Cis women are women, too…

It seems ridiculous in this day and age that I have to say this, but here it is: cis women are women, too.

I posted that as a comment to a friend’s post which said “Trans women are women” posted on International Women’s Day. Apparently, saying “cis women are women, too” is controversial, because I received more than a few replies taking offense to my comment.

One such reply: “???? No one ever said that? And I don’t understand your need to come on here and clarify that when it’s an obvious statement and one that’s never contested.”

This person was communicating her indignation that I’d say something which was so readily apparent. It is obvious, isn’t it? Cisgender women are women, too. But what is it about my comment that motivated her to speak up?

Was it that what I said was too obvious? I don’t know – the same person didn’t respond the same way to my friend’s post of “Trans women are women.” Perhaps they don’t feel that “trans women are women” is an obvious statement.

Was it that I was drawing attention away from my friend’s post? I had zero likes on my comment while there are nearly 2000 likes on my friend’s post. My comment wasn’t getting much attention at all from most of the others.

Or was it the word “too”? “Too” implies a secondary placement – an addition, an afterthought, something with an asterisk. By saying that cis women are women, too, am I implying that cis women are secondary to trans women? If so, that’s certainly not my intent.

Here’s why I said it

I am demonstrating that, too often, trans women are considered a lesser form of woman because of the adjective “trans”. I’ve seen many people argue “if trans women are women, why do they need their own category,” or, “no, trans women are trans women. Only a woman can be a woman.” The flaw in this logic is that we don’t have similar protestations about “tall women,” or “smart women”… nobody is protesting that “if smart women are women, why do they need their own category?” By switching the adjective to “cis women are women,” I’m exposing the silliness of using the adjective “trans” as justification for excluding trans women.

Also, when including trans women into the set of {women}, often people will say “too” – as in, “trans women are women, too.” This implies that {trans women} aren’t included in {women}, except perhaps in a “we’re doing you a favor, but we all really know better”, or “we’ll let you come along but only if you behave” kind of way. Turning this dynamic around and saying “cis women are women, too” can catch people off-guard and hopefully get them to think about how the “…are women, too” language isn’t as inclusive as it may seem at first glance.

Further, I feel that saying “trans women are women” in the context of a discussion (as opposed to a tautological statement) opens the door for debate, and this is not a topic for debate. If we allow people to debate whether trans women are women, we’ve already lost. My womanhood is no more debatable than your grandmother’s.

All of this is to say that, if the statement “cis women are women, too” stands out to you, you might be harboring some implicit bias about trans women (and trans people in general). If you truly believe trans women are women – full stop – then reading that cis women are women, too, should feel like an uncontroversial statement of the obvious… one that you read and it hardly registers.

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I love things like this – little, seemingly innocuous statements which only capture the attention of those who really need to pay attention to them. Little things which, when you dive into them, hold a lot of power and hidden meaning. Little things which, once we have achieved true equality, won’t even be a blip on the radar for someone reading – they’ll be so obviously true that the reader has already moved to the next sentence.

How was it for you? How did you respond? Do you understand why I said what I said where I did? (For the record, my friend frequently makes the same exact statement, so this was a form of call-and-response as much as it was a standalone statement) Let me know in the comments.

Me