Am I really cis?

[TooYoungToKnow]

I'm fine with my assigned sex and don't mind that society sees me as female, but when I first started learning about trans issues, I saw an article written for cis people that asked "If you woke up one day with the body of the opposite sex, how would you feel?" I think the writer assumed that most cis people would feel uncomfortable and dysphoric, but I honestly wouldn't feel that way. If I was the exact same person but with a different assigned sex, I'd identify as the gender that supposedly corresponds to that sex.I asked my parents about this and they both feel the same way that I do.

Do this seem like what most cis people would say? If not, what could I possibly be? I'm really confused

[Taiji]

I don't know if "waking up with the 'opposite' body" is necessarily how trans people feel about themselves. You can not feel dysphoria but still be trans. From what I've seen, a more appropriate way to describe being trans is (for example) "you are a woman, but everyone thinks you are a man" rather than "you are a man who wants to look like a woman" if that makes sense. (Also someone please correct me if I'm wrong with this interpretation.)

Wouldn't you technically still be cisgender if you identify with the gender that aligns with your assigned sex? It sounds like if you were AMAB, you'd be comfortable identifying as male.

[TooYoungToKnow]

I don't know if "waking up with the 'opposite' body" is necessarily how trans people feel about themselves. You can not feel dysphoria but still be trans. From what I've seen, a more appropriate way to describe being trans is (for example) "you are a woman, but everyone thinks you are a man" rather than "you are a man who wants to look like a woman" if that makes sense. (Also someone please correct me if I'm wrong with this interpretation.)

Wouldn't you technically still be cisgender if you identify with the gender that aligns with your assigned sex? It sounds like if you were AMAB, you'd be comfortable identifying as male.

I'd describe myself as "everyone thinks I'm a girl and I'm just going with the flow". And yes, if I were AMAB, I'd be comfortable identifying as male.

Thanks for your insight!

[Taiji]

I feel pretty similarly. Occasionally I may look male, and I'd honestly think I'd be okay with people assuming I was male. So I'd also be a "go with the flow" kind of person haha. I honestly don't know if cisgender people (or even transgender people) feel this way, but I would assume this would fall under non-binary or gender-non-conforming territory.

[mikeman7918]

From what I understand about half of cisgender people are what I have heard described as "cis by default", which is exactly what you describe. They don't care so they just go with it. That's what I thought I was until I noticed that I sometimes identify with my assigned sex (male), I sometimes don't care at all like you, and sometimes I feel particularly feminine causing gender dysphoria.

If you feel like you would rather not have a gender associated with you then you can still identify as agender or something of that sort you want. If the label is useful to you then by all means use it, that's what it's there for.

[TooYoungToKnow]

From what I understand about half of cisgender people are what I have heard described as "cis by default", which is exactly what you describe. They don't care so they just go with it. That's what I thought I was until I noticed that I sometimes identify with my assigned sex (male), I sometimes don't care at all like you, and sometimes I feel particularly feminine causing gender dysphoria.

If you feel like you would rather not have a gender associated with you then you can still identify as agender or something of that sort you want. If the label is useful to you then by all means use it, that's what it's there for.

Oh, I've never heard the phrase "cis by default" before! I just looked it up and that definitely describes me. It probably describes my parents too. Thanks so much!

[Emery.]

Sorry to be so blunt, but you don't get it unless you experience it. It's true that many cis people would say so. IMHO the test is stupid, because it doesn't account for a ton of other factors that make up for being a man or a woman, that are not how you feel gender-wise. There are upsides and downsides to both, and regardless of how you identify, you can enjoy or not every single one of them. And not every trans person feels bad about the situation described.

I don't know if there's a good way to describe how it feels to be trans. It's more like... you are a girl, or a guy, but everyone else keeps on saying otherwise and pointing out to you that you can/can't bear babies. But except for this one thing, except for how you look and what your body is, you are a normal nerd dude, a punk chick, middle-aged mom, fashion-obsessed gay man, the guy who is fascinated with bodybuilding, the girl next door...

[emma-can]

I think it's a bit of a logical fallacy. Like Sotai said, you can be trans and not experience dysphoria. The "born in the wrong body" narrative isn't really accurate for everyone. A trans cartoonist I follow did a comic about it and said something along the lines of "I don't have a 'boy's body.' I'm a girl. This is my body. Girls can have all sorts of bodies."

So following that logic, I think it makes sense if you as a cis person aren't really bothered by the idea of having a body with "opposite" parts.

[binary suns]

being trans is definitely about something being off-putting. I definitely agree that the stereotype "being in the wrong body" is kind of... frustrating, but I prettymuch always feel that way. I'll never have had certain experiences that cis women have had, and that will always make me feel a little bit disconnected from women. there's no getting around that.

and there are a lot of ways in which I've always sort of... acted as if I were a women, without thinking, only to realize a few seconds later... nope, I'm a dude that girls don't invite to their sleepovers 'cause of gender preferences in most friendships. I've felt like I don't belong to either gender, because boys were so unlike me, kind of foreign, even the feminine boys to a certain extent, and girls never would fully accept me like they did with other girls, they'd even push me away or flirt with me when I just wanted a friend to wave to in the hallway or chill with at lunch, and that always made me uncomfortable and grumpy.

I never really realized I was female myself until I was 22, but when I did I was hit with a huge surge of dysphoria in the following year, as I'd reflect about my role in the social environments around me, and recall gender-related feelings of being an outcast or limited in my acceptable behavior based on my sex. originally I assumed the things I was feeling were mostly related to false gender expectations, but now I see a lot of that as nothing more than simple observation of real trends, and my frustration felt more natural when I was framing it in the idea of, "why am I stuck in a male form when I wanna express my femininity" rather than framing it as "not all men are like that" because the issue was that I felt like I couldn't be myself, not that I couldn't be seen as myself.




if you wouldn't care whether you are male or female, that's prettymuch agender, I would assume. but there are similarities between agender and cis.... I actually think that I was cis before I realized that I was trans - I was always trans and cis. because I looked at my male body, and saw how others assumed I was male, and albeit begrudgingly, I accepted it. but this is my thought, I dunno how many people would really agree with such a declaration xD

[binary suns]

I feel pretty similarly. Occasionally I may look male, and I'd honestly think I'd be okay with people assuming I was male. So I'd also be a "go with the flow" kind of person haha. I honestly don't know if cisgender people (or even transgender people) feel this way, but I would assume this would fall under non-binary or gender-non-conforming territory.

it's normal for people to have moments, days, weeks, where they feel more male or more female than normal, or less male or less female than normal. it's common for people not even to "Feel male" or "feel female". neither of these have anything to do with gender, it's just a matter of our general mood and self-awareness being in flux, as time goes on.

PS. basically... it's not easy to say "I'm male/female/agender/other because of this list of reasons" because the reasons that make us feel more ourselves vary between everyone, and vary over time.

(edited cut out unecessary rambling)

[Chardog]

Indifference doesn't make you trans.. Trans people very much care about their gender, it goes beyond the physical body to your internal programming.

[butterflydreams]

Do this seem like what most cis people would say? If not, what could I possibly be? I'm really confused

I think that whole thought experiment is only useful if you're talking to someone who already knows they're trans, which basically makes it useless. The problem is that it's easy to say, "oh, if I woke up tomorrow as _____ I wouldn't care." It's easy to say that. Living it is completely different.

I have to also agree that indifference doesn't itself make you trans. I'd strain to think of any trans person I know or have read about who was "meh, I guess I'll transition, it kind of doesn't matter to me." That's the thing, even as a trans person, obviously I'll be the same basic person after transition. So not feeling like the same basic person in a different body isn't really an indicator either.

Equating feeling indifferent to being trans (at least my experience of it) almost hurts. I'm about as far away from indifferent as you can get. I wouldn't be where I am if I were indifferent.

[Calligraphette_Coe]

I'm fine with my assigned sex and don't mind that society sees me as female, but when I first started learning about trans issues, I saw an article written for cis people that asked "If you woke up one day with the body of the opposite sex, how would you feel?" I think the writer assumed that most cis people would feel uncomfortable and dysphoric, but I honestly wouldn't feel that way. If I was the exact same person but with a different assigned sex, I'd identify as the gender that supposedly corresponds to that sex.I asked my parents about this and they both feel the same way that I do.

Do this seem like what most cis people would say? If not, what could I possibly be? I'm really confused

As the map is not the territory, the body is not soul. The soul is shaped by its experiences, but the body is the medium in which those experiences are experienced and recorded and processed.

It's like a camera taking a picture of itself. But what if the camera 'knew' it was not a Nikon, but a Canon?

[R_1]

Cis-by-default is essentially cis-genderless. Cis-genderless is based on the dualism of identity and feelings. You can identify as cis, and have absolutely zero feelings pertaining to gender. That's the idea of cis-genderless.

[mikeman7918]

Cis-by-default is essentially cis-genderless. Cis-genderless is based on the dualism of identity and feelings. You can identify as cis, and have absolutely zero feelings pertaining to gender. That's the idea of cis-genderless.

I thought cis-genderless was being born intersex and also identifying as genderless.

[deltaX]

I feel kind of similarly to how you do OP. I am AFAB, and I don't really have a problem with being seen as female. Yet at the same time, I find it hard to imagine being unhappy about my gender if I were male either. To me gender just isn't an important part of my identity, so I identify as cis by default.

Other people in my situation might use labels like agender or genderless to describe the experience of not having strong gendered feelings, but for me personally, it didn't seem worth it to identify with those labels when I'm perfectly content to keep "going with the flow".

I do agree with a lot of the above comments though that an indifference to gender doesn't make you trans. If anything, it seems like people the trans community know they're trans because they feel gender strongly in a way I just don't experience.

[ChillaKilla]

Cis-by-default is essentially cis-genderless. Cis-genderless is based on the dualism of identity and feelings. You can identify as cis, and have absolutely zero feelings pertaining to gender. That's the idea of cis-genderless.

I thought cis-genderless was being born intersex and also identifying as genderless.

No. That's intergender

[R_1]

Cis-by-default is essentially cis-genderless. Cis-genderless is based on the dualism of identity and feelings. You can identify as cis, and have absolutely zero feelings pertaining to gender. That's the idea of cis-genderless.

I thought cis-genderless was being born intersex and also identifying as genderless.

No. That's intergender

I don't get what is so hard to understand the concept. There are different groups of cis people, and there exists cis people without a mental concept of gender, as well as those who feel strongly as if they're cis. The first group being those who concludes their identity under essentialism and observationism based reasons, and the other that relies more of internal feelings. In other words, the first group defines themselves based on observation(like a blue eyed individual who concludes they are blue eyed because all the mirror evidence supports that) and zero involvement of feelings, and the other who feels as if they have a essence of a mental concept of what a gender is suppose to be like. Furthermore, I suspect cis-genderless people have less pressures to conform to gender roles.

[Heart]

Cisgenderless and cis by default are used interchangeably on AVEN to mean the same thing, for the most part. I'm not sure how those words have come to be used elsewhere, but here at least they mean that you identify with your assigned gender but don't feel strongly about it; you are cis almost "by default" instead of because an internal part of you identifies with it.

Intergender is someone who is intersex, and identifies as such gender-wise. From my understanding, it's like being cis but for intersex instead of male or female. So, it is also possible to be some combination of intergender and cis by default, if you are intersex and also identify as such by default more so than any internal feeling. Though it's possible, I have never actually met anyone who used both those labels; usually, people seem to feel that one or the other is sufficient.

[Mychemicalqpr]

if you wouldn't care whether you are male or female, that's prettymuch agender, I would assume.

I think there are some people who identify as agender who use it this way, but for me there is definitely a distinct feeling of being neither, and I would be uncomfortable in either body. I feel like just not caring and specifically feeling neutral are two different things.

[R_1]

if you wouldn't care whether you are male or female, that's prettymuch agender, I would assume.

I think there are some people who identify as agender who use it this way, but for me there is definitely a distinct feeling of being neither, and I would be uncomfortable in either body. I feel like just not caring and specifically feeling neutral are two different things.

Yes, this. There's a difference between not caring, and not specifically feeling neutral. Asides, I personally do not care whether I ended up being assigned as a male or female during birth, but I would rather want someone address me as a male rather than agender since it's way more efficient that way and I would rather have others treat me as they would with most other people. If I somehow wake up being in a "female body" and my life was a dream, I wouldn't care about what I wake up as and move on with life as usual, and accept my life as a dream, and then move on learning on to adapt to what's life as a typical female with a few issues I don't want to deal with like bleeding down there.

I think it's a bit of a logical fallacy. Like Sotai said, you can be trans and not experience dysphoria. The "born in the wrong body" narrative isn't really accurate for everyone. A trans cartoonist I follow did a comic about it and said something along the lines of "I don't have a 'boy's body.' I'm a girl. This is my body. Girls can have all sorts of bodies."

So following that logic, I think it makes sense if you as a cis person aren't really bothered by the idea of having a body with "opposite" parts.

Every single logic involving a gender identity and gender, and different approaches to them has a logical fallacy. Frankly, none of them are without problems.

[binary suns]

For me, I was actually both cis and trans for 20 years. well, I didn't know to label either of course.... <_< wouldn't that have been nice. once I found out I was trans, after a year or two my being cis was replaced with a right proper gender identity, huzzah! :rolleyes:

[Emery.]

For me, I was actually both cis and trans for 20 years. well, I didn't know to label either of course.... <_< wouldn't that have been nice. once I found out I was trans, after a year or two my being cis was replaced with a right proper gender identity, huzzah! :rolleyes:

I am both. I think so. I'm trans because I feel like a man, and idnetify with men much better than with women. I wasn't really socially awkward until puberty, when something just went very different in my head than in the heads of other girls. They were becoming more giggly and girly, and me, quite the opposite... I really felt like an adolescent boy now that I look at it, and now... I dunno, I display so many quirks, habits, ideas that in the moment seem genius and unique (when they're not at all), experiences/interpretations of life, that are typical for men. And with other women, I feel like an outsider, really, in many aspects. But I identify as a woman too, and feel good in this skin, so that makes me a cis woman too, I think.