Cisgender (pronounced sis-jen-der)
(1) Noting or relating to a person whose gender identity corresponds with that person’s biological sex assigned at birth (also as cisgendered in this context) and the prefix cis- is used variously as a modifier (ciswoman, cismale, cisnormativity et al) where the practices of chemistry are followed when forming names of chemical compounds in which two atoms or groups are situated on the same side of some plane of symmetry passing through the compound.
1994: A compound word, modeled on the earlier transgender, the construct being cis- + gender. Cis is from the English preposition cis (on this side of) and the earliest known gender-related use of the prefix in any language was in a 1914 German language book on sexology. In English, the first use of the prefix in the context of gender dates from 1994. In English, cis was an abbreviation, presumably from either cosine and sine and the number i or translingual cos, i, and sin. Latin gained the word from the primitive Indo-European ḱe (here) and it was cognate with ce-dō, hi-c, ec-ce, the Ancient Greek ἐκεῖνος (ekeînos) the Old Irish cē (here) and the Gothic himma (to this). Gender is from the Middle English (where it at times co-existed with gendre), from the Middle French gendre from the Latin genus (kind, sort) and is a doublet of genre, genus, and kin. The verb developed after the noun.
The Cisgender List
The word cisgender became a technical necessity when, in the late twentieth century, gender ceased to be a binary with a meaning essentially synonymous with sex; as expressions of gender fluidity became increasingly common, cisgender emerged as the preferred term to describe what gender used to be. With gender being re-defined from a binary to a spectrum, linguistic politics became important and the imperative was to create a category for those for whom the sex identity assigned at birth continued later in life to align with their perceived gender-identity. If it wasn’t just another point on the spectrum, there was concern cisgender would become normative, the implication being those elsewhere on the spectrum being defined as abnormal or sub-normal. Cisgender is distinct from but interacts both with the LGBTQQIAAOP spectrum and the pronoun wars.
Possible Cisgender Pride Flags: The practice of identity politics is the staking of a claim (or the digging of a trench depending on one's view) in the battlefield of the culture wars and one aspect of this is the flying of the "pride flag" of one's group. There have been a few proposed but none seems yet to have emerged as the accepted version. Displaying one might be considered a hate crime so it should be unfurled with caution.
The spectrum evolved as quite a democratic construct, something which may have been at least partially technologically deterministic in that the proliferation of points on the spectrum was driven not by medicine or the social sciences but by interaction on social media platforms. While the users might have felt validated or empowered (and on the social, empowerment is good) by being able to adopt or invent their own self-identities, the platforms liked it because it added another filter for their ad-targeting, very handy for delivering the product (the users) to the consumers (the advertisers). Some social media sites now offer dozens of options but there is much overlap and many are micro-variations; there appear to be about a dozen definable categories:
Agender/Neutrois: These terms are used by people who don't identify with any gender at all — they tend to either feel they have no gender or a neutral gender. Some use surgery and/or hormones to make their bodies conform to this gender neutrality.
Androgyne/Androgynous: Androgynes have both male and female gender characteristics and identify as a separate, third gender.
Bigender: Someone who is bigender identifies as male and female at different times. Whereas an androgyne has a single gender blending male and female, a bigender switches between the two.
Cis/Cisgender: Cisgender is essentially the opposite of transgender (cis from the Latin meaning "on this side of" versus the Latin trans meaning "on the other side"). People who identify as cisgender are males or females whose gender aligns with their birth sex.
Female to Male/FTM or Male to Female/MTF: Someone who is transitioning FTM or MTF, either physically (transsexual) or in terms of gender identity; probably most closely related to the earlier transvestism, a word now unfashionable, objections to its use being associative rather than linguistic.
Gender Fluid: Like the bigender, the gender-fluid feel free to express both masculine and feminine characteristics at different times. The category can be misleading because of the use of the term gender fluidity generally to describe these matters.
Gender Nonconforming/Variant: This is a broad category for people who don't act or behave according to the societal expectation for their sex. It includes cross-dressers and tomboys as well as the transgender; again overlaps with other categories probably exist.
Gender Questioning: This category is for people who are still trying to figure out where they fit on the axes of sex and gender.
Genderqueer: This is an umbrella term for all nonconforming gender identities. Most of the other identities in this list fall into the genderqueer category.
Intersex: This term refers to a person who was born with sexual anatomy, organs, or chromosomes that aren't entirely male or female. Outside of medicine, intersex has largely replaced the term "hermaphrodite" for humans although it continues to be used in zoology.
Neither: Used by those who probably could be accommodated in other categories but prefer the ambiguity, indifference or imprecision of “nothing”.
Non-binary: People who identify as non-binary disregard the idea of a male and female dichotomy, or even a male-to-female continuum with androgyny in the middle. For them, gender is not a lineal spectrum but a concept better illustrated in three or more dimensions.
Other: Probably the same as "neither" but an important thing about gender fluidity is the primacy of self-identity.
Objectum: Those attracted to inanimate (non-living) objects.
Pangender: Pangender is similar to androgyny, in that the person identifies as a third gender with some combination of both male and female aspects, but it's a little more fluid. It can also be used as an inclusive term to signify "all genders".
Trans/Transgender: Transgender is a broad category that encompasses people who feel their gender is different than the sex they were born (gender dysphoria). Technically, it’s probably most useful as a blanket term but the historical association of the trans-prefix make it a popular choice. The term "assigned at birth" is now popular but misleading in that it applies some arbitrariness in the habits of the nurses ticking the boxes. The transvestites (those (mostly men) who wear women's outerwear) are at least in some cases a subset of the transgender spectrum although the term is no longer in wide use.
Transsexual: Transsexual refers to transgender people who outwardly identify as their experienced gender rather than their birth sex. Many, but not all, transsexuals are transitioning (or have transitioned) from male to female or female to male through hormone therapy and/or gender reassignment surgery.
Two-spirit: This began life as a US-specific term which refers to gender-variant Native Americans. In more than 150 Native American tribes, people with "two spirits" (a 1990s term coined to replace "berdache") were part of a widely accepted, often respected, category of gender-ambiguous men and women. Whether the term comes to be adopted by other defined ethnicities (especially indigenous tribes) or such use is proscribed as cultural appropriation, remains unclear.
Not all are pleased with the linguistic progress. Twitter owner Elon Musk (b 1971) in June 2023 declared the use of “cis” or “cisgender” on Twitter were “slurs” which constituted “harassment” and transgressors were subject to suspension from the platform, adding that what constituted harassment would have to be “repeated & targeted”. Presumably that implies the terms can still be used on twitter but not as weapons. At this time, Twitter’s guidelines define slurs and tropes as language which “intends to degrade or reinforce negative or harmful stereotypes about a protected category”. The notion of a “protected category” is from US law and refers to a specific group of individuals who are afforded legal protections against discrimination based on certain characteristics or attributes. These categories typically include characteristics such as race, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, age, and other similar attributes that are protected by anti-discrimination laws in various jurisdictions. The categories are indicative rate than absolute. The blind and infants for example can’t claim they are being discriminated against because the state refuses to permit them to hold drivers licenses and the race protections have tended to offer the most protection to minority groups. As Mr Musk would have anticipated, his comments were quickly responded to by those recalling his asserting after assuming control of the platform the Twitter “believes in free speech” and that earlier in 2023 he’d quietly dropped from the hateful content policy the rule protecting trans people from dead-naming (the act of referring to a transgender person by their birth name, or the name they used prior to their gender transition) and mis-gendering.
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