Why We Are All Trans-(binary)-gender and the Myth of Cisgender

In many ways, this post seems at odds with recent psychology and coaching posts. However it’s really just a piece about how we think about the world and our inherent need to classify. Over the past few years I’ve noticed the word cisgender (and its variants used) and for a while have thought how deeply unhelpful it is. It is a flow of consciousness and no doubt will change over time. Constructive comments and insights are most welcome.

Defining cisgender

Cisgender offers a complement to transgender. It refers to people whose gender assigned at birth matches their own experience and sense of identity. The problem with cisgender is that it introduces yet another binary into how we think about sex and gender. It should also be noted that gender is not assigned at birth. A peek at the genitals is not gender. It’s a biological classification. It’s sex. They are different things.

Binary categories

Dichotomous thinking tells us very little of what is happening in the real world. It obscures more than it illuminates.We take a whole continuum of experence, turn it into binary opposites and throw out the middle bit. We then proceed to argue and explain how we can push everything from the excuded middle into our artifical socially constructed categories.

Transgender and its assumptions

Transgender is a description of when our gender identity (and experience) doesn’t match that assigned at birth. The question is, whose does?  The assumption is that transgender refers to the minority and cisgender to the majority. This is unhelpful and inaccurate. I maintain that we are all transgender since we all deviate from the norm to differing degrees. There is a spectrum of non-conformity. Cisgender can only refer to the elusive few who embody the traditional gender stereotype appropriate to a given culture (and their comfort with it). Cisgender is also heteronormative since ‘normal’ gender is straight! So I question whether gay or bi people can be cisgender.

Cisgender obscures the fact that many ‘normal’ people struggle with notions of gender identity and gender conformity.  Many people do not live up to gender expectations. Many have grown up being bullied because they don’t ‘make the grade’ but don’t necessarily want to ‘switch sides’. I know some apologists for the term will argue that it’s intended to be neutral. The problem is that labels are rarely neutral and rarely used in the way ‘intended’. Once you apply binary categories, the grey areas are lost and (unfavourable) comparisons are inevitable. We have experienced diatribes about white privilege, about (biological) sex privilege and now we have cisgender privilege. To a person supposedly from all privileged categories who is still struggling to put food on the table, aerie-faerie academic-speak isn’t very helpful. Binaries always over-simplify.

Sex and gender are not the same thing

In 2009 at the time of the Caster Semenya World Championship controversy I wrote Sex and Gender are NOT the Same Thing! All Gender is a Drag!   The newspapers at the time, even the ‘quality press’ wrote about gender testing, when there is no such thing. Gender, as we know, is the social interpretation of biological sex. There isn’t really a test for that unless you count Kate Bornstein‘s questionnaire in My Gender Workbook and I hardly think that sports bodies will use that. They are more interested in chromosomes and hormones and the like, that is, biologcal sex. I was relieved that after taking the Borthstein’s test that I was designated gender outlaw. I was disappointed that I never made it to gender freak. However, I am reassured that I am definitely not cisgender! Although Bornstein’s test is rather facetious and the questions are all loaded, it makes some very important points. On a many occasions I got my students to complete the test. The strength of feeling that it provoked, especially among mature students was surprising.  Once they got the idea that the test was deliberately provocative, it challenged more hidden assumptions about sex and gender better thab any formal lecture could. The debates afterwards were always highly spirited.

More than two genders

Kate Bornstein and Martine Rothblatt were among the most influential writers for my doctoral research, alongside Alfred Kinsey, anthropologist Mary Douglas, psychologist Else Frenkel-Brunswik and Mark Simpson, the man who coined the term metrosexual. These are not names you find together everyday. As I was examining gender stereotypes, it’s not surprising that I looked to the work of trans* writers (Bornstein and Rothblatt). Interestingly Kate Bornstein was a trans woman (that is, male to female). However, more recently ‘she’ has stopped referring to herself as a woman. So this means it difficult to write about ‘hir’, unless I use the third gender term coined by Rothblatt.

In Bortstein’s scheme, there are not two genders. There are multiple genders, since the social interpretation of sex has so many variables to consider: sexuality, race, age, nationality, culture, class and so on. There is no norm except an illusive stereotype and how many people conform perfectly to that? More importantly, how many people struggle TO conform?

Metrosexuality is all about gender

Mark Simpson’s notion of metrosexuality is interesting because it’s really all about gender. It is about ‘heterosexual’ men who adopt the fashions and stylings of the ‘modern’ ‘homosexual’.  David Beckham is the poster boy for the metrosexual whose career as football player (alpha-career) allows us to ‘forgive’ him sitting around, pouting in his underpants wearing nail polish. The average ‘normal’ traditional man working in as less glamorous job might not be so easily forgiven.

A sprectrum of gender

In a previous post (Never Mind. . . the Great Procrustean Binary Gender Swindle) I referred to a trans woman blogger who had a lot of thought provoking things to say about binary gender. Unfortunately the blog was met with abuse from some trans people and it closed. She was saying pretty much the same Kate Bortstein is today. The main cut and thrust was that whereas many trans people decry the binary gender system, they are still advocates for it. If gender is a social interpretation of biological sex, how can you have surgery on your gender? Quite simply, you can’t. Is there not a third or fourth space we can occupy? Is there not a whole spectrum of gender?

All gender is a form of drag. It takes lots of plucking, posturing and preening and can be performed independently of genital arrangements. Many people have chosen to live as intersexed, third gender roles. None of this is a criticism (or judgement) of individual experiences. It is a criticism of how we construct sex and gender debates. These inform the many ‘hoops’ that trans people have to navigate in order to make a transition. Speaking recently to trans people they suggested that it is easier to get through the system if they present as ‘traditional types’. This trans men (female to male) wearing eyeliner get a tougher time than those in football tops.

The gender binary system is the epitome of idealism. For as long as we keep imposing binaries we obscure alternative viable options. I’ve analysed data from needs surveys for trans people and worked with trans people in coaching and workshops. What struck me most was the range of genders on display. Some more traditional and some more alternative with a spectrum of difference in between, From the needs analyses, it was sometimes difficult to summarise representative viewpoints. One of the overriding factors was individual experience. The commonalities were the need for respect, fairness, courtesy and acceptance. You don’t have to be transgender or cisgender to appreciate this.

Intolerance of ambiguity

Else Frenkel-Brunswik devised the concept of Intolerance of Ambiguity.  In essence it describes our varying need to apply binary categories and control for uncertainty. The critics wo say that we cannot function without labels are perhaps a little more intolerant of ambiguity. However in gender terms I fail to see how ‘he’ and ‘she’ or ‘transgender’ and ‘cisgender’ are helpful. What do these labels tell us? Yes, they allow us to point at things and name them out loud but what else? What of the ‘middle bit’ where the real people reside? Why should linguistic convenience override phenomenology. In gender terms, ambiguous means trans-normative.

Cisgender, no thanks.

As a term, cisgender came into being as an alternative for non-trans. Some writers prefer non-trans as it centres trans as the norm. Now while I agree that trans is the norm, I have a much broader definition of what trans means.I appreciate that we have to use linguistic devices to highlight the embedded assumptions in gender, it has merit but not at the expense of denying individual experience. Language frames our understanding of the world and we have to work within its limitations.However, I for one, deny that cisgender has anything meaningful to say about my experience. Give me ‘gender outlaw’ any day! Thank you Kate Bornstein.

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About the author

Dr Gary Wood is a social psychologist and life coach. He is based in Birmingham and Edinburgh where he runs his own training and coaching practice and research consultancy. He is author of Unlock Your Confidence which is based on his confidence-building workshops. His PhD was entiled ‘Attitudes to Sexuality, Gender Stereotypes and Intolerance of Ambuiguity. The ideas found their way into his first book Sex, Lies and Stereotypes.

Links:

• Check out books by Dr Gary Wood and his recommendations on Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com