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‘Cis’ or ‘Biological’?
They’re both adjectives, but we have preferences
Transphobes are upset about the word “cisgender.” The real reason is that it gives equivalent linguistic weight to people who do and don’t transition (“transgender” and “cisgender”). But when transphobes have to explain why they object to this equality, they struggle to phrase their objection in ways that don’t reveal their transphobia.
Yesterday, I wrote about one of their simplest and most common claims: that “cis” is unacceptable merely because the adjective is a qualifier. As one person put it, “cis” labels a “subcategory” of women and men. Some cis people claim they are (somehow) being diminished simply by being a little more specifically named. Yesterday I pointed out that this argument falls flat insofar as the same transphobes do often insist on the subcategories of “women” and “men” rather than just “people.”
The other reason this argument falls flat is that they do have an adjective they like: “biological.” They really, really like to refer to “biological women” and “biological men” in contrast with…
