I learned many important facts in New York. One of these was market testing on the word cisgender and its failure and confusion for many people. In the learning, I was given a cool swashbuckling verbal engarde to use in its place - emphasis on transgender individuals being individuals who are hard working, intelligent, and resilient citizens. Concentrate on the message and stab instead of shielding with a cis-napkin and assertion of cis-privilege (we all have a problem with privilege, the point is to look at privilege....not modifying the term for whatever reason).
But, as a chemistry major "Cis" has been a drug that is going to take 12 steps to kick. So bear with me as I walk through some of them.
I. The syllogistic rubric.
I am not transgender
I act like my sex dictates I should act
The term cis is latin for "same side as"
My sex is "same side" of my gender
I am cisgender.
Dissection:
I am not transgender? Yes, hon....you are.
The wisdom of Foucault showed us that the discursive explosion of the Victorian era labeled everything of a "sexual" nature and attached a value label to it. Then power structures reified the use of said toe tags and approved or disapproved of behaviour that allowed for better efficiency in power continuity and control itself. What it overlooked....all those sales tags with words were owned and still are truly owned by each and every one of us, we just don't like to look at it. We are complex, kinky, gender fluid, non-monotonous golems. We are not globs of muggle...we are each enchanted wizards crystals proliferating light and wonder of so many hues, shades, vibrancy, and sounds. Each of us, depending on context, disobeys the gender norms...even our heroine Martha Stewart (ummmm, going to jail is not ladylike...nor is insider trading).
I act like my sex dictates I should act.
Your sex dictates nothing, and culture is too screwed up to give you a real answer to how you should be. Culture is not only written by the more privileged, it is too damn infinite and changeable to really assign any authority to it in regard to how you act. Am I saying Butler is wrong? Butler is not "wrong", but she is not "right". Butler is Butler learning and think experimenting all the time. Here it is, the assumption is that culture has lain out two poles - masculine and feminine. Let me be clear, culture has not done this, honest people have done this based on their interpretation of culture. Gender fluidity and messiness..."trouble" if you will... has a long cultural significance and rich history.
Further, most people do not lay out two choices for "males" and "females" (yes, I am forgetting my sexually fabulous intersex friends whom I love and adore). No, American society is really still just stuck in one culturally recited model - masculinity....despite the reality, despite the strength inherent in other morphologies. For "females" there may be a "weaker" form of masculinity that is taught...but it is masculinity none the less.
And, there is nothing wrong with masculinity in itself, it is not evil...it is a method, a tool, a skin, and it has its uses. It is the abrogation of all other cultural forms to its sole elevation that is the problem. I would not be an activist if it were not for masculinity. I would also not be a leader if not for my feminity. And, I would not be a dancer without my fluidity and the infinite points betwixt and between.
The term "cis" means "on the same side as".
Last time I checked, I was not a benzene molecule or a phenol ring....I do not have functional groups hanging on "one side" of my plane or on "opposite sides" of my plane. Again, I am a shining crystal with many facets....I have a ton of functional groups, and if you will kiss me, I will show you a few....maybe even the seduction ones :-)
My sex is "same side" of my gender
To reiterate, gender is not planar.
Sex also is a socially constructed concept, so guess what.....Problematizations.
I will not bore you with the mathematics of sex right now....again...maybe privately for a kiss.
Hence, I am cisgender?
No, you are you!
I have this friend who is a new grandma (Suzana, talking about you friend) and she has an amazingly cool, liberal, and open minded son who is so close to my heart that Iron Man had to lend me his gizmo to keep him away so his shrapnel did not "infect me" too much. He has a new child.. a new son..
I fought with grandma at first while listening to her that her grandchild would come out "however he was" and that in this family that would be nurtured....so what color clothes, etc, did not matter whether they were stereotypes or not. I fought quitely and mentally while listening to her story....and that is the problem, I listened to her story.
She was not out to reify the polar North/South, she was not out to make sure "he is a boy".
She was out to buy cute clothes for a kid.
As long as she lets me put the tutu with the Spiderman outfit, I don't think we should have a problem.
Oh, and for the record
Pre World War War I
Pink = a form of red = courage and blood = boy
Blue = a form of color of flower = periwinkle I think = girls
Post World War I
Pink = girls
Blue = boys
and the rest of us get all the other colors, sux to be you :-)
OK, kidding.....and you cannot blame Hitler for the color change....WWI as in UNO, UN, Einz
So, to the twelve steps...
Sorry for othering you
Sorry for calling you cisgender
I lied, you are just like me
Maybe just not as loud about it
And you, you are fabulous in all your sparkling diamond facets of gender.
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