white now in the US, not because of anything about Italians or Irish people but because racial prejudice changed.)
Heya Cedar! Thanks for stopping by. Sorry about not emailing you directly – it was on my to-do list and I’ve been swamped, so I hadn’t gotten around to it. It definitely wasn’t intended as a passive-aggressive, “Oh, gee, it sure would be nice if Cedar were around, but I don’t know how that would ever happen!”
Likewise, thanks for the link to your page, and sorry I wasn’t aware of it before I linked to you.
Maybe I’m misunderstanding something, but shouldn’t cissexual be a subset of cisgender (and not the other way around), as transsexual is a subset of transgender?
I suppose the way you describe it does work – all cisgender people are cissexual with most definitions of the words – but that doesn’t seem parallel to the transgender/sexual Venn diagram, where all transsexual people are transgender.
Likewise, when taken as a whole, the terms still seem problematic to me because “transsexual and cisgender” becomes this weird null area that no one self-identifies as. That said, I don’t have the math/logic/language theory to say why, beyond “It feels wrong!”
I do agree with the rest of your second point, though. I’ve been thinking about dropping my own use of “cis” or “trans” unless I specifically mean both cissexual and cisgender (or transsexual and transgender) rather than just one or the other. That does seem like an awkward solution to me, but preferable to either misidentifying someone or leaving a part of their identity out in the cold.
I like the text you quoted, and need to reread your piece in Yes Means Yes! Unfortunately, I lent it to a friend who enjoys it so much I think she’s never giving it back, so I think I need to just buy another copy. ::grin::
I think that makes huge amounts of sense, but I’m not entirely clear on how it objects to (or is in contradiction to) my two points from this post, that A) Spectrum 1 is a useful concept, and B) the definitions of cis/transgender could use some tightening.
Do you mean that, as you said in your linked post, the idea of “violating gender norms” should be obsolete to begin with, and thus Spectrum 1 shouldn’t be necessary? Or that you’re OK with the ambiguity? Both of those ideas make sense (although I need to think some more before I say whether I agree or not) but I think I’m missing something in the above-quoted text.
Thanks again for your response, though, and I hope you’ll help me understand what I’m not getting.
Warning: formal/mathematical logic ahead.
If a is a subset of b, then a implies b, but b doesn’t imply a. (chevy implies automobile, but automobile doesn’t imply chevy) a implies b is written a -> b, and is equivalent to the statement b OR !a (! = not). (Either b is true, and thus a might be true or not, or a is untrue, and thus b might be true or not. One or both must be true: ‘it’s an automobile’ or ‘it’s not a chevy’.)
!(a->b) = !(b OR !a) = a AND !b. (there’s a chevy that’s not an automobile).
On the other hand, the contrapositive of a statement is logically equivalent to it. a->b = !b->!a (if it’s a chevy then it’s an automobile = if it’s not an automobile then it’s not a chevy)
Thus if transsexual -> transgender, then !transgender -> !transsexual, or cisgender -> cissexual. In this case, we can substitute subset for implies, and thus we get: if transsexual is a subset of transgender then cisgender is a subset of cissexual.
I hope that helps?
As far as the relevance of my #5, it’s in opposition to any definition of trans*/cis* as being about something internal (gender identity/subconscious sex/etc) or based on the excuses made for validating/invalidating (that is, the relation of an individual to a specified set of transphobic standards, as opposed to the individual’s status justified by hir relation to those standards). I think spectrum 1 is important; I think it’s generally gotten at through terms like gender variant/conforming or gender a/typical (Mattilda had a great version of this that was fair to both sides/didn’t impose valuation, but I forget what it was), but I feel like it might be useful to have something closer to the other lexicon.
Thanks, Cedar! I need to sit down when I have more time and wade through your logic sequences, but I appreciate you writing them out for me. I’ll post a followup comment when I’ve had a bit more time to absorb your comment.
Thanks again for logic-ing it out for me, Cedar. I think I understand. Using the strictest definitions of the words:
transsexual => transgender
(which means…)
!transgender => !transsexual
(which means…)
cisgender => cissexual
Or, in English…
All transsexual people are also transgender
(which means…)
All people who aren’t transgender are also not transsexual
(which means…)
All people who are cisgender (or, not transgender) are cissexual (or, not transsexual)
(which means…)
Cisgender people can’t be transsexual, which makes my original point…
…vanish in a puff of logic.
Well, sort of.
You’ve totally proven that the logical breakdown of cissexual and cisgender – as antonyms of transsexual and transgender – mean that “cisgender and transexual” is a null pairing. However, I don’t think the words aren’t understood well enough for that to be immediately apparent.
That is, “there’s a Chevy that’s not an automobile” doesn’t make sense, because we understand “Chevy” and “automobile” well enough to know what they mean. I’m realizing many – myself obviously included – hadn’t thought through these terms to really understand how they interact. Thus it feels like “transsexual and cisgender” should make sense, and like cissexual should be a subset of cisgender, even though neither of those is (logically) true.
(To be clear, I’m not disagreeing with anything you said, or claiming that your logic was wrong. I’m just expressing my emotional reaction to it. I realize it ultimately boils down to, “But it doesn’t feel right!”)
I need to think more on that, but I appreciate your clarification.
Likewise, what you’re saying about #5 makes sense. I still need to write a followup post to this, about Spectrum 1, so I’ll try and mull things over until then. It’s also becoming apparent I need to write a followup post to this post, about definitions of cis/transgender, because you’ve given me lots to think about.
Do we need new words? Why do we need new words? Why do we need two *more* words to make everything *more* confusing??
Thanks for the comment, Emily. I think you’re asking a reasonable question: Why should we add more complexity to the concepts of gender?
And it’s entirely possible that you’re right, and the answer is, “Well, actually, we shouldn’t.”
But I do think having the discussion is worthwhile, even if nothing ultimately comes of it. Words are powerful, particularly those related to identity. So when words like transgender and transsexual describe a pretty fundamental part of myself, I think it’s valuable to take the time and make sure they’re describing me in a way that makes sense to me. And when big arguments come up over the use and definition of cisgender and transgender, as they have in the past, it makes me feel like this discussion is doubly valuable. (Even if, again, no changes or new words ultimately come out of it.)
I was on vacation during this whole fascinating and useful exchange, so I’m coming in kind of late. I do think that both the transsexual/cissexual pair and the cisgender/transgender pair are not mirrors or reciprocal, and this is a source of many problems and disagreements. Among these are the problems of only using “cis” or “trans” to identify a person, the location of “genderqueer” in this landscape, and the problematic nature of viewing transgender as an umbrella term that also contains transsexual. So I think this thread (and the earlier ones) has already been pretty productive.
I think this also reflects the problematic nature of our cultural insistence that people fit neatly into binary categories. I think the evolution of cis/trans terminology over the past few years has been very helpful in a number of ways, since it’s really hard to talk about stuff that you don’t have words for. But the evolution of any vocabulary is going to involve/produce/entail some problems and misunderstandings, and that definitely seems to be the case here. And the tendency we have in our culture to conceptualize everything within a binary framework is definitely hindering progress in this area.
That being said, I’m one of those genderqueer folks that anarchafemme refers to who feel that including genderqueer in the transgender category is problematic. For several reasons. As a cissexual person with a very feminine body, I do function with cis privilege, no matter how gender-transgressively I behave. I often simply just get a pass on all that because my body conforms to societal expectations. Beyond that, I think that most genderqueer individuals I know did not have the kind of transition experience that most trans people do. For instance, as my cousin transitioned a few years ago (and I was a key part of her support network in the “venting” department) I was struck by how much of a luxury it was for me to be able to gradually negotiate my gender identity and presentation over a number of years in my teens and young adulthood rather than the highly visible and rather sudden transition that’s more common for those who transition from one binary position to the other. And so I never experienced the vulnerability and scrutiny and having to make explanations and all that fun stuff which generally seems to accompany transitioning. So it seems to me like our terminology does need to migrate away from only capturing how your current sex/gender/identity/presentation relates to your assignment at birth and somehow capture also how this positions you in society and impacts your development and sense of self. Meh – I don’t think I’m being very clear about this…
Thanks for your thoughts, Rachel, and sorry you missed the fun.
One of these days I need to sit down again, after all the conversation about these posts, and write an update on my thoughts. Haven’t had the time yet, though, which is sad.
Haha, yes. It does suck (quite a lot) to be a teenager in your mid-twenties. I can only imagine it sucks more for people transitioning older than I am…
Wow what a great discussion about an area that i’ve always encountered confusion. I’d never actually heard of CIS until someone posted it in a kind of name calling way…”…I’m disappointed that cis people think they get some say in what trans people think about ourselfs and hafe the right to lecture trans people on trans issue…”
I think the flavors (both internally experienced and emotionally desired) are larger and poorly understood. As a bit of a science buff, I’d love to see an elegant explanation that underlie many scientific principles. I personally feel that evolution is and always has experimented with sex, gender and sexuality. Evolution has always thrown a bunch of ideas against the wall to see which ones stick. This random variability then looks for an advantage in the current population. Our ability to examine ourselves, and others in a way that other species haven’t, points to what I think is genentic experimentation. Again I think these variations are huge and have led to our difficulty with taxonomy. Anyone who reports that “they were born this way” is, I think, correct. I think environment only allows us to more or less follow our deep seated feelings. How many more TG people, would have more acceptance, and surgical procedures if they came into a lot of money early in their life? Money is a crass but huge environmental factor in our society. I actually have in mind a ‘fictional’ novel that has TG people suddenly in a world that massivly favors their genetic variation and of course they are now on top of the food chain and some of them (being human as they are) discriminate against the former ‘normal’ people.
OMG I don’t know if anyone will read this somewhat older thread but before I get too serious, I’d like to encourage everyone to approach this subject with open minds and humor, which is the ultimate salve for itchy subjects. Something like (and this is intended as humor and not criticism of a recent well thought out and brilliant post). What do you mean all Chevys are cars, clearly at least one Chevy is a Chase
On a related note about trying to understnd difficult subjects, I’m fond of saying (quoting actually) that “…A thing is mysterious if you don’t know what or how to feel about it, and wish you did. Mystery is a lack not of information but of meaning. Indeed, greater knowledge of certain subjects can intensify rather than soothe emotional itchiness about them…”
cheerfully:
Thanks for the comment! I always love it when people stumble across older posts.
I know what you mean. It’s like your appeal is timeless.
I really like your blog software, what is it?
cheerfully BB
Thanks! I’m using WordPress, with a Themocracy theme.