A: Cis people aren’t merely “normal” because this language is stigmatizing and insulting to trans people, implying that we’re abnormal. The normal/abnormal distinction in reference to people has strong connotations: that being normal is desirable, while being abnormal is vicious and reprehensible. By implicitly perpetuating the view that being trans is somehow morally wrong and/or dangerous, this language contributes to misunderstanding, injustice, and violence toward trans people. Socially, it’s often a slippery slope from calling a group of people “abnormal” to calling them things like “freaks,” “perverts,” and “monsters.” (Saying cis people are normal is also insulting to cis people: Who says you have to be boring and ordinary just because you’re not trans?)

The cis/trans (etc.) distinction, on the other hand, is unbiased and scientifically legitimate. The terminal goal in using language that doesn’t privilege anyone is to eliminate cis people’s social and political privilege, and thus to put trans and cis people on equal footing.

So the word “cis” has a clear, neutral, and academic purpose; it fills a conceptual gap in our language. In other words, “cis” in the context of gender is analogous to “heterosexual” in the context of sexual orientation: It means something specific, and it’s not pejorative toward either those who do fall into the domain it picks out or those who don’t.

In our society, everyone is assumed to be cis unless and until they indicate otherwise, and this social fact is built into the concept “cis.” Accordingly, unlike words that refer to specific gender identities (like “man,” “woman,” “agender,” “genderqueer,” etc.), “cis” isn’t a term with which you have to identify in order for it to be accurately applied to you.

A: Look, no one is morally obligated to have sex with a person they’re not interested in. However, a trans woman who calls herself a lesbian is not demanding that cis lesbians have sex with her, any more than a cis woman who calls herself a lesbian is demanding that other cis lesbians have sex with her. The fact that two people are both lesbians doesn’t mean that either has to date, have sex with, or fall in love with the other.

Lots of trans women are in relationships with cis women, or with each other. Those relationships, being relationships between two women, are lesbian relationships, and many of the women in them are lesbians (although others would prefer to describe themselves using words like bisexual, pansexual, queer, or other descriptors).

It’s strange that so many people who are not interested in dating trans women display a morbid fascination in how trans women have sex, without understanding the topic accurately. It’s not actually true that trans lesbians are chiefly interested in PIV sex; see Autostraddle’s trans lesbian sex tag for a more realistic, nuanced picture of trans lesbian sexuality. But also note that if you’re not dating a trans woman, then it’s not really your business how she has sex, nor is it appropriate to declaim loudly about whether you would have sex with her.

Finally, while you’re within your rights to turn down sex for any reason good or bad, turning down a partner you’re otherwise attracted to, just because they’re trans, is a pretty lousy reason. It would be a better, more loving, and sexier world for everyone if we didn’t stigmatize trans bodies and fixate so much on trans women’s genitals.

Further reading

• Not In Our Name: A Statement On Trans Inclusion From Lesbian Editors And Publishers

A: No.

Trans people (whether women, men, or nonbinary) have different experiences from cis women. A trans woman, for instance, is unlikely to see her womanhood as connected to the capacity to give birth, while some cis women feel that this capacity is central to their womanhood. A trans father who nurses his child may be more comfortable with the word “chestfeeding” than the word “breastfeeding,” even though cis women often say “breastfeeding.” Trans people have developed words and concepts that accurately reflect our experiences.

But reporting your own experience is not the same as trying to silence people who are different. There is plenty of room for the stories of trans people of various genders to exist alongside the stories of cis women.

Further reading

• Ray Briggs and B.R. George, Words for Every Body
• Sady Doyle, You Can’t Fight Patriarchy Without Fighting Transphobia

A: All words are made up, but they’re made up for a reason. Language is constantly changing and evolving in association with culture: Grammatical rules change, the meanings of existing words change (e.g. gay, queer, Democrat, Republican), and new words are made up in order to articulate concepts that exist and have reason to be articulated. It’s not the concepts that are made up. There are lots of gender identity labels because there are lots of gender identities. Trans and nonbinary people aren’t making up identities, just filling in a gap in our language.

Many of the concepts that describe the experiences of trans people are not part of the collective understanding of our society or milieu. As a result, when we try to describe our experiences, we are often written off as unintelligible, irrational, or outright insane. When we acquire the language to accurately articulate our own experiences as pertain to gender, and to communicate them to others, it gives us agency over those experiences.

This is why you’re seeing a lot of new words for gender identities. But if these identities have existed for a long time, then why are the words just now becoming part of our language? Apart from the general cultural taboo, part of the reason we don’t hear about very many trans people historically is that other concepts were used to describe trans identities: At best, transmasculine people were called lesbians or tomboys; transfemmes were called homosexuals or crossdressers; or they were just “different.” (Of course, cis lesbians, gender nonconforming cis women, gay cis men, and crossdressing cis men still exist– We just have more categories now.)

Why should you care about using, or engaging with, this language?

• Respecting the language someone uses to describe their identity is part of respecting their identity, and thus of respecting them as a human being.
• As philosophers and academics, we are and ought to be concerned with precision of language: We want to be able to communicate exactly what we mean.
• When the language doesn’t exist to articulate a relevant concept, it leads to innocent misunderstanding and confusion. When the language exists but you refuse to use it, you’re willfully contributing to misunderstanding, confusion, and frustration.
• In learning new words, you might learn something new about yourself. Even if you’re cis, learning about trans people’s experiences might help you to better articulate your own identity and experiences as pertain to gender.
• Many trans people experience physical and/or social dysphoria, which are known to beget various psychological and psychosomatic consequences. Physical dysphoria is discomfort or anxiety resulting from a feeling that one’s identity doesn’t match their body or certain physical characteristics. Social dysphoria is discomfort or anxiety resulting from a feeling that one’s identity doesn’t match how they are perceived by others. A trans person might experience social dysphoria when they are misgendered (referred to by gendered words to which they don’t relate), even if they don’t understand why. When we are gendered correctly and when our experiences are socially validated, we experience gender euphoria, but this is fully possible only if 1) the necessary linguistic resources exist and 2) others access and use them correctly.

Further reading

• Talia Mae Bettcher, Trans Identities and First-Person Authority
• Lucy Diavolo, Gender Variance Around the World Over Time
• Miranda Fricker and Katharine Jenkins, Epistemic Injustice, Ignorance, and Trans Experiences
• Stephanie Julia Kapusta, Misgendering and its Moral Contestability
• Avery Martens, Transgender People Have Always Existed
• Rachel McKinnon, Stereotype Threat and Attributional Ambiguity for Trans Women
• Blas Radi, On Trans* Epistemology: Critiques, Contributions, and Challenges

A: First of all, most of us go by “he,” “she,” or “they,” all of which are extremely common English words.

Second, referring to people in accordance with their preferences is basic politeness. If Edward hates to be called Ed, and likes to be called Ned, then you should call him Ned. If Aesha Washington, PhD., wants to be called Dr. Washington, instead of Ms. Washington (or worse, Mrs. Washington), then you should call her Dr. Washington. When people expect this level of politeness from you, they are not suppressing your free speech in any meaningful way. Refusing to use someone’s preferred form of address is a way of expressing contempt for them, and people are within their rights to ask you not to speak to them contemptuously.

But what about weird pronouns like “ze” or “ey?” What about singular uses of “they?” Do you have to respect those choices too?

The answer is yes; respecting those choices is an ethical requirement. A person who uses gender-neutral pronouns is asking you not to mark them as either male or female, and it’s polite to respect their wishes. For every linguistic choice that does what they’re asking, somebody is likely to complain about it: singular “they” is supposedly ungrammatical (although it’s been part of the English literary canon for centuries); other pronouns are unfamiliar. For the person requesting a gender-neutral pronoun, there is no definitive winning move, so you can’t blame them for not choosing the winning move.

Further reading

• Rachel McKinnon, Pronouns and Names for Trans People (video)
• ContraPoints, Pronouns (video)
• Kirby Conrod, How to do the absolute minimum (with pronouns), and a longer post on Trans(itive) Gendering
• Robin Dembroff and Daniel Wodak, Gendered Language: Why Preserve the Status Quo?

A: Being trans doesn’t have anything to do with embracing gender stereotypes. Trans people are just as varied in their gender presentation as cis people: there are butch trans lesbians, sparkly trans femboys, nerdy trans women in glasses and a blouse and sensible trousers, masculine trans men who occasionally dress in high femme drag, nonbinary people you would classify as women if you weren’t paying attention, nonbinary people you would classify as men if you weren’t paying attention, gay and lesbian and straight and bisexual trans people…

True, some trans women are feminine, some trans men are masculine, and some nonbinary trans people are androgynous. But in general, we do not transition because we are feminine, masculine, or androgynous. Our transitions are personal and individual; they are not a commentary on your femininity, masculinity, or androgyny. A trans man is not claiming, merely by his existence, that all masculine cis women should start taking testosterone and getting surgery; a trans woman is not claiming, merely by her existence, that all feminine cis men need to start wearing dresses and going by she/her pronouns. A nonbinary person is not indicting cis people for being cis.

Trans people have to navigate cis people’s gendered expectations, and sometimes that means playing to stereotypes in order to avoid discrimination and harassment. (For example, trans women may feel social pressure to wear makeup when they go out in public in order to avoid being treated rudely.) But don’t mistake someone else’s stereotypical expectations for the way we see ourselves.

Further reading:

• Natalie Reed, Gender Expression is Not Gender Identity
• Transphilosopher, Let Trans Women Grow
• Ray Filar, Is it a man or a woman? Transitioning and the cis gaze
• Julia Serano, Whipping Girl

A: It’s great to reject gender stereotypes, but that doesn’t have anything to do with whether you’re cis. A cis person is just a person who is not trans. So if you’re not trans, and you reject gender stereotypes, then you’re a cis person who rejects gender stereotypes. That’s a fine thing to be.

Some of the confusion probably comes from the way that certain sources define “cis” when they’re trying to explain what the word means. Consider this representative example.

Cisgender: A term used to describe a person whose gender identity aligns with those typically associated with the sex assigned to them at birth.

Human Rights Campaign

Our example definition uses the concept of identifying with a gender. If you interpret “identifying with” as “liking” and “gender” as “gender stereotype”, then you might come away with the mistaken impression that being cisgender is about liking the gender stereotypes that society imposes on you.

But being cis is not about liking gender stereotypes, any more than being trans is. You could solve this problem by coming up with a better theory of what it is to identify with a gender, or you could just define being cis and trans in other terms. Here’s an alternative definition.

Cisgender, frequently shortened to cis, refers to people who aren’t trans, i.e. people who are the gender everyone assumed they would be when they were born. Trans people, conversely, aren’t the gender everyone assume they would be when they were born.

Brin Solomon, “Come Out and Play,” Symphony Magazine

Anyway, the take-away point is that neither being cis nor being trans determines much of anything about your attitude toward gender stereotypes.

A: Maybe, but saying and doing transphobic things is also hurtful.

But take note: saying or doing a transphobic thing doesn’t mean you’re an irredeemable person. If someone criticizes you for saying or doing something transphobic, you can listen, learn from their criticism, and do better next time. We all make mistakes. But transphobia can be changed, and everyone can improve through criticism and effort.