@DanielCoopreal YES. This is indeed another tragic thing, that it both hits Musk personally, & likely impacts a lot of families with similar qualities.

I am NB but not trans. I can only imagine that every time a trans child hears "cis is a slur" from their own parents, it's yet another rejection or denigration of what they are themselves, in a backhand way. It's a parent stating indirectly that they don't think "trans" is OK, whether it's the word or another person's lived existence.

They're not a victim. They're just cis, & their gender ID matches their sex as assigned at birth. If they act like there's something wrong with being that, then you might consider what their agenda is. But don't buy their bullshit, in any case.

Well, crap. Okay, until I get this figured out, go out there & Google any good Latin dictionary, find it, & search within it for 'cis'. Lewis & Short is the best one, but there are other good ones out there as well.

WHOLE POINT IS. 'Cis' = not a slur. At all. Ever. If someone's saying that it is, they're lying. They're lying, & they're trying to manipulate language in such a way to make themselves a victim.

News flash: they're not a victim.

OK here's one more test: https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0059/nosanitize

@mcfate Oh! OK. Any particular spot in the link? Like at the end, or somewhere else?

Dangit, that didn't work either. Um...

OK see if this link works. There should be a box somewhere on the right side of the page labeled "Dictionary Entry Lookup"; put the term 'cis' in the box and see what comes up. https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text

Here's a bit about DARVO. I've also been informed that my Lewis & Short link didn't work, so give me a sec to rustle up a better one & I'll post that, stay tuned. https://dynamic.uoregon.edu/jjf/defineDARVO.html

@Victor Oh, whoops! Thank you for letting me know. Let me see if I can rustle up a better link.

Declaring 'cis' a slur is also a kind of DARVO, which stands for Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim & Offender - something abusers do in order to deflect focus & blame away from themselves & turn it onto their targets. In this case, the targets are trans people & those who support them. Transphobic bigots turn 'cis' into a slur because they're pretending THEY are the victims, not the aggressors.

The very idea that gender is fluid is deeply offensive to these people; it literally disgusts them. Here's a paper on that, about the influence of moral frameworks; check the links to other papers for more: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6562335/

The only reason why someone would object to being called 'cis' is because they think that being 'trans' is something bad, they think 'trans' is a slur, they don't believe gender is mutable or fluid, they have a very rigid binary idea of sex & gender, & they don't want to be described in contrast to a concept or people they despise.

The terms were never used by the Romans as a slur, they were just descriptive. Today, they're used in chemistry, math & biology to describe things like molecular structures; and of course they're used in human biology to describe whether or not someone's gender ID matches their sex as assigned at birth.

In no case are the terms 'cis' or 'trans' slurs in the least. They never have been. They are only descriptors.

In Latin, you might find Caesar describing different parts of Gaul using these prefixes, as an example: "Galla Cisalpina" refers to Gaul that was on the same side of the Alps as Rome, while "Galla Transalpina" referred to Gaul on the opposite side of the Alps from Rome.

Again, just an example of how the prefixes worked in the original language.

The antonym of 'cis' is 'trans', meaning "on the other/opposite side of [object]". It works more or less the same way as 'cis', describing objects in space or time, etc.

That's it. That's all 'cis' means.

The word 'cis' is a Latin prefix. It means "on this side of [object]". It's used in descriptions of space, time, & a few other concepts.

Source: 5 years of Latin plus the Lewis & Short Latin Dictionary (the best there is): https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text

The final straw for me leaving the bird site was Musk declaring 'cis' to be a slur.

There are multiple things wrong with this, not the least of which is that it's transphobic bullshit; and it's also a great opportunity to throw a miniature linguistics lesson out there for anyone who needs it.

On a minor note, I learned recently that apparently I'm a direct-line descendant of King Ælla of Northumbria, the guy who pissed off the Great Heathen Army & got taken out by Ivar the Boneless.

Speaking of cool history nerd things, here's another tidbit from a few years ago about the Viking Age.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbchlhlMLPE

Lesson: history doesn't turn out how people might want or expect it to. History just turns out the way it does.

Also, history is NOT linear, with a constantly improving upward trajectory, but that's a thread for another day.