I recently came across a male who described himself as "Cis Male, the opposite of Trans". I was unfamiliar with the term so I turned to Google!
Apparently it is a male, who is born male and associates with being male. (scratching my head). So that makes him a male? When I asked why he used that term as opposed to just male he informed me his church had some sort of seminar and was encouraged to refer to males as cis males.
Anyone have any thoughts?
Quite simply, cis male means a man who is also biologically male. And what you state in the bolded above is absolutely correct. Cis males are indeed, as the name suggests, male.
Think of cis male as a more specific category of the more general term male. All cis males are male, but not all males are cis male. Much as all squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are square.
The term is most often used in contexts where people wish to give others an idea of the perspective they are coming from in regards to the statements they are making, etc. Often in situations were a cis person is writing about genderqueer issues, and wishes to make it clear that they do not have direct first person experience with those issues, and are speaking from a different viewpoint than those that do. Make sense?
Of course, there are certainly plenty of other reasons somebody might mention their specific gender orientation as well. I simply wanted to give one example of one as you seemed confused.
A cis male is a real, biological male as opposed to a transgender male who is a woman who thinks she's a man. At least that's the way I understand it. I've never heard that term before either but that's not really an issue in my world.
This definition is extremely problematic. I bolded some of the particularly troubling statements.
No transgender male is a "woman who thinks she's a man". Transgender men are men who are biologically female. Cis males are no more "real" males than transgender males are. They are simply two sub categories of the wider category male.
I'd also note that, that statement "that's not really an issue in my world" is equally problematic unless the world you are from in somehow not the Earth. I can't speak for any other planet, but issues regarding knowledge and understanding of gender certainly exist on Earth and need to be recognized and addressed by all who live here if we are to have any hope of resolving them. I would ask to please not ignore them. Even if they do not seem to be directly relevant in your life at the moment, your words and your actions have more impact than you know or could recognize.
Too funny!
