What are cis and trans alternate types of? I don’t think it’s “gender identity” because wouldn’t that just be man, woman or nonbinary regardless of whether they’re cis or trans? Cis/trans just being a qualifier?
If the answer is “I am cis” or “I am trans”, what is the question?
Edit: Someone came up with the term “gender congruity” and (after looking up the definition of “congruity”) I think this describes what I’m talking about perfectly.
To a first approximation, they describe the match or mismatch between a person’s gender identity and their assigned gender at birth (AGAB).
“Cis” = “my gender identity matches my assigned gender at birth”
“Trans” = “my gender identity does not match my assigned gender at birth”
The question being asked is, “Given that when you were born they thought of you as a (boy/girl); are you now expressing or experiencing a (male/female) gender, or a (female/male) one?”
Logically speaking, this is an
xoroperation; it asks if two things are the same or different. If boolean variablearepresents your AGAB and boolean variablebrepresents your gender identity, then “are you trans?” isa xor b— is your AGAB different from your gender identity?Again, this is to a first approximation. There are people who don’t fit binary labels, and so an
xoroperation on binary labels doesn’t fit them either.I like the way you express this. “Cis / Trans” isn’t about your gender, it’s about whether your gender has CHANGED. (Although it may not be your GENDER that changed, but what people THOUGHT your gender was.)
In a similar way, I (a cis male) usually call myself “straight”, but that’s not really accurate. I don’t feel like I’m attracted to whatever gender is different from mine (which happens to be women); I feel like I am attracted to women (which happens to be the gender that’s different from mine).
Putting it differently, if some magical spell were to transform me into a woman, I don’t imagine that I would then be attracted to men, I imagine that I would be attracted to women. So instead of calling myself “straight”, I should probably be saying that I am “gynosexual” (attracted to women).
I really really love the way you phrased that. Just thought I would let you know. Bookmarking your comment as a discussion point for the future as well.
Thank you. It’s a thought that has been rolling around in my head for some time and this was my attempt to put it in words.
Hahaha. A nice and appropriately nerdy explanation. Very nice.
Finally a “down to earth” explanation I can fully understand, thank you!
I appreciate the use of formal logic here, I don’t see this enough!!!
At first I was thinking that this would make cis and trans properties of gender, but I think we’re specifying a a set of properties or maybe a state of affairs (assessor,world,time,gender,etc)
There’s actually a word for “Gender assigned at birth” and it’s sex. Biological sex.
No, the gender assigned at birth does not always match the sex.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersex
Ah yes. Intersex people. What’s the percentage on that? 0.01%? Why bother catering to such a vanishingly small segment of the population with your language? For the vast vast majority of people sex is the “gender assigned at birth”. It’s the genetics definition.
Because people like you are using the language to exclude people and attack them. And if we’re going to make laws and shit it has to be precise.
In what way are we “catering” to these people?
The way somebody is socialized and raised isn’t inextricably linked with their sex. Also, intersex people are routinely assigned a gender, although thankfully that’s changing.