I came across a comment on Threads which asked (probably not in good faith, given the phrasing) why “cis” people felt term didn’t represent their “lived experience.” I pointed out that it’s not that people who dislike it feel it doesn’t represent them; it’s that the term is redundant. For a woman who is “cis”, “woman” encompasses everything you already need to know and all those things are reasonably assumed. The term adds no new information *except* that the person isn’t trans. And there’s no reason to know a person’s trans status unless they are trans.
I argued that this redundancy is actually inherent in the phrase “trans women are women.” “Woman” and “cis woman” are synonymous already. “Trans women are women” is the argument that “trans woman” should also be synonymous with “woman.”
But if it really is the case that trans women are women, then why are such qualifiers required at all? It’s not “cis” women insisting on it; it’s trans women. So, what gives?
I suspect it’s because trans identified people know perfectly well that this qualifier is required for them. It absolutely represents new and vital information about a person that man or woman by itself doesn’t. This feels awkward; it sets them apart from the group they want to be a social part of. So insisting on the use of the qualifier “cis” for everyone else makes it seem like a qualifier is normal and necessary for *everyone* when it isn’t.
This used to be the out loud argument for announcing your pronouns too. If everyone does it, it’s less weird for the people who feel like they *have* to.
But ultimately the ask is too big. It’s one thing to ask me to call you a different name; no big deal. It’s something else entirely to ask me to think about and call *myself* something different just so someone else can manage their own emotions about themselves.
Helen, you always make us think. Thanks for the posting by Chanel, and the one by Sam Harris which shows that giving a name to non-belief is an insidious attempt to tar it with the same brush as having beliefs. It took me only a moment to recognize a similar intent in the word ‘cis’. I agree we shouldn’t ban the word ‘cis’ even though it’s used like a ‘scarlet letter’. But we can refuse to wear it.
I am a bit slow on the uptake when it comes to 'social' issues so it has taken me some time to appreciate the power of words and the implicit 'framings' that underlie particular word choices.
In a way you kind of exploited this yourself with your 'hoax' work in which the particular word (salad) choices you made were the difference between publication and rejection of the (deliberately) absurd ideas you promoted to drive home your point.
Coming from a physics/maths background it has always been a bit more awkward for me to accept any kind of definitional 'flexibility' in the way concepts get constructed for use in social discourse. Take something like "systemic racism", for example. Is this a property of the entire system or just *specific* parts of that system? Where is the racism, exactly, and how can it be measured? These are the kinds of questions that plague me when I'm trying to get to grips with such an idea (or as I would call it, a hypothesis).
I have similar difficulties understanding words like 'gender' or 'gender identity'. I do not properly know what the word 'gender' means - the many 'definitions' I've looked at all seem heavily dependent on the notion of a biological sex binary and are thus somewhat 'circular' - and I've yet to be able to take one of these 'definitions' of gender to understand, exactly, what is meant when someone is said to be of the 'gender' gender fluid, or the 'gender' eunuch, for example.
I think we see the same problem when confronting words like 'cis and 'trans'.
If we're categorizing by biological sex class then we have (biological) men and women in different boxes, so to speak. If you then further sub-divide the boxes into 'cis' and 'trans' we would have in the women's box women who consider themselves to be women (i.e. cis) and women who consider themselves to be men (i.e. trans).
But this isn't (clearly) what is meant by these terms cis and trans. They refer to 'gender'. So the categorization here, the separation into 'boxes', is on the basis of gender. Which then means that people who consider themselves to be neither women (gender) or man (gender) do not even go into these boxes at all.
What a glorious mess.
If we do this 'gender' box split then in the women's (gender) box we have *both* women (sex) AND men (sex). And now we can use the cis and trans subdivision in the way it is conventionally meant.
The confusion here (is it deliberate?) is created by using the same words (man or woman) to mean 2 different things.
If you're working from a sex categorization perspective then cis and trans would not be a slur because ALL the people in one category are of a definite sex. Trans would, then, identify those biological women who consider themselves to be trans.
What we actually have 'engineered' for ourselves with all of these uses and abuses of words and their meaning are many instances of what are category errors - and it's no surprise that so many of us are mightily confused.
This confusion is probably not going to go away any time soon because the words and their various (different) meanings have become kind of baked in - but it's always important to clarify in any discussion whether one is talking about man/woman (sex) or man/woman (gender).
This confusion is another reason why it's *essential* not to get too hung up on the notion of 'slurs' and to go all a bit goose-steppy and demand censorship and the like - whether that's on the 'pro' or 'anti' side of this issue. We need the space and freedom to talk about these things, to clarify these twisted and tortuous concepts, without rancour (although I have to admit I often do very much enjoy a bit of verbal assault and battery - and expect no less from my 'opponents').
Anyway - not much clarity here from me - but I'm always grateful for *your* clarity and principled defence of liberal values. Another excellent article.
I won't accept "cis" for myself. I am "normal". The difference is between "normal" and "trans". If we accept "cis", that means that "trans" is an alternative choice or existance. It is not. It is not normal, and it is delusional. So I go with "normal".
Since there is no such thing as a trans person (Boys can't be girls, and girls can't be boys. Men can't be women, and women can't be men), Cis doesn't mean anything either.
In this case, Cis means normal, as opposed to trans-identifying, meaning abnormal.
I don’t really care for” cis” because it supposes that trans is an alternative to normal people. As if it is on an equal footing , which it isn’t. Trans is a mental disorder .
I will never use the word “ cis” to describe a normal man or woman.
It’s also one of the ways the trans cult is gaining power by changing our language!
"Cis" sure is an extremely annoying and stupid word when used for gender and it is not harmless, but it's not really a slur I think. I think it's more of a religious term. I am only "cis" to those who believe in trans ideology, just like I am only an "infidel" or a "heathen" to specific religious groups.
Yes, I've been addressing that for 10 years. I just worked out the number of people I have supported with not getting fired for gender critical views since I started doing that in 2020 is 397.
I once tried to test various online censorship protocols by coming up with the most ambiguous poem I could make up. It described a character named Fanny from Scunthorpe doing various things including being very stingy, handling a bundle of firewood and doing something with a large rooster. This reminds me to dig it up and run it against all the newfangled AI algorithms. A fun XMAS coming up...
This is a lot of words about words, Professor. The word cis is irritating to us out here in the world because there was a perfectly fine word straight, to define someone who was heterosexual, but then a bunch of educated elitists understood that if one uses the word straight to define heterosexuality that would mean anyone who wasn’t straight was therefore bent or broken and they found it upsetting. These are the same folks (not folx) who willfully bandy about the term Global Majority to describe anyone who isn’t white, and then wonders why there is a backlash to their movement when white people realize that they are the global minority and understand that the goal of their efforts is not to appreciate their fellow humans. Instead they believe turnabout is fair play. They want to dominate the system they so desire to crush. No one trusts these critical theorists because they believe that their critical analysis creates a new truth that must be accepted uncritically. They are fools.
I am in the world, Beth. Also not a professor. I help people not get fired for wrongthink at work and also help employers devise policies to protect workers from having Critical Social Justice (woke) imposed on them. So far, the number of people I have supported with not being fired for not believing in gender identity comes in at just under 400.
I am aware of that. But you seem to be stuck writing in the language of post-modernism and critical theory. The verbiage is out of reach for most of the populace. Most truly have no understanding of post-modernism and critical theory, while suffering the ill effects of the policy results that arise from the nonsense. I realize that this is your world, but making your prose understandable to the 99% of humanity would go along way to creating universal understanding and perhaps developing some real world solutions.
I don't think that's true and my readership does not suggest it is true. Generally, people tell me I make this stuff accessible to them. Try The Counterweight Handbook and see if you still struggle. I can't imagine you would just from your comments. I write each piece or book with a particular person in mind. That one was written thinking of one of our clients who was a firefighter.
Perhaps if you were to show me a passage of this piece that you found not to be written in plain English but in the language of postmodernism and critical theory and tell me what makes you think so and I'll understand better what is losing you and so could potentially lose others?
Then write at that level, and stop trying to be a know it all. One can write insightful, beautiful, prose that the masses can understand. Just look at Dickens. Of course, I would expect that someone of such erudition might be unaware of the oral transmission of his art in the 19th century.
Beth, how do you think I became a writer? What do you think the process is? I was tweeting things and posting the odd blog and then 90K people came along to watch me do it. Then outlets came along and asked to me to write pieces for them. Then book publishers arrived and asked me to write a book. Then the book was the 5th bestselling non-fiction book of 2020. Then agents turned up to ask to represent me. Now I get asked to contribute to various top-paying outlets & I have to turn most of them down. Why do you think they do that? Is it because they are all very kind and want to help me out? Or could it possibly be that my writing attracts large numbers of readers and this makes money for them?
Thanks for your advice but I'm not convinced that you know better than me how to write accessibly for a mainstream audience. I think the demand for my writing is probably a better guide to whether I am managing that.
I was patient at first because I am open to suggestions from readers but your comments since your first (already rude) one with their combination of childish snark and pretentious, overblown language suggest to me that you are not in good faith, but instead have a massive chip on your shoulder. If your writing is not gaining traction, I'm sorry for that, but it's something for you to work out by changing up your style and seeing what attracts readers. It's not my fault and not my problem.
I think the difference is that I find that the culture who enjoys publishing your writing, including those literary journals to which you submitted your fake papers with Mr. Boghossian and Mr. Lindsey to be engaged in the cultural Marxism that you claim to detest. It’s entirely meaningless twaddle and without merit and truly has no bearing on reality. I haven’t been rude except to state that I believe that when your writing does seem fruitful, it is written in the same elitist language which you deride and claim to abhor.
You still seem to believe that Twitter is some platform of social relevance. I suspect that is only because you can still mine it for examples for you to critique, as referenced in this post, and your latest regarding the good doctor’s olfactory doctorate and the derision she received upon posting a selfie with her diploma.
If you don’t wish to receive any criticism in the negative, my suggestion would be for you to lockdown your Substack and make commenting on your posts available to your adoring fandom. Then your narcissistic supply won’t be interrupted.
Straight is offensive. It suggests restricted, dull, uncreative, bland. Leaving aside sex, would you rather by gay or straight?
It’s not a perfectly fine term (to this heteronormative male).
(On the other hand, a “Leatherman Power Bottom” says, “‘straight’ is inherently oppressive of Queerness and is the direct antithesis of Gayness.”)
One thing’s for sure. Few Democrats would dare losing the leatherman power bottom constituency. If that happened they’d also lose the leatherman power top vote, and the party would never recover from that.
Well this certainly presents a problem for those of us who are classical philologists (or classicists) as well as historians when we read about Cisalpine Gaul or the Transpadane Republic.
I'll admit to not having read the entire article (due to time and attention constraints), but I noticed, about the word cis, " No, it just means ‘not trans'". So how about substituting 'non-cis' for 'trans'? Of course, a 'trans' child is more accurately referred to as gender-confused (or activist-afflicted).
Until recently I didn't really know what "cis" meant. And now that I do I don't understand the necessity for this term at all. I don't consider it a slur, but I'm a "Man". This is the word used to describe my gender. Why the need to make any changes by adding cis to it? If you're trans, call yourself a "trans man/woman". The fact that the vast majority of us aren't trans and use biologically accurate terms to describe ourselves is not a problem.
"I was struggling because there did not seem to be a way to describe people who were not transgender without inescapably couching them in normalcy and making transgender identity automatically the 'other.'”
I'm not doubting you on the views of the coiner of terms.
I don't know what you are questioning about stuck or how that individual's views relate to whether people should be allowed to use the word or not or where your objections to the word 'straight' fit in.
I defend your right to object to anything and anyone you want. Doesn't make a difference to the right of others to express ideas, though.
You appear to be drawing protective lines around, let's say, tolerance and reasonableness, and that makes sense. It is, well, quite reasonable.
But is it possible that once we accept the categorical battlefield defined by identity justice, the battle is already over?
One could argue that it is a bit late (though “reasonable”) to defend the use of terms like Cis, when the division psychology of identity groups has already taken a firm grasp of everyone's brain stem.
I could give up on defending liberalism and freedom of belief and speech, yes, and then I wouldn't have written this. Or anything.
Yes, I don't suggest you accept any categorical battlefields. I've been addressing it for a long time critically.
I am only saying we should not ban *other people* from using their own words. If I ever accept that, this will mean that I've given up my battle which is for liberalism.
I see your point. But there does seem to be a gray zone between "banning" the term and refusing to be labeled by someone else's identity justice argot.
Not really. We must be able to refuse to listen to anybody we don't want to listen to and if people harass you when you've done all that's reasonable to avoid them, you must be able to press charges. But you cannot demand people think in categories that label you as you wish to be labelled any more than a trans activist can demand you think and speak the way they want you to. We all have to accept that other people will believe and say things that includes references to our demographic that we don't like. This is part of being a human living among humans with a range of belief systems and they are only words so we can survive.
When you say that "we must be able to refuse to listen to anybody we don't want to listen to," that's quite similar to what I mean by the gray zone. I suspect we are mostly in agreement. When someone says, "i categorically object to your use of the term cis," they are not preventing speech, but they are not accepting it.
I came across a comment on Threads which asked (probably not in good faith, given the phrasing) why “cis” people felt term didn’t represent their “lived experience.” I pointed out that it’s not that people who dislike it feel it doesn’t represent them; it’s that the term is redundant. For a woman who is “cis”, “woman” encompasses everything you already need to know and all those things are reasonably assumed. The term adds no new information *except* that the person isn’t trans. And there’s no reason to know a person’s trans status unless they are trans.
I argued that this redundancy is actually inherent in the phrase “trans women are women.” “Woman” and “cis woman” are synonymous already. “Trans women are women” is the argument that “trans woman” should also be synonymous with “woman.”
But if it really is the case that trans women are women, then why are such qualifiers required at all? It’s not “cis” women insisting on it; it’s trans women. So, what gives?
I suspect it’s because trans identified people know perfectly well that this qualifier is required for them. It absolutely represents new and vital information about a person that man or woman by itself doesn’t. This feels awkward; it sets them apart from the group they want to be a social part of. So insisting on the use of the qualifier “cis” for everyone else makes it seem like a qualifier is normal and necessary for *everyone* when it isn’t.
This used to be the out loud argument for announcing your pronouns too. If everyone does it, it’s less weird for the people who feel like they *have* to.
But ultimately the ask is too big. It’s one thing to ask me to call you a different name; no big deal. It’s something else entirely to ask me to think about and call *myself* something different just so someone else can manage their own emotions about themselves.
Helen, you always make us think. Thanks for the posting by Chanel, and the one by Sam Harris which shows that giving a name to non-belief is an insidious attempt to tar it with the same brush as having beliefs. It took me only a moment to recognize a similar intent in the word ‘cis’. I agree we shouldn’t ban the word ‘cis’ even though it’s used like a ‘scarlet letter’. But we can refuse to wear it.
I am a bit slow on the uptake when it comes to 'social' issues so it has taken me some time to appreciate the power of words and the implicit 'framings' that underlie particular word choices.
In a way you kind of exploited this yourself with your 'hoax' work in which the particular word (salad) choices you made were the difference between publication and rejection of the (deliberately) absurd ideas you promoted to drive home your point.
Coming from a physics/maths background it has always been a bit more awkward for me to accept any kind of definitional 'flexibility' in the way concepts get constructed for use in social discourse. Take something like "systemic racism", for example. Is this a property of the entire system or just *specific* parts of that system? Where is the racism, exactly, and how can it be measured? These are the kinds of questions that plague me when I'm trying to get to grips with such an idea (or as I would call it, a hypothesis).
I have similar difficulties understanding words like 'gender' or 'gender identity'. I do not properly know what the word 'gender' means - the many 'definitions' I've looked at all seem heavily dependent on the notion of a biological sex binary and are thus somewhat 'circular' - and I've yet to be able to take one of these 'definitions' of gender to understand, exactly, what is meant when someone is said to be of the 'gender' gender fluid, or the 'gender' eunuch, for example.
I think we see the same problem when confronting words like 'cis and 'trans'.
If we're categorizing by biological sex class then we have (biological) men and women in different boxes, so to speak. If you then further sub-divide the boxes into 'cis' and 'trans' we would have in the women's box women who consider themselves to be women (i.e. cis) and women who consider themselves to be men (i.e. trans).
But this isn't (clearly) what is meant by these terms cis and trans. They refer to 'gender'. So the categorization here, the separation into 'boxes', is on the basis of gender. Which then means that people who consider themselves to be neither women (gender) or man (gender) do not even go into these boxes at all.
What a glorious mess.
If we do this 'gender' box split then in the women's (gender) box we have *both* women (sex) AND men (sex). And now we can use the cis and trans subdivision in the way it is conventionally meant.
The confusion here (is it deliberate?) is created by using the same words (man or woman) to mean 2 different things.
If you're working from a sex categorization perspective then cis and trans would not be a slur because ALL the people in one category are of a definite sex. Trans would, then, identify those biological women who consider themselves to be trans.
What we actually have 'engineered' for ourselves with all of these uses and abuses of words and their meaning are many instances of what are category errors - and it's no surprise that so many of us are mightily confused.
This confusion is probably not going to go away any time soon because the words and their various (different) meanings have become kind of baked in - but it's always important to clarify in any discussion whether one is talking about man/woman (sex) or man/woman (gender).
This confusion is another reason why it's *essential* not to get too hung up on the notion of 'slurs' and to go all a bit goose-steppy and demand censorship and the like - whether that's on the 'pro' or 'anti' side of this issue. We need the space and freedom to talk about these things, to clarify these twisted and tortuous concepts, without rancour (although I have to admit I often do very much enjoy a bit of verbal assault and battery - and expect no less from my 'opponents').
Anyway - not much clarity here from me - but I'm always grateful for *your* clarity and principled defence of liberal values. Another excellent article.
I won't accept "cis" for myself. I am "normal". The difference is between "normal" and "trans". If we accept "cis", that means that "trans" is an alternative choice or existance. It is not. It is not normal, and it is delusional. So I go with "normal".
Since there is no such thing as a trans person (Boys can't be girls, and girls can't be boys. Men can't be women, and women can't be men), Cis doesn't mean anything either.
In this case, Cis means normal, as opposed to trans-identifying, meaning abnormal.
It's a cry for mental health help.
I don’t really care for” cis” because it supposes that trans is an alternative to normal people. As if it is on an equal footing , which it isn’t. Trans is a mental disorder .
I will never use the word “ cis” to describe a normal man or woman.
It’s also one of the ways the trans cult is gaining power by changing our language!
"Cis" sure is an extremely annoying and stupid word when used for gender and it is not harmless, but it's not really a slur I think. I think it's more of a religious term. I am only "cis" to those who believe in trans ideology, just like I am only an "infidel" or a "heathen" to specific religious groups.
The more common action is the cancelling or boycotting or outing of people who choose not to use it and do not want to be labelled in that way.
Yes, I've been addressing that for 10 years. I just worked out the number of people I have supported with not getting fired for gender critical views since I started doing that in 2020 is 397.
I once tried to test various online censorship protocols by coming up with the most ambiguous poem I could make up. It described a character named Fanny from Scunthorpe doing various things including being very stingy, handling a bundle of firewood and doing something with a large rooster. This reminds me to dig it up and run it against all the newfangled AI algorithms. A fun XMAS coming up...
This is a lot of words about words, Professor. The word cis is irritating to us out here in the world because there was a perfectly fine word straight, to define someone who was heterosexual, but then a bunch of educated elitists understood that if one uses the word straight to define heterosexuality that would mean anyone who wasn’t straight was therefore bent or broken and they found it upsetting. These are the same folks (not folx) who willfully bandy about the term Global Majority to describe anyone who isn’t white, and then wonders why there is a backlash to their movement when white people realize that they are the global minority and understand that the goal of their efforts is not to appreciate their fellow humans. Instead they believe turnabout is fair play. They want to dominate the system they so desire to crush. No one trusts these critical theorists because they believe that their critical analysis creates a new truth that must be accepted uncritically. They are fools.
I am in the world, Beth. Also not a professor. I help people not get fired for wrongthink at work and also help employers devise policies to protect workers from having Critical Social Justice (woke) imposed on them. So far, the number of people I have supported with not being fired for not believing in gender identity comes in at just under 400.
I am aware of that. But you seem to be stuck writing in the language of post-modernism and critical theory. The verbiage is out of reach for most of the populace. Most truly have no understanding of post-modernism and critical theory, while suffering the ill effects of the policy results that arise from the nonsense. I realize that this is your world, but making your prose understandable to the 99% of humanity would go along way to creating universal understanding and perhaps developing some real world solutions.
I don't think that's true and my readership does not suggest it is true. Generally, people tell me I make this stuff accessible to them. Try The Counterweight Handbook and see if you still struggle. I can't imagine you would just from your comments. I write each piece or book with a particular person in mind. That one was written thinking of one of our clients who was a firefighter.
Perhaps if you were to show me a passage of this piece that you found not to be written in plain English but in the language of postmodernism and critical theory and tell me what makes you think so and I'll understand better what is losing you and so could potentially lose others?
No prose is understandable by more than 40 percent of the populace except for Fifty Shades of Grey.
Then write at that level, and stop trying to be a know it all. One can write insightful, beautiful, prose that the masses can understand. Just look at Dickens. Of course, I would expect that someone of such erudition might be unaware of the oral transmission of his art in the 19th century.
Beth, how do you think I became a writer? What do you think the process is? I was tweeting things and posting the odd blog and then 90K people came along to watch me do it. Then outlets came along and asked to me to write pieces for them. Then book publishers arrived and asked me to write a book. Then the book was the 5th bestselling non-fiction book of 2020. Then agents turned up to ask to represent me. Now I get asked to contribute to various top-paying outlets & I have to turn most of them down. Why do you think they do that? Is it because they are all very kind and want to help me out? Or could it possibly be that my writing attracts large numbers of readers and this makes money for them?
Thanks for your advice but I'm not convinced that you know better than me how to write accessibly for a mainstream audience. I think the demand for my writing is probably a better guide to whether I am managing that.
I was patient at first because I am open to suggestions from readers but your comments since your first (already rude) one with their combination of childish snark and pretentious, overblown language suggest to me that you are not in good faith, but instead have a massive chip on your shoulder. If your writing is not gaining traction, I'm sorry for that, but it's something for you to work out by changing up your style and seeing what attracts readers. It's not my fault and not my problem.
I think the difference is that I find that the culture who enjoys publishing your writing, including those literary journals to which you submitted your fake papers with Mr. Boghossian and Mr. Lindsey to be engaged in the cultural Marxism that you claim to detest. It’s entirely meaningless twaddle and without merit and truly has no bearing on reality. I haven’t been rude except to state that I believe that when your writing does seem fruitful, it is written in the same elitist language which you deride and claim to abhor.
You still seem to believe that Twitter is some platform of social relevance. I suspect that is only because you can still mine it for examples for you to critique, as referenced in this post, and your latest regarding the good doctor’s olfactory doctorate and the derision she received upon posting a selfie with her diploma.
If you don’t wish to receive any criticism in the negative, my suggestion would be for you to lockdown your Substack and make commenting on your posts available to your adoring fandom. Then your narcissistic supply won’t be interrupted.
I’ll give your suggestion all of the consideration it deserves.
Ok, Boomer!
And this comment is a perfect example of nonsensical babbling.
Straight is offensive. It suggests restricted, dull, uncreative, bland. Leaving aside sex, would you rather by gay or straight?
It’s not a perfectly fine term (to this heteronormative male).
(On the other hand, a “Leatherman Power Bottom” says, “‘straight’ is inherently oppressive of Queerness and is the direct antithesis of Gayness.”)
One thing’s for sure. Few Democrats would dare losing the leatherman power bottom constituency. If that happened they’d also lose the leatherman power top vote, and the party would never recover from that.
https://www.bgdblog.org/2017/05/de-normalizing-heteros-dont-use-word-straight/
Well this certainly presents a problem for those of us who are classical philologists (or classicists) as well as historians when we read about Cisalpine Gaul or the Transpadane Republic.
I'll admit to not having read the entire article (due to time and attention constraints), but I noticed, about the word cis, " No, it just means ‘not trans'". So how about substituting 'non-cis' for 'trans'? Of course, a 'trans' child is more accurately referred to as gender-confused (or activist-afflicted).
Until recently I didn't really know what "cis" meant. And now that I do I don't understand the necessity for this term at all. I don't consider it a slur, but I'm a "Man". This is the word used to describe my gender. Why the need to make any changes by adding cis to it? If you're trans, call yourself a "trans man/woman". The fact that the vast majority of us aren't trans and use biologically accurate terms to describe ourselves is not a problem.
Stuck? The source was not an ally of heterosexuals. I also object to the slur “straight.”
Huh?
"I was struggling because there did not seem to be a way to describe people who were not transgender without inescapably couching them in normalcy and making transgender identity automatically the 'other.'”
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/what-cisgender-means-transgender_n_63e13ee0e4b01e9288730415
I'm not doubting you on the views of the coiner of terms.
I don't know what you are questioning about stuck or how that individual's views relate to whether people should be allowed to use the word or not or where your objections to the word 'straight' fit in.
I defend your right to object to anything and anyone you want. Doesn't make a difference to the right of others to express ideas, though.
I raised no objection to the right to utter slurs. I’m a free speech absolutist.
You appear to be drawing protective lines around, let's say, tolerance and reasonableness, and that makes sense. It is, well, quite reasonable.
But is it possible that once we accept the categorical battlefield defined by identity justice, the battle is already over?
One could argue that it is a bit late (though “reasonable”) to defend the use of terms like Cis, when the division psychology of identity groups has already taken a firm grasp of everyone's brain stem.
I could give up on defending liberalism and freedom of belief and speech, yes, and then I wouldn't have written this. Or anything.
Yes, I don't suggest you accept any categorical battlefields. I've been addressing it for a long time critically.
I am only saying we should not ban *other people* from using their own words. If I ever accept that, this will mean that I've given up my battle which is for liberalism.
I see your point. But there does seem to be a gray zone between "banning" the term and refusing to be labeled by someone else's identity justice argot.
Not really. We must be able to refuse to listen to anybody we don't want to listen to and if people harass you when you've done all that's reasonable to avoid them, you must be able to press charges. But you cannot demand people think in categories that label you as you wish to be labelled any more than a trans activist can demand you think and speak the way they want you to. We all have to accept that other people will believe and say things that includes references to our demographic that we don't like. This is part of being a human living among humans with a range of belief systems and they are only words so we can survive.
When you say that "we must be able to refuse to listen to anybody we don't want to listen to," that's quite similar to what I mean by the gray zone. I suspect we are mostly in agreement. When someone says, "i categorically object to your use of the term cis," they are not preventing speech, but they are not accepting it.
Yes, absolutely.
X is unusable at this point.