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By Violeta Alegre

Illustration: Florencia Capella

The neologism and technical term 'cisgender' was introduced in 1991 by the German psychiatrist and sexologist Volkmar Sigusch. Since 'trans' identities existed, there also needed to be a way to name people who identify with the sex assigned to them at birth.

The prefix `cis´ (which comes from Latin) means “on this side” or “on this side”.

Organic chemistry, for its part, uses this suffix to refer to substituents or groups that are oriented in the same direction, in contrast to trans, where the substituents are oriented in opposite directions.

The same principle applies in molecular biology. 'Cis' is used as a prefix to describe something that acts from within the same molecule, in contrast to 'trans', which acts from different molecules. Therefore, cis is what is not trans.

The arrival of the cisgender concept seems indispensable for empowering language and transforming gender politics. Feminist, queer , and trans studies challenge conventional nomenclatures of sex/gender.

Reactions

I've observed reactions from cisgender people who, unfamiliar with the term "cis," feel insulted by trans people when we dare to use the prefix with them. Many others feel uncomfortable because the word "cis" is associated with conformity, and they infer that we're calling them "normal."

As non-binary activist Lx Negrx says, "trans people denounce the artificiality of cis people, in a certain sense, and they resist because it challenges their naturalness and that makes them uncomfortable."

[READ ALSO: When being trans “shows”]

For her part, American writer and LGBT rights activist Riki Wilchins says that trans identity is not a natural fact. Rather, it is a political category that we are forced to use when we do certain things with our bodies.

The same, in my opinion, is true for the categories “woman” and “man”, although the manipulations required to produce them are naturalized and mythologized.

But to go further, I would like to question the concept of "cis" not only in terms of identification—"being cisgender means that your gender identity aligns with your sex, the sex assigned at birth"—but also in terms of its correlation with gender performativity as understood by theorist Judith Butler in her book Gender Trouble. There, Butler argues that gender performativity is based on the ritualized repetition of speech acts and a whole repertoire of bodily gestures that adhere to a style associated with one of the two cultural genders, thus constituting gender.

Given this statement by Butler, wouldn't the word cis be more strictly related to the performativity of gender and not so much to a 'filiation' between genital assignment and identification?

In fact, there are many people identified as cisgender who do not conform to a gender performance related to their cisgender identity and who are also marginalized and lack institutional and social privileges: gay men, queer men, butch , non-binary people, and more. But at the same time, these are identities that do not fall under the trans umbrella.

Alliances

So, does “cisgender sisterhood” consist of being aware of the privileges one possesses within a social body? Is it enough simply to refrain from cissexism? Is it enough to recognize the privileges of cisgender performativity to create alliances with other identities oppressed by cissexism?

A clear example of cissexism is when trans people are asked: Why do you reproduce gender stereotypes? Or why do you alter your bodies? To which I would ask: Don't you reproduce gender stereotypes? Don't cis people alter their bodies?

How could a cis person, through the discursive practice of alliance with trans people, transform it into concrete empathy? Wouldn't such reaffirmation be reinforcing some aspect of normativity? Normativity that exists in the medico-legal assignment and that doesn't end there, but extends to the construction of hierarchies of class, racialization, nationalism, abilities, etc.

Nothing could be further from the truth when a cis person tries to show their alliance with trans identities by saying "I am just another trans person...". No, alliances are not always verbalized, and certainly not like that.

[READ ALSO: What we talk about when we talk about trans love ]

I believe that it should be registered in the recognition and awareness of access to institutional rights (family, education, health, work, housing, citizenship) as well as in social affective inclusion.

We already know that the dismemberment of a trans person doesn't have the same emotional, social, or media impact as the dismemberment of a cis person. This discrimination is even present within feminist and LGBTQ+ communities.

Theorizing from the perspective of trans existence opens new paradigms that many other movements do not reach, due to life experiences, because we challenge privileges, but even more so, because real alliances are necessary to fight against systems of oppression that are quite difficult to dismantle, such as patriarchy, heteronormativity, cisexism, and the ways we relate to each other in this era where even affective bonds appear commodified.