People feel that “cis” is a slur because it puts them on equal footing with trans people.
They prefer to consider themselves “normal” while “trans” people the weird ones whom can only be labelled with anything other than “normal.” Being called “cis” makes them feel as if they can also be labelled as something other than “normal.”
Similarly, one cannot be “straight” without acknowledging existence of same-sex attraction, so people uncomfortable with that won’t describe themselves and expect everyone to assume they’re “normal”. These people don’t teach kids to say “they are straight”, they prevent them from obtaining any knowledge about human sexuality at all to avoid even the possibility of admitting “exceptions” exist
As non-trans person, I can partially confirm. First time when I heard it, my reaction was “why do you need a new word for that?” Now I kind of used to it, but still there is some amusement each time I hear this word - it seems unnecessary, when “non-trans” would suffice if needed to avoid confusion. But slur? That’s nonsense is only in Musk’s head.
To be fair, “cis” comes from latin which means “on the same side of,” in contrast to “trans” which means “on the other side of.”
Why use that instead of non-trans? I don’t know, but yeah, I don’t think the word is a slur.
If we are talking about sociology journals, then yes, I agree, cis is the right term. If we are talking about general use, like in newspaper, then there is natural reaction of bewilderment - why would you need this term? Please understand that most of the people (me including) do not meet/do not see trans people in their lives (at least they do not know they are trans). I personally know exactly zero of such people. So, the world from the point of not-trans person looks very different - they read about trans people on internet and in the news, it is rare phenomenon, that is not even observed by them personally. That’s why it seems as really unnecessary world. Do you have a special word for non-albinos or for non-red-heads? And those (albinos and red-heads) they see in their life more frequently.
And here is where insisting and pushing this word on other people comes at disadvantage to trans community - the right will use any opportunity to use bewilderment of non-trans people to propagate whatever stereotypes they want to propagate about trans. They will say that trans people are “forcing” other people to call themselves “cis”, and that this is derogative term, and nobody likes to be forced to do something like that.
You can always use the word “non-trans” if needed. But insisting that all others (who are like what? 98% of people?) have to have a special word for this is strange. It is like insisting that non-albino should be a special word.
And importantly, asking for some kind of special status for cis people so that it requires a special word, as if it is important and fundamental to split people into these too groups, as oppose to being trans is just one of the many features of human being, somewhat rare, but not something to be so important that not being trans must have a separate word. By insisting to have a separate word you are moving away from acceptance of trans people.
And while I do understand that in today’s society with many bigots it is sometimes difficult and important process of “coming out” and admitted that you are a trans, thus, indeed, for a trans person, today, it might be the most important thing in their lives, their identity. But in ideal society it just should not be so. So what that one person is trans, and another is albino, and yet another is red-hiared? Nobody should think twice about these variations of humans. I mentioned. I want to move towards ideal society, not away from it.
Why do I go to the comment sections of articles like this? Why do I punish myself?
Bigots are gonna bigot. My willpower is strong today so I avoided that particular torture.
If we can’t call Elon cis, can we instead call him a pathetic little manbaby?
I just love how utterly obtuse the TERFs sound when they say “Trans women are not a subset of women, and cis is just a slur, women are women and trans women are not” or similar, like honestly, the terms are all very simple, tall women are a subset of women, brown women are a subset of women, infertile women are a subset of women, and they are all women. They are just bigots who don’t want trans women to be part of that group, they want to exclude them. It is just hatred and bigotry, the symantics are just a cover.
brown women are a subset of women, infertile women are a subset of women, and they are all women. You’ll probably find that a significant percentage of TERFs would disagree on those 2 points in private…
TERFs brazenly use their own slurs, TIF (trans-identified female, aka a trans man) and TIM (trans-identified male, aka a trans woman). They don’t care at all about respecting each person’s chosen terms, they only care about ideology and enforcing their viewpoint.
I’m very frustrated by the apologists saying, “well, cis people don’t necessarily identify with that term and we should respect that”. It’s not so simple, what term would they like us to use instead? They never offer one. They want the absence of any term, because they want to enforce an ideology where only they are normal. So they can make up any mean words against trans people that they want, but we can’t even factually describe them with a neutral term?
It infuriates me when cis people say this. It comes from such a place of priviledge.
What a perfect example of “when you’re accustomed to privilege equality feels like oppression.”
