Cissexual

Cissexual

Cissexual is an adjective used in the context of gender issues to describe "people who are not transsexual and who have only ever experienced their mental and physical sexes as being aligned".[1] Nikki Sullivan and Samantha Murray characterized the term as "a way of drawing attention to the unmarked norm, against which trans* is identified, in which a person feels that their gender identity matches their body/sex".[2]

German sexologist Volkmar Sigusch may have been the first to use the term "cissexual" ("zissexuelle" in German) in a peer-reviewed publication: in his 1998 essay "The Neosexual Revolution", he cites his two-part 1991 article "Die Transsexuellen und unser nosomorpher Blick" ("Transsexuals and our nosomorphic view") as the origin of the term.[3] He also used the term in the title of a 1995 article, "Transsexueller Wunsch und zissexuelle Abwehr" (or: "Transsexual desire and cissexual defense").[4]

More recently, Julia Serano used "cissexual" in her 2007 book Whipping Girl, after which the term gained some popularity among English-speaking activists and scholars.[5][6][7] Proponents of using the term "cissexual" rather than terms like "non-transsexual" or "non-trans" have argued that it calls attention to and unsettles the assumption that people, by default, have an internal sense of being male or female that matches the sex marker they were assigned at birth: for example, Jillana Enteen wrote that "cissexual" is "meant to show that there are embedded assumptions encoded in expecting this seamless conformity."[8] On the other hand, other authors have argued that other terms are more likely to be familiar to readers: for example, Krista Scott-Dixon noted "I prefer the term non-trans to other options such as cissexual/cisgendered... as I think it both centers trans as the norm, and presently offers more clarity to the average person than the cis prefix."[9]

Helen Boyd, author of My Husband Betty and She's Not the Man I Married, has argued on her blog that "cissexual" is a less loaded term than "cisgender" and reflects fewer assumptions about the person's relationship to gender roles and the transgender community.[10]


References

  1. ^ Serano, Julia (2007), Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity, Seal Press, 2007. ISBN 978-1-58005-154-5, ISBN 1-58005-154-5
  2. ^ Sullivan, Nikki; Murray, Samantha (2009). Somatechnics: queering the technologisation of bodies. Surrey, England: Ashgate Publishing. p. 17. ISBN 0754675300. 
  3. ^ Sigusch, Volkmar (February 1998). "The Neosexual Revolution". Archives of Sexual Behavior 27 (4): 331–359. doi:10.1023/A:1018715525493. PMID 9681118. 
  4. ^ Sigusch, Volkmar (1995). "Transsexueller Wunsch und zissexuelle Abwehr". Psyche 49 (9–10): 811–837. PMID 7480808. 
  5. ^ Pfeffer, Carla (2009). "Trans (Formative) Relationships: What We Learn About Identities, Bodies, Work and Families from Women Partners of Trans Men". Ph.D dissertation, Department of Sociology, University of Michigan. 
  6. ^ Williams, Rhaisa (November 2010). "Contradictory Realities, Infinite Possibilities: Language Mobilization and Self-Articulation Amongst Black Trans Women". Penn McNair Research Journal 2 (1). 
  7. ^ Drescher, Jack (September 2009). "Queer Diagnoses: Parallels and Contrasts in the History of Homosexuality, Gender Variance, and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual". Archives of Sexual Behavior 39 (2): 427–460. doi:10.1007/s10508-009-9531-5. PMID 19838785. 
  8. ^ Enteen, Jillana (2009). Virtual English: Queer Internets and Digital Creolization (Volume 6 of Routledge studies in new media and cyberculture). New York City, New York: Taylor & Francis. p. 177. ISBN 041597724X, 9780415977241. 
  9. ^ Scott-Dixon, Krista (2009). "Public health, private parts: A feminist public-health approach to trans issues". Hypatia 24 (3): 33–55. doi:10.1111/j.1527-2001.2009.01044.x. 
  10. ^ http://www.myhusbandbetty.com/2009/09/17/jeez-louise-this-whole-cisgender-thing/

See also