I’m afraid that I must confess that I am cis — I have the sexual identity I was assigned at birth — and I’m also heterosexual. I’ve always taken it for granted, I’ve never been tempted to taste of “forbidden fruit,” and I wouldn’t even consider the expense and struggle of hormone treatments or reassignment surgery. I’ve been fortunate to have been born in easy mode, where everything lines up conveniently in the socially conventional way, and I have no desire to be otherwise.
But now, to my immense surprise, I discover that my identity is anathema on certain social media platforms. I have become…a slur.
The words “cis” or “cisgender” are considered slurs on this platform.
Ironically, this dictate has been delivered by a cis man. He must be a self-loathing cis heterosexual man.
Honestly, cis is simply an objective, non-judgmental descriptive term. It is not and never has been an insult. What’s next? Will Elon Musk ban people who use terms like “man” or “woman,” too?
But can we still call Musk a cissy?
But, but, but Freezepeach!!!!1ty!
So ”cis’ and çisgender’and those using them get suspended and punished but outright nazis and trolls welcomed..
I wonder how Musk intends to police this given how many of the moderators have now been chopped too..
Someone’s never taken an organic chemistry class…
Elon is setting the scene so that he can ban other terms when it suits him, like ‘dudebro’, ‘late-stage capitalist kleptocrat’ or ‘muskrat’.
As a cisgender Classicist I feel doubly offended. Latin prepositional prefixes matter!
Rich Woods — Also, Muskrat, Musketeer, Muskeg (a sort of swamp), et alia.
I wonder what will happen when someone uses “cisco” or “cisalpine”…I’m sure the great mountains will be incensed. He might also ban “Cistercian” but that’s OK with me, I don’t like those monks and nuns so much.
Evidently, Musk is determined to prove that however rich you are, you can still be stupider than you are rich.
He must have a very odd understanding of what “cis” means. He had previously tweeted “I’m not cis, you are” in a discussion about declaring pronouns. Guess he still hasn’t bothered to check a dictionary since that event.
It doesn’t make sense, at all.
The only way it even gets close is for someone who thinks ‘trans’ is a slur.
I know this isn’t a Bible-ish community, but sometimes the auld book gets it right: “out of the fullness of the heart, the mouth speaks” (or, in this case, the twit tweets)
Muskrat is offended by being correctly gendered?? What a snowflake!!
Did I get that right, on today’s Twitter cis is a slur and calling someone a paedophile is a friendly South African greeting?
I guess geneticists are not welcome on Twitter. “Cis” is a common term in genetics without considering the topic of human gender.
Cis and trans effects differentially contribute to the evolution of promoters and enhancers
LOL.
This is the guy who claims to believe in free speech?
Strangely enough, he didn’t ban the word or prefix Trans on his website.
So cis and cis gender are now insults but Trans and Transgender aren’t?
Also strange is he doesn’t explain why cis and cis gender are now insults in his
murky mind. He has something in there about harassment but calling someone cis isn’t harassment.
The more I see of Elon Musk, the more I dislike him.
He earns it by deliberately alienating large segments of the population.
FWIW, Elon Musk hates Trans people.
Have a look at this article featured on Slashdot recently:
That’s right, this gomer wants to use the ability to make money as a surrogate for “human-like intelligence.”
Maybe this can be twisted to deal with “normal” being used to exclude, since “cis” is somewhat analogous to “normal” in that it looks at common experience a different way? This feels tricky since I don’t want to accidentally strengthen that use of normal…
Well, OK.
Elon Musk hates Trans people.
His daughter is transgender.
She has walked out of his life on that basis.
Elon Musk doesn’t understand why even after she told him.
I doubt if Musk was ever in her life anyway.
He has 10 kids with 3 different women and doesn’t seem to spend much time with any of them.
Reginald@12–
Also common parlance in biochemistry.
More money than sense, as my parents would say.
Or Trumpian-level intelligence: turn a couple of hundred million dollars into multiple bankruptcies . . . .
Also common in molecular biology and developmental biology.
Also: What exactly is “targeted harassment” for the HeadTwit?
I suspect it’s not what we would call harassment, but probably what we would call criticism. Of him, mostly. And it has a cis in it.
Elon Musk says he lost transgender daughter because of ‘neo …
“Neo” what, @raven? Which “neo” is he blaming for “losing” his transgender daughter?
I once conducted a bit of scientific research into this question. According to my method of research, if I suspect that a proposition is true and I can find at least one other person who agrees with me, said proposition is unquestionably true.
It was on this basis that I determined that any cisgender person who objects to the term “cisgender” is infallibly anti-trans.
Raging Bee @ #22 — Apparently “Neo-Marxists”. “Communists” has been the go to bugaboo of conservatives in this country for over a century.
Well, of course. If one accepts ‘cis-gender’ as a valid descriptor of the intersection of a person’s assigned sex at birth, their appearance, and their current gender identity, then gender identity different from one’s appearance or assigned sex at birth is equally valid. So if the term cis-gender is declared a slur rather than an accurate description of one’s gender identity, then any discussion of gender identity as a valid descriptor is also invalidated.
(Created by an historian under the influence of twin 4-year-old granddaughters.)
Good question.
Since it is Musk, I didn’t care enough to read further.
Oh Cthulhu.
How many things did Musk get wrong here in one sentence.
It is neo-Marxists at educational institutions, according to Musk.
Musk doesn’t have much of an attachment to reality.
There aren’t enough neo-Marxists around to matter. I can’t think of a single name.
And, there might be one or two at educational institutions but they have zero influence.
And, neo-Marxism, whatever that is, has nothing to do with cis or trans gender. Marxism is a political and economic philosophy.
Educational institutions don’t turn you or anyone from cis to Trans.
In fact, our society and its educational institutions are heavily dominated by cis people and cis gender is the default assumption.
Musk could have just asked his daughter a few questions and she would be fully capable of answering for herself.
It seems that Musk is too busy and too disinterested to actually, you know…talk to his own children.
@ ^ raven : “.. neo-Marxism, whatever that is, has nothing to do with cis or trans gender. Marxism is a political and economic philosophy.”
FWIW :
Source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-Marxism
I somehow doubt Musk knows or appreciates this however..
I have always considered myself cis too, avant I knew la lettre. But as a senior to PZ–some 8 or 9 years– I can tell PZ might be in for a surprise. I ‘blame’ it on dwindling testosterone levels (having developed manboobs, and such), I now am definitely a Q in the LHBT… string. I have learned to appreciate the beauty of a man’s erection,* because of brief encounters with southeast asian ladyboys–who can be stunning beauties.
*PZ once confessed that men shouldn’t be proud of their crown jewels.
raven @ #13 — “The more I see of Elon Musk, the more I dislike him.” I have seen enough of him to loathe him in perpetuity. I don’t need to see any more, would prefer to see less, and would be ecstatic to see or hear nothing of him…although billionaires lurking in the shadows cause their own problems, e.g. Harlan Crow, Paul Singer, etc.
StevoR @ # — Almost to prove raven’s point “Herbert Marcuse” and probably the other members of the Frankfurt School are long dead. I may be one of the few last people on the planet to have read Marcuse. That was the end of the 60s as a senior year college project…at a Southern Baptist college too boot.
@29- robro
Frankfurt School is alive and well. Not sure who took over after Honneth stepped down as figurehead. Frankfurt is arcane and boring…unless you enjoy reading Habermas critique postmoderns for performative contradiction, a famous critique overlooked by people who lump all they don’t understand as neo-Marxism or Cultural Marxism. His early rift with Popper was more exciting.
That Marcuse, a darling of the New Left, was in conflict with other Frankfurters over the 68 uprisings is also overlooked.
I wonder if they stop to ponder the overlaps of Situationism and postmodernish Baudrillard’s views as anticipating their beloved Matrix redpilling.
OT
Happy summer solstice everyone!
As of the last three hours, we are heading towards winter.🎄
I’m a cis, het, white, male boomer.* I guess I’ve insulted myself several times. 8-)
*I am very aware of how fortunate I am and of all the advantages that I’ve had in my life. In particular, I’ve gotten away with not being successful in academics (out of laziness); and if I’d not had any one of those advantages, I very well might be living on the street. (OK, maybe that’ an exageration; but you get my point.)
At 94 Jurgen Habermas is still kicking:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jürgen_Habermas
Well, Elon has a mighty and ingenious purposeful goal in this. After much advertiser and user complaints, he figures that Twitter will do ever so much better and record record profits without either users or advertisers.
It rather reminds me of a technical services company, who hired a new CEO to boost profits. The new CEO promptly terminated all of the technical services personnel and most staff, increasing profits by record amounts, to then move on to another victim – erm, company and project. Then, the customers initiated litigation for fundamental breach of contract, as they paid for services that there were no workers to perform. That company is gone, but the remnant’s attempt to sue the former CEO died, due to his employment contract protecting him.
As usual, the only winners were the lawyers.
?!?!?! Whut? That’s….. I’m speechless . Usually creationists make those kinds of mind bogglingly ignorant statements
Better not ever mention Cisalpine Gaul on Twitter, then.
It’s part of the rights project of criminalizing, and or stigmatizing, all language describing queer experience. If they can render our voices illegal they can by force drive us back into the closet.
PZ, I think you are being a little ingenuous since you didn’t post the Tweet Musk was replying to:
“Yesterday, after posting a Tweet saying that I reject the word ‘cis’ and don’t wish to be called it, I receive a slew of messages from trans activists calling me “cissy” and telling me that I am ‘cis’ “whether or not I like it”.
Just imagine if the roles were reversed.”
Isn’t that the same as refusing to call a trans person by their preferred pronouns?
However, when someone replied asking if someone self-identifies as cis, Musk said: “Call yourself anything you want.”
Of course JK Rowling is involved:
JK Rowling later retweeted Esses’s original tweet and voiced her thoughts on the terms to her 14 million followers.
“‘Cis’ is ideological language, signifying belief in the unfalsifiable concept of gender identity,” Rowling said.
“You have a perfect right to believe in unprovable essences that may or may not match the sexed body, but the rest of us have a right to disagree, and to refuse to adopt your jargon.”
Is the discomfort associated with the audience applying cis to Musk, in response to Musk agreeing it was a slur, the same as misgendering?
I see the former as a political act with different dynamics than the other uses that Musk is personalizing. The morality of “dog piling” is a separate issue and there I see it as a check on abusive people with social power absent broad political agreements on things like dog piling.
I can see bad things in the responses to Musk, but then I see bigots hyperfocus on abusive behavior among valid criticism on a regular basis.
So, I guess that, since ‘cis’ is ideological language that we need to avoid, to avoid manufactroversy, we need to cancel all cislunar flights and shoot down all orbiting craft in said space. At least until Muskrat and Rowling can agree, since the entire universe orbits them.
English and Latin as languages must alter to suit their almighty whims.
After all, Twitter seems to be our government now. After all, Twitter criminalized a prefix. All, by Elon waving his fasces. Just as well, look how much money we’ll save now that Congress won’t need to be paid!
Or, we have a pair of idiots, who are designing an idiot’s echo chamber that’s hemorrhaging money, users and advertisers, banning a prefix that’ll chase even more users and advertisers, leaving only unprofitable idiots for what few advertisers remain.
Because, Musk, much like Trump, reduces whatever he’s touching into penny stock businesses while he’s actively micromanaging them.
Meh. He bought Twitter, he can run it however he wants.
wzrd1:
Yeah, he’s only worth US$180,000,000,000 currently, according to Forbes.
(Clearly, he’s failing at being a pauper)
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cisgender
“of, relating to, or being a person whose gender identity corresponds with the sex the person had or was identified as having at birth”
Describes me to a tee. Idiot describes Musk and ilk just as well.
I guess someone could use the very technical mouthful cisheteronormative in a disparaging way just as they could call me whitey or Mister Charlie. I doubt anyone perceives me of having enough authority to warrant calling me The Man. I think in context those labels stem from understandable frustration and are punching up.
I don’t see how cis itself could bother anyone. It might be too dichotomous contrasted with trans given nonbinaries but that’s way outside my wheelhouse. I usually don’t chime in on these topics because my admitted ignorance.
We shall have to call him AMAB (Assigned Male at Birth) then.
@44- John Morales
Into the ground? Sadly or hopefully at this point? Reminds me of a joke that allegedly spawned Led Zeppelin (pbut). We shall see.
His “new rules” seem to be self serving. Stop mocking him for Grimes or else but recklessly calling someone pedo is ok if you happen to be Musk and are mad at them for one-upping you. Jackass who now owns a platform and lacks maturity, self-control, and regard for others not in his cisheteronormative circle jerk.
hemidactylus:
Well, yes. He’s playing with his toy.
Doesn’t lack wealth, though. Which is why he now owns a platform.
I mean, I personally reckon that at least half the time he’s just trolling with these tweets he makes. Definitely lacks maturity, self-control, and regard for others — thing is, for him that’s not a problem.
Conveniently, when you own the platform, you get to decide what constitutes trolling. Golden rule and all that.
@50- John Morales
Beyond the alleged neoliberal fiduciary duty to maximize profits for shareholders or investors I would think despite being grandeur delusional arbiter of all things Twitter commentary related he has a moral duty to transcend himself and not turn it into a vanity oriented fiefdom. But here we are. If the golden rule applied he should be ok with people wantonly slurring him as a pedo.
And wtf is he wearing in his twit profile pic?
John Morales and your point is what? If I had an emerald mine in the family, I’d have money to blow as well.
He did at least have the courtesy of buying up all the shares of Twitter before he started to implode it, as had he not, he’d be in legal trouble both civilly and criminally for abrogating fiduciary duty to the investors.
But, his playing with his toy does have limits, as if he sets fire to it and a neighbor’s home burns down, it’s still arson on his part that did it.
hemidactylus @51, it’s a privately held company now, not publicly owned or traded. Different regulatory regime.
(He can do what he can do, whether or not you think he can)
You would, would you? You don’t think that right now?
Alas. Prepare to be disillusioned: nope. No such moral duty.
—
That however much people go on about his incompetence at life and his moral turpitude and about his failure as a businessman, he’s doing alright financially.
Remember the proverb “a fool and his money are soon parted”?
Apparently he’s the exception.
So, if “cis” is considered a slur, I have to assume that asserting that Elon Musk is not cis would have to not be a slur, right?
Stuart, mmm.
Your assertion still uses the word “cis”.
Replace ‘cis’ with the n-word in your proposed assertion and see how it flies, as an analogy.
hemidactylus@51: the obligation to shareholders and only shareholders is the Neo-liberal thing. Musk is held to the shareholder’s convention which he set up for X.com (the owner of Twitter). Given he has the majority of shares under his control, he can for the most part do whatever he wants; making money is not required.
Meanwhile, neoliberals don’t believe in regulations, but the EU does and even the US sometimes does. Twitter was already on shaky grounds before Musk — they were trying to right things after paying out some big fines. Musk decided that telling regulators to take a hike was the way to go. Twitter is likely to owe billions in fines.
The rest of us are stuck watching Twitter crash and burn. There’s a number of competitors who can take its business for most use cases. Of course, that does mean new competitors who have to learn that moderation is hard.
“LOL.
This is the guy who claims to believe in free speech?”
this. so much this. why even go past this? Elon has never been honest about anything in his entire life. not to others, not to himself.
“That however much people go on about his incompetence at life and his moral turpitude and about his failure as a businessman, he’s doing alright financially.”
how does that relate to anything other than a number, John?
jesus.
you keep moving further and further away from reality over the years, it’s sad to watch.
“he can run it however he wants”
he literally can’t, John. and YOU are not a libertarian. just… stop.
Oh, I see. Noting that Musk is very, very rich is way, way away from reality.
(Saddening as it is for you, I look at things as they are — I can’t help it)
Well, for one thing, it means he can buy, say, Twitter, and then do what he wants with it. Evidently.
Do you really not see how it relates to that?
BTW, the only time I read any of his tweets is when they’re featured here or the mainstream media. A lot of Musking gone on here, over the last couple of years.
Generally about how much of a loser he is. ;)
“Cis” isn’t a fucking slur any more than “white” is a slur. God, I don’t even care if people like John here are only just ignorant or outright malicious anymore: in a world where me and my loved ones are the targets and victims of an ongoing genocide, you can go fuck yourself either way because you’re not making anything better with this shit.
Hex, you really should read more carefully.
I answered the question that was asked: “So, if “cis” is considered a slur, I have to assume that asserting that Elon Musk is not cis would have to not be a slur, right?”
(My added emphasis)
“Well, for one thing, it means he can buy, say, Twitter, and then do what he wants with it. Evidently.”
but… that isn’t the reality, John. this is my point.
a point that went right over your head, even though it was such a simple point.
no, John, you are not a temporarily embarrassed millionaire. nobody is.
Ichthyic, it’s not evident to you he bought Twitter and is running it as he pleases.
Within certain pragmatic constraints, sure… but to the degree he is running it (how did hemidactylus put it?) as “a vanity oriented fiefdom”, that much is true, best as I can tell.
I suspect I’m not the only one who imagines that; cf. https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2022/04/25/because-hes-rich-and-he-wants-it/
PS
Musk is the subject (though somehow it often becomes about me!), and he has been a billionaire for quite some time, and is hardly embarrassed about it.
—
(Why people attribute to me all sorts of motivations and sentiments and beliefs which I have neither expressed nor hold is explainable, but the explanation is not to those people’s credit)
“though somehow it often becomes about me!”
I wonder how that works.
rolleyes
enough.
Meh. Just ignore the fool.
He’s at the stage where even he can see that he’s screwed up terribly and lost a great deal of money. It doesn’t matter to him – he isn’t really using money he’s just got the equivalent of a lower score in the billionaire game.
But now the only thing he really gets out of owning twitter is attention. He’s just going to keep doing and saying whatever will get people to look at him or talk about him to make him feel important.
One thing some seem to misunderstand. Musk has no duties to shareholders, as he owns Twitter and took it private. He does owe on loans he took out to buy Twitter, but no duties to stockholders, as he’s the only stockholder.
He is being sued by a bunch of employees/former employees, he entirely refused to pay bonuses that they were due. He’s also not paid rent on Twitter office space, nor has he paid for Google servers Twitter is currently using.
@ 31 birgerjohansson
This is a slur. :-(
Happy winter solstice to all in the more civilized hemisphere.
Almost there! Now all that is left to do is declare the words ‘pineapple’, ‘bicycle’, ‘uvula’, and ‘mangrove’ a slur and justice is done!
If I open Twitter now, anonymously so I may as well be a random person trying it for the first time, all I see are right-wing extremists spraying their venom. How on earth is this a revenue model?
Of course the Felon objects to the word cis.
You can’t spell racist and fascist without it.
In the news: https://www.esafety.gov.au/newsroom/media-releases/esafety-demands-answers-from-twitter-about-how-its-tackling-online-hate
I should have noted not complying with the legal notice is subject to hefty fines.
Also, for perspective, “A third of all complaints about online hate reported to us are now happening on Twitter.”
(https://www.civicwebmedia.com.au/australias-most-popular-social-media-sites/)
Well I did couch it with “Beyond the alleged…” but admittedly got turned around on the fiduciary duty thing. Thanks for not keelhauling me y’all. Beer. Crappy porter beer which is a rare bird.
I did have Tesla in the back of my mind and his behavior elsewhere has ramifications no? But Tesla shares seem to have rebounded from previous plummeting.
And I tilted toward moral considerations as a contrast with: “I would think despite being grandeur delusional arbiter of all things Twitter commentary related he has a moral duty to transcend himself and not turn it into a vanity oriented fiefdom. But here we are. If the golden rule applied he should be ok with people wantonly slurring him as a pedo.”
So not a total facepalming on my part.
Left unanswered was: “And wtf is he wearing in his twit profile pic?”
hemidactylus:
Not that golden rule, the other one. ;)
https://economicsociology.org/2015/08/28/remember-the-golden-rule-whoever-has-the-gold-makes-the-rules/
And now Twitter is suspending random users’ accounts for alleged spamming.
Are they actual spammers? Hint: no, they aren’t.
@ ^ rietpluim : Are they people that push back against Musk’s bulldust, use the prefix ‘cis’ or are trans or left wing generally? Guessing all too likely..