‘Labels Are for Cans,’ Yet You Do See ‘Trans’
The ‘soup can logic’ of using ‘trans’ but not ‘cis’
Recently, I saw a couple comments here—I believe the person was trolling—posted by the same user only a few weeks apart. I paraphrase:
- No one should use any labels at all because identities don’t matter.
- The label ‘cis’ is unnecessary because we don’t need to describe the default, whereas the label ‘trans’ is useful to describe the unusual.
The contradiction is obvious, but the likely context and implications need a highlighter.
What this single, self-contradicting person is likely to do—and is, in fact, doing, based on my scan of their other online comments—is bother trans people and cheer on anti-trans people. They will interrupt whatever trans people are talking about just to complain that the trans person is using identity words at all. Then they will say that, as long as someone (a cis person) is expressing skepticism of trans people or diminishing trans people, it’s OK for them to say “trans,” but there will still be no need to say “cis.” Why? Because cis people are the ones who are allowed to talk. Trans people are the ones who are talked about.
