I quite like being called cis. It sounds a lot like sis as in sisters. Only it’s a trendier spelling. I first heard the term about 10 years ago when talking to a trans friend of mine, and wanted to talk about people like me, and I used the term “non-trans” and my friend told me I could use the word cis.

I’ve never heard it used as a pejorative or slur, or in anyway rude. It’s way better than saying “non-trans.” It makes me feel like there are trans women, and there are sisters, or cis women. It makes me feel like a sister to both trans and other cis women. I find it unifying.

I think one way society oppresses people is by controlling their vocabulary. By taking away a word for something, it makes it easier to pretend that thing doesn’t exist. It literally makes it impossible to talk about, and easier to be in denial about. The book “1984” does a great job of describing how taking away language controls peoples thought. Simply put, if there is no word for cis, if cis doesn’t exist, then trans doesn’t exist. Then people just reclassify you as woman and trans woman (trans becomes sub woman) or worse “normal woman” and “freak.” People want to hold onto this status quo, and thus find problems with a word that serves no purpose than to be the antonym to trans. It’s not negative, but it does suggest that trans does exist, which threatens a lot of peoples preferred denial of trans people.

So, to all my cis-ters out there, trans or cis, I say we live and let live and trust others know their own gender better than anyone else.