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By Rebecca, September 6, 2009 5:11 pm

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:

1. Gender Identity as it relates to Self Presentation
2. Gender Identity as it relates to Assigned Sex
3. 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:

1. The value of having something along the lines of Spectrum 1 as a more widely-understood concept.
2. The sloppy and problematic nature of the standing definitions of cis/transgender and cis/transsexual

Continue reading 'Linguistic troubles with cis/transgender'»

Comments (6)

By Rebecca, August 16, 2009 4:44 pm

Cedar over at Taking Up Too Much Space just weighed in on the whole cis debate, and summed things up pretty well:

I think it’s high time we admitted it: “Cis” IS an insult.

That’s right. Because by calling you cis, we’re calling you no better than a fucking tranny*, and THAT, my friends, is one of the worst insults we’ve got in US culture. We’re calling you no more real than us, and we’re not real. We’re calling you no more a woman than us, that you deserve no more respect than us, and in your eyes, that means tranny-alert.com, that means Ann Coulter jokes, that means it’s fine for the general public to post videos of your genitals all over the internet with big purple arrows and random fetishizing speculations, and fire you unless you show us photos of your genitals. It’s saying you can’t apply makeup. It’s insulting your penis size and your manhood. It’s saying that the only difference between us is that you think you’re better than us.

Meanwhile, I’ve been trying to have a conversation with Carolyn Ann at CaroLINES about the same topic. (Edit: Carolyn Ann told me to use masculine pronouns, so that’s been changed.)

Continue reading 'InCISting on labels'»

Comments (14)

By Rebecca, July 8, 2009 12:17 am

Back in May I posted about The Great Trans Feminist Blogging Shakeup of 2009. Less ridiculously described, it was a series of posts and discussions in April about how Feminist blogs can/should foster discussion about trans issues. The post was prompted by my own disappointment in a discussion over at Feministing, and I was trying to process my own experiences by going through how others had viewed the conversation in April.

Well, the (queer) blogosphere is (once again) up in arms over trans related discussions, so I thought I’d (once again) try and construct a timeline so that I could better understand what the heck has been going on. Here we go!

Continue reading 'Are we really doing this again? (OR: The Great Trans Blogging Shakeup of 2009, pt 2)'»