The big Phil Fish, Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkeesian discussion thread

BMMachine

sorry what does the CIS mean in CIS male?

Evac101

For once the Urban dictionary doesn't seem to disagree with other sources (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=cis%20male):

A non-transgendered male. A naturally-born man or boy whose psychological gender identity is socially male also.

Clarification: A cis male is not necessarily macho, or even of average masculine persona. A cis male might have some or many characteristics that are feminine, effeminate, or female-like, but unless he seeks to project a female persona, he is still a cis male.
Liberace's sequined robes and feather boas might remind us of a drag queen, but he was still a cis male.

My experience of the usage of this has, admittedly, been that it has been used as a pejorative to disallow any comments which I'm made regarding gender equality. Maybe I just commented in forums which were inclement to openly male commentators.

Guyanachronism

Evac101 wrote: »

I have to agree with Kunst on this one, even being told on Jezabel that as a cis white male I didn't have the tools to understand sexism as the framework of gender bias is so ingrained that it's impossible for a man to experience sexism.

To which I didn't bother replying to be honest.

<edit> This isn't to say that I've experienced sexism as a man - I have experienced body shaming and other forms of unpleasantness but just because I haven't experienced that particular form of horribleness doesn't mean that I can't at least attempt to understand and be empathetic to the problem </edit>

But that doesn't make the term cismale an insult. It's just that you don't agree with many people who use the term.

I think this thread on Reddit does a good job of explaining why we need or should use the term cismale. It goes with the idea of not treating trans people as abnormal. Creating a language that is more accepting of trans people and prompts individual to reevaluate their own gender identity which will hopefully make them more aware of trans issues and more accepting.

Evac101

If we don't want to marginalise/distinguish trans people (in a negative sense) why don't we just refer to them as people* and, equally, refer to "cisgender" people as people - leave clinical terms for the clinical and just avoid introducing more terms which serve to split people into gender/social/economic/etc groupings. I feel incredibly naive in saying this but I kind of feel that all people were just considered as that - people - and not as subgroups based on, frankly, surface differences, we would all be a lot better off.

*Wouldn't you prefer for a parent to explain to their child like this: "There are people who are gender comfortable in their birth gender and people who are not - both are still people though Timmy", rather then the alternatives?

<edit> I re-read the phrase "frankly, surface differences" and realised how that might not be read as sympathetic to the horrible experiences many people have had discovering or coming forward in their sexuality. It wasn't intended as such and was meant to read as things which we should consider to be a surface detail. Just as I don't consider my defining characteristic to be my heterosexuality I would hope that other people also regarding their sexuality as being an additional facet of who they are and not their defining principal. My apologies to anyone who I may have offended by not making this clearer.</edit>

Timmyctc

What does CIS mean.

kunst nugget

Timmyctc wrote: »

What does CIS mean.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cisgender

There's the explanation. It's become a real buzzword over the last while.

Genghiz Cohen

kunst nugget wrote: »

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cisgender

There's the explanation. It's become a real buzzword over the last while.

TL:DR Cisgender: Identifying as the gender you were born as. EG. Male body identifies as male.

Timmyctc

Genghiz Cohen wrote: »

TL:DR Cisgender: Identifying as the gender you were born as. EG. Male body identifies as male.

Right. I've perservered a while but thats me done. :P Bye guys

super_furry

This whole 'cis gender' tag is one I find insulting. Call yourself what you like, I'll refer to you by whatever you identify yourself as be it male, female, trans, whatever. For my part I'm a male, I identify as a male and find it offensive when others refuse to refer to me as a male.

Genghiz Cohen

It's as insulting as being called transgender. (i.e. not at all)

Grayditch

I've really tried to get my head around all of this a few times and every time I come back to try again, there's a whole load more to read and most of it seems really annoying.

Not sure I care enough about all these Twitter stars to bother again. Not trying to simplify it, but it'd be real nice if everyone involved in the tit for tat was just less of a dope to each other.

Shiminay

How exactly are you not being referred to as "male" supper_furry? Who is refusing?

Cis essentially means "born that way" and whilst I absolutely agree that Cis or Trans as delimiting identifiers should be completely unnecessary, we've a long way to go before they are treated as one and the same. The reactions that those of you who've never come across the word before only prove that point. None of you have had anything other than a perfectly healthy and normal reaction too by the way - I find it highly admirable that all of us here more or less immediately said "but we don't have any issue addressing anyone as the gender they want, this seems completely superfluous to requirements."

I have had a colleague and some friends who've gone through this process. I got some hands on experience with some of the issues they faced as a result. A trans-man in Irish law will still be treated as a woman in certain circumstances if that's how they were born. It's only recently they allowed for trans-folk to be allowed to go to the "correct" prison. They would have to divorce if they had gender-reassignment surgery after being married. They would have very little reproductive rights if they became pregnant. These are fringe cases, but they exist as potential pitfalls for trans-folk at the moment. So when people want to have discussions around gender politics and need to make the distinction between "born" genders and "true" genders, trans and cis are the words we have to communicate that.

That's it.

It's no threat to you to be called cis-male if you are indeed cis-male. It's not an everyday term, but it's an unfortunately necessary one for the mechanics of some of these discussions.

DeVore

That's technically true but you know that's not how its often intended and that makes a big difference...

Links234

Cis simply means not trans. Cis is to trans, as straight is to gay, that's about as simple as it gets.

I find it totally and utterly bizarre that people are actually trying to act aggrieved over such a downright neutral, benign term. Seriously, it's an utterly boring as **** term, it comes from latin, to give you an idea of how clinical it is, there are cis and trans isomers. Hell, I tend to not even use the word cisgender that much because it makes for such cumbersome, clinical dialogue. So I gotta wonder, is someone who's acting aggrieved really gonna scrape up so much bottom to be offended that they've scraped their way entirely through the barrel and get their backs up at being called "not transgender"? Seriously?

sharmander

People being insulted by being called cisgender is something that always puzzled me. I mean - it implies that they're upset with a term that means their current gender identity correlates with the one they were denounced at birth. Trying to imply it's some form of "slur" is even more silly.

It's to opposite of "transgender" - that's the big and the small of it.

BMMachine

I'm really not a big fan of labels in general. Mass identification by group can be okay, race, religion, nationality etc. but people labelling each other (or themselves) as things like 'CIS' and 'gamers' really bugs me. Identification is an individual thing, literally, and why people would want to pocket themselves and each other into these niches is just silly. There are many areas of your life, don't let one thing be how you view yourself and those around you.

Its especially prevalent on the internet - "oh they are fanboys" "oh they are bronies" "oh Im a feminist" "oh Im a masculinist" and all that kinda thing. I positively hate if I get called a gamer. I like films, I dont call myself a 'filmer' or with books 'a reader' - they are all the sum of the individual.

shruikan2553

sharmander wrote: »

People being insulted by being called cisgender is something that always puzzled me. I mean - it implies that they're upset with a term that means their current gender identity correlates with the one they were denounced at birth. Trying to imply it's some form of "slur" is even more silly.

It's to opposite of "transgender" - that's the big and the small of it.

The use of cis is often used as a way of dismissing peoples opinion so I can see where the idea comes from. Its like the term ignorant, its not a bad thing to be called but is often used in a negative manner so people see it as an insult.

sharmander

BMMachine wrote: »

I'm really not a big fan of labels in general. Mass identification by group can be okay, race, religion, nationality etc. but people labelling each other (or themselves) as things like 'CIS' and 'gamers' really bugs me.

I dunno, I don't think equating the labels 'cis' and 'gamer' is fair. Gender identity is such an important thing, whether people are cis trans or anything in between, and frankly it plays a much bigger part in the identity of an individual then an irreverent and easily interchangeable label like 'gamer', 'filmer' or my personal favourite 'booker'. :P

I do get the point you're trying to make about some people being obsessed with labels, and I do agree that the world could do with calming down with that a bit, but when it's labels that people self-identify with rather then have enforced on them it's not nearly as bad.

Links234

shruikan2553 wrote: »

Its like the term ignorant, its not a bad thing to be called but is often used in a negative manner so people see it as an insult.

Except it's nothing like that, ignorant definitely means more than just lacking knowledge, it can mean rude or stupid in general, and there is an inherent value judgment there. Cis just means not trans. Now unless I'm missing something, and being transgender is so super amazingly awesome that being called not-transgender is insulting, then it's just folks getting their backs up over less than nothing.

Besides, if we want to be cheeky and insulting, we call you lot muggles

Links234

sharmander wrote: »

or my personal favourite 'booker'. :P

Catch! :pac:

Morag

DeVore wrote: »

That's technically true but you know that's not how its often intended and that makes a big difference...

oh noes you mean to point out that men are not the default, labels tend to put on those of us who are 'other' But for every label there is a counter point.

Cos as a Bisexual person I find Monosexual people weird at times :P

Terms like white, hetro, cis, monosexual are what people are, but they have not had the experience of thinking of themselves as being those labels for, they're experiences tend to make them believe they are the 'defult' rather then just, well, common.


The 'common' experience is not the only experience and if it means we have to take on labels to look at our lives and get our experiences is not that which other people have then, I am ok with that, it makes me aware of the struggles people who are not me have had, and how things can and should be better and to dream a better future we have to start imagining it.

Why can't part of that process of imagining it be manifesting it in the stories we tell?

Games are a creative story telling art form, the stories should be diverse, interesting imaginings of what might be. Cos to say we can dream of dragons but not a world, one world among many were sexism doesn't happen, well that's just lame and lazy.

Dave_The_Sheep

Morag wrote: »

Terms like white, hetro, cis, monosexual are what people are, but they have not had the experience of thinking of themselves as being those labels for, they're experiences tend to make them believe they are the 'defult' rather then just, well, common.

Well, most people aren't white.

Monosexual and cis is the "norm". Most people are these things. So I think some of the confusion comes from that - why do we need a term from the norm?

It doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with not being 'normal', it's perfectly OK and absolutely natural. I've always personally thought that being called "not normal" isn't an insult - not natural, however would be. Maybe that's just one of my foibles when it comes to the use of the words.

I can appreciate though that as someone (using transgender as an example) who is transgender is having a hard enough time as it is in society and would take might not like the tag "not normal/abnormal" - and that I probably don't understand it, given I'm not transgender. Which is fair enough, really.

If people want to use terms like CIS, or monosexual, they can. I don't think most people who would be described by such terms will ever actually think of themselves that way.

gizmo

Got a chuckle from this blog post by Damien Schubert, a veteran MMO designer.

The True Impact of SJWs on Game Development

o1s1n

Links234 wrote: »

Except it's nothing like that, ignorant definitely means more than just lacking knowledge, it can mean rude or stupid in general, and there is an inherent value judgment there.

It doesn't though. The extremely ironic thing here being that many people are ignorant of what the word ignorant actually means. :pac:

If you want to describe people who are are rude, then the word you're looking for is 'inconsiderate' - or even just go with 'rude'. Not 'ignorant'.

They're only ignorant if they're lacking in knowledge which is preventing them from seeing/doing something/being stupid. Bit it doesn't mean stupid/rude in itself, which many folks seem to think it does.

kunst nugget

o1s1n wrote: »

It doesn't though. The extremely ironic thing here being that many people are ignorant of what the word ignorant actually means. :pac:

If you want to describe people who are are rude, then the word you're looking for is 'inconsiderate' - or even just go with 'rude'. Not 'ignorant'.

They're only ignorant if they're lacking in knowledge which is preventing them from seeing/doing something/being stupid. Bit it doesn't mean stupid/rude in itself, which many folks seem to think it does.

But it does in an Irish context. That's how we use the word so we know what people mean when they use it in terms of rudeness. It may not be the original dictionary definition but it has become imbued with another meaning here.

The same can arguably be said about 'cis'. By itself it's completely innocuous but on the bottom half of the internet, it can be used quite pointedly along with 'straight white male' to dismiss people's opinions. It's not something I'm ever going to lose sleep about but I have seen it used in that context a bit. Also I've seen it being taken up by people on the gamergate side of things to mock the opposition.

o1s1n

kunst nugget wrote: »

But it does in an Irish context. That's how we use the word so we know what people mean when they use it in terms of rudeness. It may not be the original dictionary definition but it has become imbued with another meaning here.

The same can arguably be said about 'cis'. By itself it's completely innocuous but on the bottom half it can be used quite pointedly along with 'straight white male' to dismiss people's opinions. It's not something I'm ever going to lose sleep about but I have seen it used in that context a bit. Also I've seen it being taken up by people on the gamergate side of things to mock the opposition.

No, that is how incorrect Irish people who don't know what the word means use the word. I use it correctly, as do many others.

There's colloquialism and then there's just bad English. Misuse of 'ignorant' would fall into the latter IMO.

As for those obsessed with labeling everything, I really don't get it. Videogames are a huge part of my life, I've a room dedicated to them, two arcade cabs in the kitchen, but no chance in hell will I ever in a million years associate myself with the 'gamer' moniker. It's daft.

Evac101

Time to insert the obligatory "but a linguist will tell you that words evolve past their original definitions to incorporate new meanings/usages. This is normal and part of a languages evolution through use."

Personally I use ignorant in the context of it's original meaning and I use other words for other purposes but I can't argue, legitimately imo, that it hasn't evolved in Irish society to acquire a secondary meaning.

o1s1n

Evac101 wrote: »

imo, that it hasn't evolved in Irish society to acquire a secondary meaning.

Is there an actual etymological evolution though, or is it just people not understanding what the word really means?

Until there's an entry in a dictionary somewhere I'll stick with the second :pac:

Retr0gamer

o1s1n wrote: »

Is there an actual etymological evolution though, or is it just people not understanding what the word really means?

Until there's an entry in a dictionary somewhere I'll stick with the second :pac:

You're so ignorant of linguistics.

kunst nugget

o1s1n wrote: »

Is there an actual etymological evolution though, or is it just people not understanding what the word really means?

Until there's an entry in a dictionary somewhere I'll stick with the second :pac:

I can understand both uses of the word, regardless of the evolution of the secondary meaning in an Irish context. I think I'm a bilinguist like that.