I forgot – for some people, not mentioning something is denying it its rights, pertinence, relevance or whatever it is they want to make issue of.

Transgender and transgendered are both adjectives; transgender is often mistaken for a noun, though.

Carolyn Ann

A nitpick: You say “A cisgender is a person who is completely happy with their gender at birth. They have no desire to change their body, lifestyle or anything else to change their outward gender presentation.”

It’s too sweeping. You don’t know if they want to change their body! While they might not want to change their gender presentation, a lot of people would like to lose weight (yeah, I’d like that), their nose, their breasts, their whatever! Many people would like to change their lifestyle, too. (I’d like a somewhat more affluent lifestyle, for example…) Like I said, nitpicking. But in this debate, such nitpicks are important.

I’ve been in the middle of some of the debates, okay – I’ve caused a few heads to explode. I can’t stand “cisgender”; it’s unnecessary, and it’s a label that can be used derogatorily . Using the TG- Style Guide (whatever that is), it shouldn’t be used. Because “tranny” was eradicated from the style guide as derogatory because some people used it, erm, derogatorily.

My main objection is that it is not precisely defined. It’s a colloquialism, and as such can take on whatever meaning a person fancies. A little too much Humpty-Dumpty for me! While a writer can say a word means what he or she intends it to mean, if we all ascribed to that, we’d never communicate! (Oh dear. That sounds awfully close to what happens now!)

Transgendered is reasonably precise in definition, although I often think it overly broad. It’s not offensive; it’s the English language: you can put “ed” onto an adjective if its required. It’s not to be encouraged with a word like “transgender”, but it’s within the bounds of the English language to do so. It is also perfectly reasonable to do so. Interestingly, one of the LGBT style guides out there says you can’t put “ed” onto adjectives. When I questioned the “owner” of that guide, they came up with silence and then demanded I reveal a bit of personal information before considering my pointing out their error.)

I fear “cisgender” will make it into the dictionaries; I just hope its offensive nature is noted.

Carolyn Ann

I really appreciate you sharing your viewpoint, thanks Seleena

Your idea sounds great, can’t wait to see it

Personally, I’ve never liked it and never use it. My spouse is not cisgendered .. she’s a woman .. something I will never be, regardless how I feel inside, how many surgeries I have and how much I pretend to be.

Just my thoughts, of course.

Melissa

This post was mentioned on Twitter by Teena_girl: Cisgendered. Now there’s a word that’s new to me. http://tinyurl.com/ygdhd79 @jessica_who…

Thanks!