this post was submitted on 16 Jul 2024
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It literally means "not trans" my dude. Do you get offended when people call you human?
Call me human to my face. See what happens.
... ... Human
:3
How dare you?!? Vergognga! Verfuckingognga!!
Hugs you stupid homo(sapien).
I think it's disingenuous to argue that is the only usage of it. Plenty of words have colloquial meanings. There's plenty of assholes out there who use it venemously. Like a racist saying "He's black" when they mean the n word. "Fuck off and die, cishet!"
There has been a lot of shit on Twitter and Tumblr outright calling for genocide of cis people. Forced sterilization. Saying that if you are a cis white male you inherently are a bad person. A rapist. Etc. Etc.
It's bullshit lashing out, and doesn't truly amount to anything. That said, it can wear on you to be vilified for what you were born as, for things you can't control.
Huh, imagine that.
It strikes me as particularly ridiculous when this is brought up, there usually are a lot of responses along the lines of "Well now you know what we've dealt with!" "Poor majority person is suddenly hurt when they're treated the same way they've been treating the rest of us" etc.
I don't think many people miss that point. But it's still a shitty thing to do, and it can feel like gaslighting attempts when reasonable people make responses like yours.
"Negro literally means black, do you get offended when people call you the color of your skin?" ... let's start the countdown to people falling over themselves to say it's not the same. It isn't the same, but the parallels should give you pause. Hopefully cause some thought.
Does that mean that if enough of a minority of people use a neutral word with ill intent, other people should be careful of using that word? For instance, if a bunch of racists started using the word "black" venomously day and night for months, should everyone else start considering the word "black" to be a slur? What if it's a term that's otherwise used by scholars with ample consensus? And if there's no other other to refer to it, and by avoiding it, you cannot refer to the concept at all?
Welcome to the minefields of communication and the euphemism treadmill.
I'm not saying we let the assholes win. Keep using it as the original meaning, offset those who would use the term otherwise.
I just wanted to add some important perspective as to how and why some people could view it as being used as a slur. Less "don't use this term", more "If someone gets offended when you use this term, don't be condescending to them about the literal definition, bear in mind the term is also used in very negative ways"
That sounds like you've described the euphemism treadmill, like how moron was a medical term before it was an insult.
I might take a while to respond to this since I'm at work and theres a lot to respond to, but unlike the other commenter who just lashed out, I actually intend on responding to this, it just will take a while
"There has been a lot of shit on Twitter and Tumblr outright calling for genocide of cis people. Forced sterilization. Saying that if you are a cis white male you inherently are a bad person. A rapist. Etc. Etc"
Believe me I know how crazy people on twitter can get, and I've definitely seen those crazies in action. But they are going to act crazy towards their chosen scapegoat for their problems regardless of the word we've chosen to describe those people.
"It’s bullshit lashing out, and doesn’t truly amount to anything. That said, it can wear on you to be vilified for what you were born as, for things you can’t control."
I 100% understand and empathize with this and will not argue or counter it in any way. I mean no gaslighting and I apologize if it feels like what I said was heading in that direction.
On your last point: for a while Negro WAS the appropriate word to use, and now it's Black (or if you're American "African American") and while it isnt appropriate anymore, we have a word that is that fills its usecase. People dont Identify as Cis (and on that point most dont identify as trans), they identify as Male/Female/etc, and cis and trans are categories based on whether your identity matches your sex or not. As of right now, cis is the word we have for when it matches, we dont really have any other words in common parlance that describe that in 1 word, and further the extreme end of Tumblr and Twitter doesnt care which word we use when they dehumanize the percieved majority, they are going to continue being assholes to those they dont feel dont place on their oppression heirarchy regardless of the word we use
100% agree.
I'm not trying to stop anyone from using the term. Just trying to offer some perspective as to why it can mean more than the direct dictionary definition to some people.
Generally it doesn't matter, but it's something to keep in mind when someone takes the usage of the term negatively. Don't immediately assume they're taking offense because they're transphobes. Jordan Peterson is, but there's going to be a non-zero amount of people out there where their main exposure to the term "cis" is where it was being used negatively.
Those people are going to do the same thing regardless of what the word is. What you're asking for is just to put it on the euphemism treadmill
Oh, 100%. Shitty people will be shitty people, regardless of whatever words they use or targets they go after.
I'm not saying no one should use the term. I just wanted to offer some perspective on how it isn't as clear cut as a lot of people make it out to be, and there are legitimate reasons that a reasonable person might take offense to it.
For the record, Jordan Peterson is not a reasonable person. He's a drama stirring shithead attempting to project a very false sense of bravado.
Female literally means egg holding human. Do peeps get offended being called female?
Oh shit. Is language fucking social? Jesus. Motherfuckers think gender is social but language is concrete apparently.
FOH
Yes. It's scientific language usually used to insult women. IE; men and females.
That's entirely my point. We don't have to be robotic about this shit. We can't argue against people we refuse to understand.
Lmao
Someone actually downvoted you for this.
It's discourse. Fuck off with your emotions. Talk or gtfo.
Lol
Fucking kedy lamarr over here.
?
Blazing Saddles. There's a character named Hedley Lamarr. Everyone calls him Hedy.
Oh! Thanks for the clarification! I guess I'll honor you being the bigger person by stopping being an ass... wait, on rereading the conversation, are you actually agreeing with me? If so I entirely misread your position. Anyways, I guess my point was, Cis and Trans arent the identities themselves, but the categories of Identity. Most people dont identify as either cis nor trans, they Identify as Male or Female or etc, and its whether or not that identity lines up with their sex that puts them in trans or cis category. Right now cis is the best word we have for "shit matches up" as its the latin opposite of the word trans. The twitter/tumbler sphere that likes to go particularly crazy towards the perceived majority isnt particularly attached to these words when they use them to attack and dehumanize, all they really care about is you're lack of position on their oppression heirarchy
aka: Getting pissy about the word cis is a very small hill to die on considering most cis people dont consider cis part of their identity. Its the people they perceive using the word thats the issue, not the word itself, and we cant transition to a new word until we have a new word for it