Men’s Rights Redditors agree: it’s tough to be a man. Well, a cis man, in any case. And those silly trans people are making it worse.
On the Men’s Rights subreddit, one concerned fellow has discovered a possibly insurmountable obstacle standing in the way of true gender equality: A “Women’s Room” at the University of Queensland that, as a sign on its door notes, is open to “trans*, intersex and genderqueer people as well as cis-females.” The horror!
The title of his post: It’s hard to call for equality between genders when stuff like this is so openly accepted by places like Universities.
Naturally, this being the Men’s Rights subreddit, his post received more than a thousand upvotes, and inspired more than 300 comments. This will give you some of the flavor of the discussion:
![Does cis not mean straight? I can't keep up with the bullshit they make up. permalinkembedsaveparentgive gold [–]lanternkeeper 40 points 1 day ago It means a person who identifies as the sex they were born; i.e. a man who is biologically male or a women who is biologically female aka regular people. I kind of feel dirty writing that. permalinkembedsaveparentgive gold [–]Endless_Summer 44 points 1 day ago So I was born with a penis, but I can identify as a lesbian woman and be free to use this bathroom? permalinkembedsaveparentgive gold [–]ThePunHunter 43 points 1 day ago Sure you can, and if people tell you otherwise, just tell 'em to check their privileges (because you have it really bad)! This world, man. permalinkembedsaveparentgive gold [–]AlphaBetaOmegaGamma 2 points 1 day ago So what are you telling me is that SJWs and feminists make up shit to do whatever they want with no consequences? Damn, I'm impressed. permalinkembedsaveparentgive gold [–]pepe_le_pewpewpewpew 30 points 1 day ago Sure, up until you saw this room, your gender was a social construct forced upon you by society, once you saw this sign you realized you were actually a woman all along. As soon as you left, evil social conditioning got the better of you again and you were socially obligated to identify as a man again. Damn you patriarchy! permalinkembedsaveparentgive gold [–]Odz2427 1 point 1 day ago Fuckin' cissy permalinkembedsaveparentgive gold [–]krudler5 6 points 1 day ago Isn't "cis" a recently-coined term? I can't recall having heard anyone use the term "cis-gender" before the last 3 or 4 years... permalinkembedsaveparentgive gold [–]Elvick 11 points 1 day ago As the "opposite" of transgendered, it certainly is. I learned about Transgendered people in my early teens, I'm 26 now and I only started to hear "cisgendered" because feminists were using it to dismiss and insult men with it. lol The term should die, it serves no purpose other than to shame people.](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/cis1.png?ssl=1)
The lovely DavidByron2 — one of the subreddit’s most, er, colorful commenters — gets nearly 300 upvotes for suggesting that the poor beleaguered cis man who posted the picture should sue the school for sexual harassment. Naturally, this brilliant legal mind doesn’t actually know what cis means; he thinks it means “straight.”
Elsewhere in the comments, one fellow suggests that a cis man should make a point of going into the room and telling anyone who wants him to leave that they’re not allowed to discriminate against their gender identity.
Naturally, others are enthusiastic about this idea.
![jimmywiddle 13 points 2 days ago Me too, I would real world troll the shit out of that room. I would turn up in an elf costume once and claim I identify as elf kind and therefore don't even qualify as human. permalinksaveparentgive gold [–]mariners77 -3 points 1 day ago And that's why people like you shouldn't be allowed. Nothing wrong with what the parent comment suggested. Go in there, be quiet, and tell people not to assume gender. But trolling just creates more hostilities between sides and makes things worse.](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/cistroll.png?ssl=1)
Yes, that’s right: the person suggesting that it might not be such a good idea to put on an elf costume and crash a room intended as a “safer space” for women, trans, intersex and genderqueer folks is the one that’s voted down — though even he thinks that invading the safer space would be just peachy.
Yet another commenter tells someone who identifies as a “gender fluid male,” that he “should go and see a doctor if your genitals are leaking fluid.” The jokester gets upvotes; the gender fluid male, who says he goes to UQ and that he “understands why [the room] exists,” gets downvoted below zero.
And Men’s Rights activists wonder why so many people think of their little movement as a hate movement.
H/T — r/againstmensrights
Literally every comment on Alto’s first link was posted by a literal neo-Nazi (including at least one call to “Gas the [k-words]”). That must be some kind of record.
@Pandapool: Fellow fan of American Dad here. 😀 I’ve watched volumes 1-6 on DVD, so I can’t speak for the show any later than that, but yeah, it’s great.
A show that I liked at first but eventually got fed up with, though, is South Park. In earlier seasons it mostly felt as if they were just making fun of everyone indiscriminately, but around like seasons 7 and 8 they had begun, more and more, to preach their own ideologies to the viewers, and pretty nasty ideologies at that. Like, there’s this whole episode about how Paris Hilton is a dirty fucking whore for drinking alcohol and sleeping around, and we should all hate women who are dirty fucking whores, right? It was just so incredibly misogynistic from start to finish. Also, they had this episode called Goobacks about people coming from the future via time travel to work minimum wage jobs, and… that ep was funny in a lot of ways, had a lot of funny jokes, but it also preached the message that things like labour unions and minimum wages are silly and everyone should just freely compete on the free market and yada yada. There was this entire ep about how schools should absolutely not teach children anything about sex. And I’ve heard that in later seasons, there is some terribly, terribly transphobic shit when Mr Garisson comes out as a woman. Anyway, that misogynistic-as-fuck Paris Hilton ep was like the last straw for me anyway. I just said that I’m giving up on South Park from now on.
Ya know I sort of agree that there is probably a way to word that sign that doesn’t come off as saying “everyone is welcome here except members of this very specific group”. I think it’s possible to convey what the room is for without singling out cis-dudes as being specifically unwelcome/unsafe there. Cis-women can obviously be every bit as bigoted and hostile toward gender minorities as cis-men can. I think you can convey that the environment past this point is intended to be a place where women and gender minorities can be safe from all forms of bigotry and harassment without singling out any one group.
But that’s a minor quibble which does nothing to invalidate the need for this room.
This is such a perfect illustration of how there is a legit conversation that could be had here about how you present the concept of this room to the rest of the world. But these guys aren’t interested in having that conversation. They just want to pitch a fit that someone has something they don’t have.
@ Scented Fucking Hard Chairs
Oh, dang. D:
I can’t even see the comment section on the Independent’s website, since I have so many ad-block filters installed. I guess it’s a small mercy for me, but yeah Lewis’ Law in action there.
I’m actually pretty alarmed that the neo-nazis haven’t been moderated.
Chiming in with everyone who says Family Guy sucks. I don’t really see American Dad as being a whole lot better, since they make light of killing sex workers, and women in general, all the time. Haven’t watched the Cleveland Show, but I wouldn’t trust Seth McFarlane to write black characters without resorting to lazily justified racism.
Can’t express how appalling the Simpsons/ Family Guy crossover episode was, both in terms of being unfunny, and all the jarringly inappropriate violence that seemed totally at odds with the ultimately pro-social Simpsons ethos. I feel sad that they ever thought that episode would be a good idea.
Ack. Family Guy. I have issues with that, mostly because I really enjoy unexplained cutaway gags, Big Lipped Alligator Moments, brick jokes and absurdist metahumour, all of which Family Guy does really well; but the constant mean spiritness and horrible social values of it make it deeply uncomfortable viewing. It’s why I was so grateful for The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. If someone managed to make something that had the same style of comedy but without the awfulness then I would watch it to death.
Looking back on it, I can see Family Guy as a yardstick of my own improvement as a human being. When I first encountered it I saw it as hilarious and loved how transgressive and “edgy” it was. Thankfully I’m not that person any more, and it’s a useful reminder of how far I’ve come.
Cis isn’t a feminist term, I do not use that term, I expect plenty of feminists do not. I know radfems do not use that term. I work in an LGBT community centre and NO ONE has ever used that term. We have loads of trans volunteers and service users. I am trans positive, but the term cis is just not OK for me.
Ellesar, why is that?
Yeah, Ellesar, what word would you use to refer to people who aren’t cis?
I mean aren’t trans.
@Ellesar
There’s nothing unfeminist about having a term for when one’s biological sex matches one’s gender. That’s all that being cis is, and its existence helps show that being cis or trans are both equally valid. It’s hard to do that without a label. I understand that that might not be the prevailing notion at your LGBT center, but that argument somewhat smacks of “I have a friend who is X, and xe says…”
Teal deer version: Gender can match sex, gender can not match sex, both are fine, and there’s nothing wrong with both having labels.
It also smacks of “I’m not cis, I’m NORMAL.”
Personally, I’m glad that somebody coined the word “Cis.” “Not-trans” has always been kinda clunky, and I’m sure I don’t have to explain why the most common word for it back in the ’90s and ’00s, “Normal,” is just awful and gross and wrong.
Ninja’d by Tes while I was trying to find a way to word it. =P
@Pandapool – I don’t think I’d heard of American Dad. From your description, it sounds like (given the context) a fairly realistic portrayal of what accepting or positive straight people want to think gay men and their relationships are like. It doesn’t sound as if they got the political episode or the baby episode all that right, and I don’t have any even to start can’ting about the father’s visit episode.
A major improvement – sure, but that’s a low bar. A step forward – probably. But that’s about it.
I’ve yet to see anyone make an argument against “cis” that doesn’t involve claiming that there doesn’t need to be a word for “not-trans” which, as others have pointed out, has some really gross implications i.e. not-trans = normal while trans* = abnormal.
Also from Ellesar’s post: “I’m trans positive, but…”
Yeah. About that…
Yeah, gotta agree, there needs to be a word for it. Cis is fine as far as I’m concerned, certainly beats “normal”.
A trans woman once suggested that maybe “cis” experiences the backlash it does because trans folk were the ones who came up with it. I think there’s a lot of truth there, as “allosexual/alloromantic” also experiences some backlash (to a much lesser degree) because asexual and aromantic people came up with them. The minority naming the majority tends to get the majority’s backs up.
Chiming in to say that I do like American Dad myself, even though I don’t like Seth McFarlane in general. Family Guy is problematic as hell but AD I can see the humour in, most times. As for South Park, I have mixed feelings as sometimes it’s eyebrow raising and sometimes it’s actually brilliant. I loved the episode that was a parody of Game of Thrones.
I’ve seen some feminists object to ‘cis’, because ‘cis’ is sometimes defined in a way that makes it sound as if cis people are completely perfectly comfortable with everything gender-related, and feminists make a point of the fact that today’s expectations for the different genders are a shitty deal for women. I think that’s a misunderstanding of what ‘cis’ is supposed to be, but I can see how people object to being labelled ‘cis’ if they had the term explained for them in that way, like “cis people are completely comfortable with being the gender that they were assigned at birth…” or the like.
Also, some people seem to make it a condition for being a cis woman that you really, deeply feel yourself to be a woman, and analogously for being a cis man. But that’s false for a lot of cis people. Not for all, but for a lot. A lot of cis people are what Ozy once labelled “cis by default” – you’re assigned female at birth, you have a vagina, a female name, people use ‘she’ as a pronoun for you and you’re okay with that. Not necessarily embracing it in a “Wow, this is so totally me, I’m so totally a woman, that’s what I really am”-way, but you’re okay with it (and the same for many cis men of course).
So a lot of people who dislike the word ‘cis’ do so because they feel that we don’t need a word for the normal ones, but sometimes it’s because they’ve had ‘cis’ explained in a fairly weird way to them, one that they couldn’t recognize themselves in.
I will say that as a cis gay man, I have no problem with being identified as or referred to as cis. It just doesn’t bother me. I do not get the impression that it’s used as an insult, and have never seen a convincing explanation of how it is one.
My first husband was in a gay Asian organization for a few years. It had meetings that were not open to non-Asians, which meant that he could attend and I couldn’t. I did not have a problem with that; the idea of objecting to a safe space for people of color seemed supremely obnoxious, in fact. I was actually glad that he had that opportunity.
I don’t have a problem with being labelled “cis” either.
I wish our society was more open about gender in general. I used to wonder if I was trans or lesbian just because my personality isn’t nurturing or “feminine.” Turns out I’m a plain old boring cis hetero white girl who just isn’t terribly nurturing.
Cis is a good shorthand, I think, but it’s probably best not to assume cis people haven’t struggled a bit with gender issues either.
Though obviously it’s not at all the same sort of struggle, in kind or in magnitude. It must be terrible to not feel like you fit in your own skin; I wish our society was helpful instead of being so very awful about it. People should be able to be who they are.
Some people may object to “cis”, because trans*ness is often portrayed in the dominant culture it’s still often through the (wo)man-trapped-in-a-(wo)man’s body, which is rather narrow and gender essentialist. However, it is also not really a problem with the term itself but how people use it and most probably can be fixed by a little education on how the term is properly used.
As for the sign itself, I think it might’ve been better just to list who the room includes and not who it excludes, but I don’t know the history of the place. It could be that cis men were trying to get in and say “Hey, look at me, why can’t I be a woman too if I say I’m a woman right now?” and such, and then wouldn’t listen when people tried to explain stuff to them.
What I like about the sign is that they’re calling it a “safer” space (I know it’s a small distinction, but I think it’s more realistic than saying “safe” space, because nothing is totally safe.)
Anyway, it’s hypocritical of the MRAs to say they’re pointing out the “hypocrisy” of the sign, since what they’re really saying is that non-cis people can’t, or shouldn’t, exist. That’s what they mean, and yeah, I kind of feel dirty writing that.
(The last line should’ve been in italics, by the way. I was trying to quote from one of the comments.)