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‘Man’–‘Woman’ Porridge Must Stay in the Goldilocks Zone
Transphobes don’t want to be any more, nor any less, specific
Lately, there’s been bad-faith, unnecessary noise about the word “cis.” This is because—I recap for those of you who aren’t terminally online—Elon Musk tweeted on June 20 that he considers “the words ‘cis’ or ‘cisgender’” to be “slurs” and that he may suspend Twitter accounts for using them. He said this to comfort James Esses, a professional transphobe, after Esses complained that people had told him “that I am ‘cis’ ‘whether or not I like it’. Just imagine if the roles were reversed.”
In the sense that Esses does insist on calling trans people whatever he likes, we don’t have to imagine it. We can just look at what he publishes. Also, he knows perfectly well that his language for trans people is disrespectful and that “cis” is not a disrespectful word. Furthermore, what level of intricacy is required for this thought experiment? Must we imagine that trans people are 99% of the population and that cis people are a minority with lots of pending legislation aiming to curtail their existence? Because if that’s how the thought experiment works, then— Exactly what are we doing here?
Nine hours after Musk’s assurance that he would ban anyone who said “cis,” J.K. Rowling, a ringleader of the transphobes…
