This article is probably too nuanced to be perceptible to HN readers.
Ultimately, though, it comes down to a principled, "who are you calling cis?" If your worldview depends on distinguishing yourself from two uniform "cis-gendered" populations, you are doing the same violence to each cis person that "they", collectively, are doing to you.
What makes it nuanced is that, collectively, "they" are, but you are not collective enough to do it back, wholesale, and nobody, particularly, is one of "them". Meanwhile, doing it back, individually, is just abuse for being a more cissy than you.
The only person who can legitimately put someone in a box is that person, whether the box is queer, female, male, or what-have-you. Even those so deluded as to try to keep to a box deserve, anyway, as much respect as they offer, and probably a little more because everybody has bad days.
But we don't know, for most people, how boxed they are, or how much respect they accord others, without more context than we usually get.
Numerous studies show that humans have the propensity to view other humans as non humans and that this propensity happens with as little stimuli as seeing someone riding a bicycle. You can imagine how people who do not conform to gender norms are seen as less than human.
People who do not experience this dehumanization are fundamentally not equipped to understand the situation.
Thus saying that 'cis' persons are experiencing 'violence' is stunningly absurd.
If anything, cis people are the ones in boxes based on societies discrimination against anything that does not conform.
Everyone experiences dehumanization at times -- as you note yourself, riding a bicycle can suffice to provoke it. Either being treated as "other" is violence, or it's not -- who you are does not determine whether you get to complain of it.
Everyone acknowledges that many of the people you are calling "cis" tend to keep to the same boxes as you have put them in with your own comment. Not all do, though, including the author and me, and I doubt she would relish you putting her in one any more than I do.
So, the amount of people that would find the word “cis” to be an insult is vanishingly small. So small that what might be considered nuance in this context is beyond the scope of what defines the word nuance.
The reason it’s as small a group of people as it is, is because first, you’d have encounter someone trans. There are few trans people one might happen upon, outside of dense urban cores. To say one in a thousand is padding the density distributed across the suburban population.
Second, you’d have to locate a trans individual advertising (or attempting to advertise) a clearly determined gender of some kind.
Third, you’d have to interact with this person.
Fourth, you’d have antagonize them. More often than not, inviting problems for yourself.
Fifth, after introducing conflict, you’d have to know that “cis” is viewed as a counter-slur by in-group trans people.
Sixth, you’d have to interpret the context of the usage as not an abbreviation for sister.
Seventh, you’d have to be a gender that doesn’t fit the premise of being referred to as a sister.
Eighth, you’d have to clear these previous requirements and care about the insult that was just used against you.
Ninth, for the burn of the insult to really stick, you’d have to be outnumbered by those also recognizing “cis” as a slur.
Tenth, and finally the most punishing moment of the supposedly insulting counter-slur, you’d need at least one peer of your own in-group to turn against you and side with the individual using the counter-slur of “cis” against you.
There is, exceeding a five-nines level of probability, near certainty that for most people that ever hear the word “cis” pronounced by a live human being standing within earshot, and used in anger, no situation ever reaches 8. When used in anger against those self identifying as male, most have a hard stop at 5. And five just leaves the victim slightly confused and dismissive.
So the situation, as described, teeters on the brink of fantasy. For most trans people hoarding the word “cis” in their arsenal of concepts, they will never get to use to its intended effect it in a situation that matters.
Even now, on the internet there is a six sigma certainty that among the sevens IRL, very nearly none will cross over to an eighth degree “cis” target.
So, to sum up, the word “cis” pretty much doesn’t have any impact, for all the effort impressed upon it.
Height is a bad analogy for gender, since most peoples height are somewhere around the middle and fewer at the extremes.
Handedness is a better analogy. Few people are ambidextrous, most people are at the extreme of the spectrum, either left-handed or right-handed. Since handedness is not politicized, nobody is claiming that it is logically impossible to be ambidextrous and that they have to "pick a side". Neither does anybody really deny that the majority of people do have a dominant hand.
That said, a linear spectrum is obviously too simple for something as complex as gender. Take people with AIS. They are unambiguously male (XY) at the level of chromosomes, but in apperance unambiguously female, to the extent many don't know they are XY unless they happen to seek fertility treatment. Many probably never learn. So they are not really "in the middle", rather they are at two extremes at the same time.
The article seem to suggest that "non-binary" people are just muddying the definitions in order to seem interesting. But something like AIS objectivity exists, and shows that a purely binary definition of gender is not sufficient to describe reality. That does not mean that most people can't comfortably consider themselves a single unambiguous gender.
The article seems to argue biological sex characteristics are not the definer of gender rather society uses them to coerce certain personality norms during development. I don't think AIS changes that argument.
I think it's important to note that the article is not arguing for binary gender just because it is claiming gender is not a spectrum rather it is arguing against the use of the concept of gender altogether.
My grandmother was forced to write with her right hand at school, despite being left handed and punished with violence if she didn't conform Every so often when writing like this she would accidentally flip into mirror writing.
"If gender, like height, is to be understood as comparative or relative, this would fly in the face of the insistence that individuals are the sole arbiters of their gender. Your gender would be defined by reference to the distribution of gender identities present in the group in which you find yourself, and not by your own individual self-determination. It would thus not be up to me to decide that I am non-binary."
This is an interesting argument, but I wonder if we really are logically forced to see it as such. If we see people sorting themselves into two social status groups, one male group where males competes with other males, and one female group where females compete with other females, then what we have is a comparative definition that individuals choose. A non-binary would be individuals that either competes in both groups or neither.
From looking at the animal kingdom, it is hard to not notice the relation between social status and gender specific behavior. A male can be defined as a individual competing with other males using male behavior as defined by that male group. Between two groups, males of one could behave like females of the other and they would still be defined as male behavior.
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[ 334 ms ] story [ 2997 ms ] threadUltimately, though, it comes down to a principled, "who are you calling cis?" If your worldview depends on distinguishing yourself from two uniform "cis-gendered" populations, you are doing the same violence to each cis person that "they", collectively, are doing to you.
What makes it nuanced is that, collectively, "they" are, but you are not collective enough to do it back, wholesale, and nobody, particularly, is one of "them". Meanwhile, doing it back, individually, is just abuse for being a more cissy than you.
The only person who can legitimately put someone in a box is that person, whether the box is queer, female, male, or what-have-you. Even those so deluded as to try to keep to a box deserve, anyway, as much respect as they offer, and probably a little more because everybody has bad days.
But we don't know, for most people, how boxed they are, or how much respect they accord others, without more context than we usually get.
People who do not experience this dehumanization are fundamentally not equipped to understand the situation.
Thus saying that 'cis' persons are experiencing 'violence' is stunningly absurd.
If anything, cis people are the ones in boxes based on societies discrimination against anything that does not conform.
Everyone acknowledges that many of the people you are calling "cis" tend to keep to the same boxes as you have put them in with your own comment. Not all do, though, including the author and me, and I doubt she would relish you putting her in one any more than I do.
The reason it’s as small a group of people as it is, is because first, you’d have encounter someone trans. There are few trans people one might happen upon, outside of dense urban cores. To say one in a thousand is padding the density distributed across the suburban population.
Second, you’d have to locate a trans individual advertising (or attempting to advertise) a clearly determined gender of some kind.
Third, you’d have to interact with this person.
Fourth, you’d have antagonize them. More often than not, inviting problems for yourself.
Fifth, after introducing conflict, you’d have to know that “cis” is viewed as a counter-slur by in-group trans people.
Sixth, you’d have to interpret the context of the usage as not an abbreviation for sister.
Seventh, you’d have to be a gender that doesn’t fit the premise of being referred to as a sister.
Eighth, you’d have to clear these previous requirements and care about the insult that was just used against you.
Ninth, for the burn of the insult to really stick, you’d have to be outnumbered by those also recognizing “cis” as a slur.
Tenth, and finally the most punishing moment of the supposedly insulting counter-slur, you’d need at least one peer of your own in-group to turn against you and side with the individual using the counter-slur of “cis” against you.
There is, exceeding a five-nines level of probability, near certainty that for most people that ever hear the word “cis” pronounced by a live human being standing within earshot, and used in anger, no situation ever reaches 8. When used in anger against those self identifying as male, most have a hard stop at 5. And five just leaves the victim slightly confused and dismissive.
So the situation, as described, teeters on the brink of fantasy. For most trans people hoarding the word “cis” in their arsenal of concepts, they will never get to use to its intended effect it in a situation that matters.
Even now, on the internet there is a six sigma certainty that among the sevens IRL, very nearly none will cross over to an eighth degree “cis” target.
So, to sum up, the word “cis” pretty much doesn’t have any impact, for all the effort impressed upon it.
Handedness is a better analogy. Few people are ambidextrous, most people are at the extreme of the spectrum, either left-handed or right-handed. Since handedness is not politicized, nobody is claiming that it is logically impossible to be ambidextrous and that they have to "pick a side". Neither does anybody really deny that the majority of people do have a dominant hand.
That said, a linear spectrum is obviously too simple for something as complex as gender. Take people with AIS. They are unambiguously male (XY) at the level of chromosomes, but in apperance unambiguously female, to the extent many don't know they are XY unless they happen to seek fertility treatment. Many probably never learn. So they are not really "in the middle", rather they are at two extremes at the same time.
The article seem to suggest that "non-binary" people are just muddying the definitions in order to seem interesting. But something like AIS objectivity exists, and shows that a purely binary definition of gender is not sufficient to describe reality. That does not mean that most people can't comfortably consider themselves a single unambiguous gender.
I think it's important to note that the article is not arguing for binary gender just because it is claiming gender is not a spectrum rather it is arguing against the use of the concept of gender altogether.
This is an interesting argument, but I wonder if we really are logically forced to see it as such. If we see people sorting themselves into two social status groups, one male group where males competes with other males, and one female group where females compete with other females, then what we have is a comparative definition that individuals choose. A non-binary would be individuals that either competes in both groups or neither.
From looking at the animal kingdom, it is hard to not notice the relation between social status and gender specific behavior. A male can be defined as a individual competing with other males using male behavior as defined by that male group. Between two groups, males of one could behave like females of the other and they would still be defined as male behavior.