X now considers the term “cisgender” a slur. On Tuesday, the platform reportedly began posting an official warning that the LGBTQ-inclusive terms could result in a ban from the platform.
  • prosp3kt@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    Lol, that’s incredible. But more incredible is what happened in Peru: They declared that being trans is a mental disease.

    • Ozone6363@lemmy.world
      0·
      2 months ago

      How isn’t it? And why are you so upset that it’s classified as a mental disease?

      You still accept people and medically treat people with mental diseases, do you not?

      I don’t understand what the fuck you people want. We are giving you a legitimate medical classification so we can chop your dicks off and give you all the hormones your little hearts desire. But you don’t like that it’s called a mental illness?

      Give me a break.

      • dustyData@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        2 months ago

        Gender dysphoria, the psychological suffering caused by feeling like you are in the wrong body, is the disease. Being a trans person is not a disease, and using that as a basis for insulting or discriminating is inappropriate. Somewhat like autism is the mental disease but having autism is not a disease and it is inappropriate to treat a person as if it is the entirety of their existence. Way too often illness has been used as the basis of mistreatment and outright extermination. People have diseases, they aren’t their diseases. We have introduced this notion from the fields of ethics in medicine and it’s why a lot of things are no longer used in language nor in concept: the disabled, the retarded, the syphilitic, the autistic, etc. People aren’t diseases and they aren’t their disease.

        If you knew a thing or two about the history of gender, you’d know that medicalization of gender is precisely one of the main historical roots to justify discrimination, criminalization and abuse towards trans people. Medicalization of gender has literally killed millions of people throughout history.

        • TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world
          0·
          2 months ago

          combine it with race to see an even starker picture. black women’s medical outcomes are insanely worse than other races and genders.

      • Hylactor@sopuli.xyz
        0·
        2 months ago

        Believe it or not, your understanding is not essential. Unfortunately for you, truth is nuanced and not conveniently delineated. Just because you can’t grasp it, doesn’t make it a mystery.

        Give me a break.

        Cis people have received an inordinate number of breaks for the entirety of recorded history. You will never be killed for holding hands with the wrong person. No nation has a death penalty for expressing your love openly.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
      0·
      2 months ago

      I’ve said for some time now that as long as he allows deadnaming on his site, I’m going to deadname his site.

      • TWeaK@lemm.eeEnglish
        0·
        2 months ago

        It might not be worth challenging them, by the time it gets anywhere the current business will be gone. They always had little to no hope of paying off the $13bn loan Musk saddled the business with, now the business is worth less than the loan. Musk knows this, which is why he’s trialling all sorts of dodgy shit on the platform, such as this and also the API charges.

      • Hobbes_Dent@lemmy.world
        0·
        2 months ago

        And I’m only, like, 98% joking about it also being the day I saw a headline on Lemmy about Wayland use overtaking X11.

        I mean, honesty, there has to be some legally standing harm having been done or be possible. By a fucking billionaire tech mogul guy to a foundational, open, and free part of the tech ecosystem who also relies on fundraising.

  • hperrin@lemmy.world
    0·
    2 months ago

    Ah yes, the historically marginalized vulnerable community, the cisgenders. How can a community even hope to live in peace with only 98.5% of the population?

    • neidu2@feddit.nl
      0·
      2 months ago

      As one of the most average dudes in the world, I can’t help but feel threatened and marginalized, which of course means that the gay agenda is to blame for everthing that has gone wrong in my life.

      Just to be on the safe side: That was sarcasm.

      My gender: You can safely make assumptions based on appearance.
      Orientation: Straight and boringly sprinkle-free
      Favorite dinosaur: Triceratops
      Opinion on this: Fuck Elon. Let people be people, for fucks sake. If he feels threatened by increasing specificity in language, he must have some real identity issues boiling underneath.

      • hperrin@lemmy.world
        0·
        2 months ago

        I don’t think Elon feels personally threatened. I think he feels hate and a misguided sense of heroism. If you listen to him speak enough, it becomes painfully obvious that he not only thinks he’s the most important person in the world, he also thinks he’s the smartest person in the world. Basically he thinks he can’t possibly be wrong, no matter how many experts who’ve dedicated their lives to the pursuit of knowledge in a field that’s new to him disagree with him.

        That, plus the constant stream of right wing propaganda from his Twitter addiction, has convinced him that the acceptance of trans people will lead to the destruction of society. His brain is rotten to the core at this point. So he’s made it his personal mission to make trans people’s lives worse.

        • neidu2@feddit.nl
          0·
          2 months ago

          My refined interpretation: He’s desperate to be liked, and as long as his Xitter-circle cheers him on, he’ll continue to be a Xithead shithead. He doesn’t have a circle of friends to keep him grounded in reality.

        • PrinceWith999Enemies@lemmy.world
          0·
          2 months ago

          Well, damn.

          The word is a threat because it linguistically separates biological sex from socially constructed categories of “woman” and “man.” That gender is a social construction undermines heteronormativity, critical to defending patriarchal sex roles and procreation.

      • jmcs@discuss.tchncs.de
        0·
        2 months ago

        When you have a trans-something you have cis-something. It’s how language works.

        The only way for cisgender to be a slur is if you consider transgender a slur too.

        • neidu2@feddit.nl
          0·
          2 months ago

          Now I’m curious what a cisformer would be in the context of electrical engineering

          • hperrin@lemmy.world
            0·
            2 months ago

            A cisformer would just be a conductor (like a wire). It takes a current/voltage on one side, and gives you the same current/voltage on the other side.

            Now if we’re talking about the big robots that turn into cars, a cisformer would be a car that turns into the same car (so just any car).

          • jmcs@discuss.tchncs.de
            0·
            2 months ago

            Ok let me rephrase for pedantic people, adjectives with trans prefix have a correspondent cis adjective.

            And an electrical cisformer would be something that would keep energy inside the same circuit at roughly the same voltage, so basically a wire. Feel free to use the term if you want to oversell something.

            • neidu2@feddit.nl
              0·
              2 months ago

              I will start using “cisformer” in place of “wire” from now on, in a similar manner to how we at work sometimes refer to “power aspect negation cycle” for pulling the plug on something and reconnect it.

              Also, I guess a cisistor would be just a regular switch or potentiometer.

            • Jesus_666@lemmy.world
              0·
              2 months ago

              Cisformers
              They’re what meets the eyes
              Cisformers
              Bots not in disguise
              Robobots wage their battle to destroy the evil forces of
              The Obviouscons

        • vithigar@lemmy.ca
          0·
          2 months ago

          You could construct a cis- form of the word, but it’s not always going to be useful, or even sensible.

          Cismit? Cisaction? Cislate? Cisportation?

      • rockSlayer@lemmy.world
        0·
        2 months ago

        bullshit. cis- is a latin prefix that means “on this side of”. So for example, the Roman region Cisalpine Gaul could reasonably be interpreted as “the part of Gaul that’s on our side of the Alpines”. The prefix trans- is the antonym meaning “on the far side”. Transalpine Gaul was the part of the Roman empire on the other side of the Alpines. When related to gender, the only way cisgender can be read in any context is “their gender aligns with their sex”. There is no way that would could ever be reasonably be interpreted as a slur.

        • _cnt0@sh.itjust.works
          0·
          2 months ago

          People can be insulted (read as feel insulted) by anything and everything. If I refer to someone by a technically correct term all the time, but it was not customary to do so, they could easily (and justifiably) feel insulted by that. Whether something can be more or less generally be said to be a slur depends more on majorities, convention, and social protocol than on technical correctness. Neither you nor I are in a position to tell someone that they cannot feel insulted by something. And it might even be a communal thing: if a majority of users on X felt insulted by being referred to as cisgender, it would be correct to label it as a slur in that context/on X. Like cunt is an integral part of everyday language in Australia but a big no-no in the US. Think about that, you dry-nose primate.

          • ImADifferentBird@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
            0·
            2 months ago

            Most people don’t see cisgender as a slur. Only complete asshole transphobes do.

            Honestly, not even they do. They just lie about it as a gotcha.

            • _cnt0@sh.itjust.works
              0·
              2 months ago

              From wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cisgender

              The term cisgender was coined in 1994 as an antonym to transgender, and entered into dictionaries starting in 2015 as a result of changes in social discourse about gender.[4][5] The term has been and continues to be controversial and subject to critique.

              I think there’s some confirmation bias on your end here. The local community (including me) tends to be young and liberal and knows the term cisgender. I’d bet that the majority (by a huge margin) of English speakers (including as a second or third language) has never even heard the term cisgender or doesn’t know what it means. Lots of them will react negatively if you label them cisgender out of pure ignorance and false assumptions - no transphobia needed.

              Only complete asshole transphobes do. Honestly, not even they do. They just lie about it as a gotcha.

              Sure, they exist. But what’s their percentage of the population or the X user base? I think you’re making a false generalization by an invalid extrapolation.

              And just to be clear: I’m not saying cisgender is a slur. I’m just pointing out that the notion that community A or an individual can decide whether some word is a slur or not in community B is ridiculous, and that the argument, from the first comment I replied to, for technical correctness or intended meaning of a word is irrelevant for who considers what a slur.

              I hope that made my point clearer to your dry-nosed primate’s brain.

              • BmeBenji@lemm.ee
                0·
                2 months ago

                I’m pretty confident the slur-status of a word is closely rated to whether or not it is used in a hateful way to refer to a people group or member of a group that is in some way disadvantaged. For example the n-word is obviously a slur and “cracker” or “whitey” obviously are not. That’s why cisgender isn’t a slur, even if people can and have use(d) it in a hateful way.

              • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
                0·
                2 months ago

                I’m just pointing out that the notion that community A or an individual can decide whether some word is a slur or not in community B is ridiculous,

                As a member of group B I consider the word community a slur (purely because it is convenient for my argument to do so). Never use that word again because it is a slur and it would be ridiculous for you to say otherwise.

            • Djtecha@lemm.ee
              0·
              2 months ago

              I’m not a fan of you assuming my identity. Did I ask to be referred to as that?

          • Asafum@feddit.nl
            0·
            2 months ago

            OMG I love it!

            Right wing assholes get all bent out of shape over the computer world trying to do away with “master” and “slave” terminology, but they’ll rush to “cancel” using “cis” because it hurts their feefees…

        • Aurenkin@sh.itjust.works
          0·
          2 months ago

          Those kids on Tumblr, infamous for their coining of slurs, knowledge of Latin and history of Rome in equal measure.

          • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
            0·
            2 months ago

            Ok but you did describe a specific chunk of rome nerds. You’ve really got three kinds of rome nerds: the “I just think it’s neat” folks, the ones who think of it as glorious western tradition and lean fascist (it’s how they turned the symbol of Roman right to rule into the “kill everyone in the name of tradition” ideology), and then there are those of us who see a society that’s full on clown shoes where a bisexual twink managed to talk his way into destroying a republic among many many many other fucking bonkers things that just kept fucking happening while this empire refused to trade with China because of dipshit toxic masculinity. So yeah us in the last group lean anti fascist because rome was a shit show of a caliber only America and Russia can compare to

    • notabot@lemm.ee
      0·
      2 months ago

      Probably not, but used with sufficient invective I think you could make people feel like they’ve been insulted with out actually doing so. ‘You blasted multicellular mammal! What have you done this time? What are you, bipedal or something? Eukaryote!’

  • llamajester421@kbin.social
    0·
    2 months ago

    This is what happens when a Nazi affiliated “free-speech” absolutist buys a major media. The trap of the tolerating the intolerant is very real.

  • Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee
    0·
    2 months ago

    It’s considered a slur when you call a person that who doesn’t associate with the term. It’s no different from going around calling straight people gay. Do we or do we not respect people’s right to choose what they indentify as? It’s not like you get automatically banned for using the term. Context matters.

    This article also seems to conveiniently ignore the fact that all the actual slurs are considered slurs on Twitter aswell. It’s also an obviously and openly biased opinion article intented to provoke rage rather than objectional journalism.

    • Ghostalmedia@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      0·
      2 months ago

      Considers role reversal.

      So a world where trans people are in the majority and all the trans governors in the southern US are obsessing about how my cis ass takes a shit at work after my morning coffee?

    • TheHarpyEagle@lemmy.world
      0·
      2 months ago

      But “cis” isn’t an identity, it’s a way to describe the relationship between your assigned sex and your (gender) identity. I don’t identify as cis just like I don’t identify as short, it’s simply a fact of who I am.

      • Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee
        0·
        2 months ago

        Yeah but if a person asks not to be called that but does not elaborate on why, then there’s a chance that they may not identify as such and forcing that label on them is then potenttially misgendering them. There’s plenty of closeted trans people living their lives pretending to be someone they’re not.

        • TheHarpyEagle@lemmy.world
          0·
          2 months ago

          Sure, but calling someone cis, even maliciously, or is very far from it being a slur. If they are harassing someone, treat them accordingly. But blanket banning the word, even when used to describe yourself or others non-maliciously, is a clear attempt to make it difficult to talk about trans issues on the platform.

          • Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee
            0·
            2 months ago

            Yeah I agree it’s not a slur. I never claimed it was. Just that it can be used to offend/insult people.

            Also they’re not banning people from using the word. Using it just prompts a message asking if you’re sure you want to post that as is the case with actual slurs aswell.

            • TheHarpyEagle@lemmy.world
              0·
              2 months ago

              It’s considered a slur when you call a person that who doesn’t associate with the term.

              This is what you said, and what I was contesting.

              And the message discourages use of the word as what is “insulting” is entirely up the the discretion of the moderators. There should be no message, because it is not a slur. There is no historic oppression of cis people. So you don’t want to be called cis? Fine, I don’t understand it but whatever. But that doesn’t make it a slur any more than calling someone “straight” is a slur. Will they put a warning on that, too?

    • Omgarm@lemmy.world
      0·
      2 months ago

      If I were to troll people and call them white and whitey those words would not be considered a slur. Same with American, two footed, food chewer or bloodtype A+. Yet cisgender deserves special attention from Musk.

        • KidnappedByKitties@lemm.ee
          0·
          2 months ago

          Me calling you Shirley, no matter how much you insist you’re Tom, doesn’t make Shirley a slur, it just makes me a rude asshole.

        • barsquid@lemmy.world
          0·
          2 months ago

          You mean we as in the Twitter moderation team? Are they banning users who misgender trans people? Somehow I assume this rule only applies to brainlets who are in fact cis but don’t want to use an inclusive word.

        • xkforce@lemmy.world
          0·
          2 months ago

          Willful ignorance of what something means isn’t something that should be respected no. Now fuck off.

          • Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee
            0·
            2 months ago

            You’re not engaging with any of the arguments I’m making.

            Of all the social media platforms Lemmy seems like the least likely place for me having to speak against misgendering people. Can you really not imagine how a transgender person would feel when the term CIS is forced upon them from the outside?

            • Omgarm@lemmy.world
              0·
              2 months ago

              No you are not engaging with the arguments I am making. Respect for what people associate with is different from a word being a slur, or treated as such. Going around calling people who does not want to be <x> is disrespectful and is harrasment but it does not make <x> a slur in a general sense.

              Cisgendered is a word to describe people’s gender identity, not for insulting.

              • Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee
                0·
                2 months ago

                Yeah it’s not a slur just like the words male and female aren’t either but they can be used with the intention to insult when directed at people not identifying as such.

                I don’t agree with labeling the term as such but I do agree with the core intention which is to prevent harrasment. I don’t quite see what the issue is here. This will not cause trouble to anyone using the term appropriately.

                • Omgarm@lemmy.world
                  0·
                  2 months ago

                  But it will cause trouble, because it is now (treated as) a slur on Twitter. Depending on how strict they are you can’t go around saying “as a cisgender” or having it in your bio.

                • Aurenkin@sh.itjust.works
                  0·
                  2 months ago

                  How does the statement “the words ‘cis’ or ‘cisgendered’ are considered slurs on this platform” leave any room for appropriate use of those terms.

            • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
              0·
              2 months ago

              You’re not engaging with any of the arguments I’m making.

              Because your argument is based on the false assumption that not liking the word means not identifying as cisgender.

              If you identity as the same sex that you were assigned at birth, you identify as cisgender. That’s just how gender and language works.

            • Aurenkin@sh.itjust.works
              0·
              2 months ago

              Your arguments seem pretty disingenuous to me. Of course nobody is saying it’s ok to misgender someone so I’m not sure why you’re pretending that has anything to do with this. If I call someone straight when they are not or vice versa, I’m an asshole, but that doesn’t make the word straight a slur that warrants banning from the platform. The act of deliberately misrepresenting someone’s sexuality might but not the word itself.

            • TWeaK@lemm.eeEnglish
              0·
              2 months ago

              But the person isn’t trans and being called cis, or even trans but objecting to being called trans, they’re cis and objecting to being called cis.

              Can you really not imagine how a transgender person would feel when the term CIS is forced upon them from the outside?

              That’s like saying the term “male” is forced upon men, or the term “human” is forced upon everyone. Cis is the defined technical term, with solid etymological roots.

              • Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee
                0·
                2 months ago

                But the person isn’t trans

                How can you know? Just because a person looks and acts male it doesn’t mean that’s how they feel inside. There are plenty of closeted trans people that would find that offensive. And what does it even matter? If a person doesn’t want to be labeled then any decent person would respect that wish instead doubling down and calling them “cissy” instead.

                • TWeaK@lemm.eeEnglish
                  0·
                  2 months ago

                  We’re talking about a hypothetical example. What I’m saying it is only comparable to a cis person objecting to being called cis if your example is a trans person objecting to being called trans. Both would be wrong as they are factually correct technical terms, and thus they aren’t being used as slurs.

                  A closeted trans person would be offended that you outed them, not that you called them trans when they are. Although, if they were closeted then you’d probably have no reason to think they were trans.

                  Calling someone “cissy” is almost certainly meant as an insult, though, because that’s not the technical term. That’s like calling a gay person a fag, or calling a black person the n word. Calling a cis gendered person cis or cisgender is like calling a gay person gay.

                  Rejecting a label isn’t really valid when the label applies to you. You can’t eat pizza and then claim you’re not a pizza eater.

                  And, at the end of the day, the measure that matters is not whether or not you like it, it’s actual harm. Calling someone cis is very unlikely to cause them harm. Calling someone a fag could lead to harm (eg Top Gear people driving through Alabama with gay writing on their trucks).

      • samus12345@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        2 months ago

        Whitey is definitely a slur, unless you think referring to a black person as “blackie” is okay.

  • overload@sopuli.xyz
    0·
    2 months ago

    Don’t the fans of X applaud it for being anti-censorship? I would think this goes against their free speech inclinations.

    • TrickDacy@lemmy.world
      0·
      2 months ago

      Free speech for right wingers means they get to say anything they want. Doesn’t apply to others

      • Billiam@lemmy.world
        0·
        2 months ago

        The most critical component of “free speech” to a right-winger isn’t just the ability to say whatever they want with no repercussions, it’s also that an audience has to be forced to listen to them.

        There are plenty of shithole places on the Internet where they can spout their transphobic, Great Replacement anti-Semitic shit all day long, but that’s not good enough for them. They need a “lib” to be triggered.

        • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
          0·
          2 months ago

          Exactly, it’s not enough to stand outside a college campus and spout bigotry, they must be given a podium and an audience must attend

        • TheHarpyEagle@lemmy.world
          0·
          2 months ago

          Jordan Peterson is the absolute king of thinking that he deserves and audience but also no one is allowed to leave a mean comment or he’ll quit Twitter again.

          • MrVilliam@lemmy.worldEnglish
            0·
            2 months ago

            That’s the guy who cries about nothing, motivates incels to hate women and minorities, and goes on tirades about wanting humans to behave like lobsters or whatever, right? Utter detriment to the human species.

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
            0·
            2 months ago

            The guy found a way to get famous by lying that a law would put him personally in prison if he called someone “he” instead of “she.” He’s the biggest attention whore out there.

  • Matriks404@lemmy.world
    0·
    2 months ago

    I wasn’t aware of this term, but I just checked it in wiktionary. Looks like a perfect normal word to me.

    • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
      0·
      2 months ago

      Much like all words for a privileged group it has some people who really don’t like it. Transphobes in particular dislike it because it is neutral and contains no value judgement. But also because it gives people the language to talk about trans experiences without misgendering or othering trans people

    • OldWoodFrame@lemm.ee
      0·
      2 months ago

      It is, and it’s a word we need there’s not a different term for it and it’s a useful concept. Close minded people just hate that it implies the existence of trans people.