QT: What is the difference between a butch woman and a trans man?

submitted by worried19 from self.GCdebatesQT

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[–]worried19[S] 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (21 children)

I'm familiar with her and think she's great, but I can't imagine she would ever refer to herself as "cis."

[–]catoborosnonbinary 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (20 children)

She is female and identifies as a woman, therefore is cis by definition. She might have used the term "cis" in one of her earlier detrans videos but I am not sure.

[–]worried19[S] 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

"Cis" is a label imposed by those who believe in gender identity.

I am female and acknowledge myself as a woman, even though I do not identify with womanhood. I would not call myself "cis" simply because I state my biological sex. If anything, I'm exactly the opposite. I am not "on the same side" as the female gender. I hate everything associated with the female gender.

Now I'm not one of those who believes "cis" is a slur, but from my perspective it makes zero sense to call an extremely GNC woman "cis." I'm not sure about Leoaica, but I personally have rejected gender and go strictly by biological sex.

[–]catoborosnonbinary 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I was referring to "cis" as the concept and neglected the connotation of adherence to gender theory. Sorry about that!

As far as I know, Leigh's views are currently close to your views: she seems to reject most ideas of gender as they might apply to her. She had an older video discussing cis women who have top surgery, so seems comfortable with the term, but I think you are right that she has never the term "cis" in reference to herself.

In my ontology, it makes perfect sense to describe a female who identifies as a woman as cis, even one such as Leigh who is extremely GNC including surgery and testosterone effects. My definition of trans is based solely on a mismatch between sex and gender identity, otherwise it would include many GNC people who are comfortable with their bodies and being perceived as their natal sex, such as crossdressers. "Gender diverse" includes all these people.

However, you raise an important point. There must be a third option between trans and cis: missing data, such as unknown, undecided, or withheld. I do not see how I can describe someone as cis or trans if they do not have a sense of their own gender. I have previously thought of these people as agender, but I am now not so sure.

[–]divingrightintowork 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (16 children)

Do we really need to do the whole "don't assign labels to other people" thing? If you have a citation of her saying she's cis, show it, but otherwise it's poor form to label someone like that.

[–]catoborosnonbinary 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (15 children)

Leigh describes herself as a "woman woman" and a "biological woman" and "female". How is this not exactly the same as cis? It would be poor form if I called her nonbinary some such, but cis woman is a synonym for these terms, is it not? Cis is defined as not trans. Or am I missing something?

[–]divingrightintowork 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (14 children)

Where did the term cis come from, though?

Groups can generally come up with labels for theirselves, but not labels for other people. No?

[–]catoborosnonbinary 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (13 children)

Oh, I see. You are objecting not to the concept, just to the label "cis". I see your point.

[–]divingrightintowork 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (12 children)

FWIW she may well be 'cis' but unless she says as much, or you're in a trans-dominant space, you like probably shouldn't assume or call her that without checking - certainly if it is expected to use the preferred pronouns of someone even if they're not around and I don't believe they're the sex they think they are, no? (Also hi! I don't know your user name so I don't know your exact stances, but I'd be happy to hear them :) )

[–]catoborosnonbinary 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (11 children)

Noted. I have previously assumed that "cis" was just a broad description but I guess it can be taken as an identity label and should be treated with more respect. I am already in trouble for referring to people by their biological sex. :-(

My stance is that I am broadly trans positive, but believe in immutable binary sex, and that trans people change only sex characteristics. While I support self ID for documents (or just omit gender markers), I think inclusion of trans women in women's sport should be evidence-based to ensure that it is safe and fair.

[–]divingrightintowork 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (10 children)

Well hi and welcome! I'm happy to have you here - may I ask how you ended up here? It's def't a pretty random space for someone to end up given the history and how it ended up on saidit.

For what it's worth a lot of GC people could arguably be "Trans positive," if you were to ask them a number of positive / negative questions about their beliefs regarding trans ppl (feel free to ask me a few, I'm curious now!).

Certainly a lot of what you said isn't hugely disagreeable to me, I'd likely seek some sort of middle ground on a lot of them - I also believe a lot in libertarianism which comes at a lot of things from a slightly different stance (like right of affiliation, and groups getting to set their own terms).

[–]catoborosnonbinary 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (9 children)

I am an old-school liberal, pretty much a social libertarian and economic centrist. I like free speech, democracy, and the middle ground. I am here to help find workable compromises. I trained as a scientist, and am a sceptic, free thinker, atheist, and believe that there is an objective reality that we all share.

I realised over 20 years ago that I was what we now call nonbinary. Last year, I started engaging with the trans community on social media. What a horrible experience. The so-called "trans community" turned out to be a nest of authoritarian extremists who deny biological reality and suppress any dissent. I found out about identitarianism, wokeness, grievance culture, and their pervasive influence on the authoritarian left. I started hanging out on r/rightwinglgbt and r/uncensoredlgbt. I had enough karma on r/gc to edit the wiki. I was shocked when the banwave hit all my favourite subs and cleared out my inbox, so I came here.

[–]catoborosnonbinary 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I checked some of her earlier detrans videos and she then did not identify with any gender.