Educated and wonderful people of EC, I am in need of education. I see a whole lot of people saying that things are cissexist, but I'm having an issue with finding people who then go on to explain why it's cissexist. For someone such as myself with an issue that requires even the obvious things to be explored and explained in detail this obviously causes a fair bit of confusion in my brain. Namely because I make very clear distinctions between words that others seem to use interchangeably. Most recently this occurred with cessexism, or to be precise comments referred to as being cissexist. Now in my very unreliable head I clearly define cissexism as being the belief and/or treatment that those who are not cissexual are in some way inferior. In a few threads there have been comments referred to as cissexist which have had me rubbing my head a little because the way in which the word has been used conflicts with my own understanding of the word. Which has caused me to have more than a few headaches trying to understand what exactly is being meant by cissexism by the popularity at large. In my mind I make a clear and definite distinction between cissexism (as defined earlier) and an assumption of cisnormativity. In the one I view a definite stance that anyone who is anything other than cisgendered is inferior, while in the other I assume individuals are using the terminology they have come to be familiar with through societal conditioning; namely the assumption of cisnormativity. This definition arose in my head namely due to the definitions I have found of cissexism that have predominantly concentrated on discriminatory and inferior terminology. I also do this in issues of racism, homophobia, etc. I always make a distinction between those who are obviously using terminology that reflects the view that one is inferior or that they are actively discriminating against, and those who are reflecting societal conditioning in their use of terminology. I do have a huge issue with the fact that I assume others think the way I think, which is why I have struggled when people have referred to sexist terminology in certain books and/or articles and why I have often struggled with people calling others homophobic as it does not conform to what my brain dictates homophobia as being. EC is making me acutely aware that this is not the way to interact with the LGBTQ community at large as it's a huge learning curve involving terminologies and prejudices that because I tend to walk round in a little bubble and deal almost exclusively with individuals who fit the cisnormative and heteronormative world views I am acutely unaware of. Or to cut a long story short a few comments regarding cissexism in comments I previously viewed of as being reflections of cisnormativity have resulted in me coming to the conclusion that a large proportion of individuals view the use of cisnormative terminology as inherently cissexist. Which leads me to query what exactly are people at large defining cissexism as and how are people identifying it? Is it purely through the use of cisnormative terminology and linked into identity erasure, or is it tied into the view of those who do not conform to the cisnormative world view are flawed in some way? If something is cissexist should one just point it out as cissexist or explain that through the use of cisnormative terminology individuals are unintentionally excluding people? How are people going about educating the less informed (such as myself) on cissexism? On a case by case basis or through actively campaigning to raise awareness of why the use of cisnormative terminology is inappropriate? Yes, there are a few threads on this here on EC but I lack the feeling of understanding I kind of want, and the world wide web is simply throwing me deeper into the hole after digging up articles where the definition of cissexism changes depending on whether it's interpersonal, organisational or structural.
I still haven't really formulated what I think it is, but I think of it sort of like sexism and heterosexism. You kind of know it when you see it. Or, like me, you fail to check your privilege and don't. This occurred when I fucked up recently by characterizing my pro-choice position in terms of women's rights. What that does is erases FtM and DFAB genderqueer people totally. It's tantamount to saying their identities are made up, not real, and that I know them better than they know themselves. Which was a pretty shitty thing to say as an ally, but I owned up and apologized to everybody. Cissexism, to my understanding, starts with the erasure of trans* and genderqueer people by denying their experience of their gender, either in subtle ways like misgendering, fucking up hard like I did, or much more sinister things like denying MtFs or DMAB genderqueer people access to women's restrooms or opposing gender neutral restrooms on the grounds of the mere possibility of sexual assault while totally ignoring the possibility of sexual assault by cisgender lesbians or multisexual ciswomen. And I guess, in addition to erasure, cissexism also includes emotional violence against trans* and genderqueer people because they are "tresspassing" by crossing over into a gender they "shouldn't." This gender territorialism is extreme, and it results in some of most catastrophically high rates of violent crimes directed at trans* individuals. It also includes, I humbly submit, the fact that cisgender gay, lesbian and multisexual concerns get a much higher priority than any issue that affects trans* or genderqueer people alone, and that they are the first to get thrown under the bus when some political measure doesn't have the votes. A very poignant example of this is the fact that my hometown just got a non-discrimination ordinance, and it was initially going to protect people on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, but it didn't have the votes on the city council for gender identity, so they dropped it, and it passed. I'm still pretty steamed about that.
Blegh. I flat hate the term "check your privilege", just saying. To me, the terms seem backwards. For example, we all know racism is the propagation of stereotypes, poor treatment of ethnic groups, the belief that others are inferior, etc. We also know that sexism is the view that one gender is better than the other and subsequent poor treatment of said gender, and it's usually attached to the word 'woman', aka misogyny. Cissexism/cissexist, to me, sounds like the poor treatment of binary gendered people. So, when someone gets accused of being cissexist, it just makes me think that they made a derogatory commented towards binary people. ...As I side note, I hate the usage of 'cis'. By itself, it makes me thing of organic chemistry, which is cool. Add in -sexism, and -gender, and it just makes me think of tumblr posts that attack binary gendered people.
Yes, I believe cissexism is in its simplest form the promotion of cisnormativity and the idea that "cis" is somehow superior to "trans". I do not think it needs to be narrowed to bigotry or prejudice. This is more an example of transphobia or (in the case of transwomen) transmisogyny. Cissexism simply relies on the use of stereotypes that promote backward, ignorant views of transpeople. That is my equally tiny brain's opinion ---------- Post added 2nd Jul 2013 at 01:50 AM ---------- @Sarcastic Luck, I just...grr fundamentally disagree with almost all of that. our society is totally cis dominated and offer almost NO education on trans issues. we are the subject of vile stereotypes, bigotry, hatred, fetishization, objectification, and violence from cis people and yeah, to hear someone say that we get that cuz of something WE are doing wrong or cuz of the way WE treat cis people?? yeah it just rubs the wrong way. ---------- Post added 2nd Jul 2013 at 01:59 AM ---------- oops i am sorry i misunderstood your post XD you said binary (instead of non binary) and it threw me off. sorry it is late and i am prone to misunderstanding at 2 AM and also being more biaaatchy than necessary even when i read correctly XD
