Full Description
In Cisgender, Perry Zurn turns an incisive yet playful eye toward the "norm" against which transgender gets defined. A cisgender person is informally understood as someone who doctors called male or female at birth, became a boy or girl, and finally lived as a man or woman - without fuss. It's this "without fuss" that anchors the cis/trans binary as it has come to be understood and belies the complex relationship all people have with gender. How did this category arise? And what else might it do? Cisgender is the first book to trace the story of how cis entered contemporary gender lexicons. Utilizing unplumbed archives and fresh interviews, Zurn offers a critical history of the term from the 1990s to the present, deftly defamiliarizing and reimagining cis at the same time. This unique examination of cisgender is a must-read for all readers invested in trans life and the futures of gender.
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Dis/Orienting 1
1. "Cis Isn't a Slur. It's Latin!" 17
2. A Faerie Punk Counterhistory of Cis 33
3. Cis Soup: An Early Stew of Meanings 51
4. Cis Privilege Knapsacks 69
5. Cis Goes Mainstream—a Some Cost 87
6. Cisnormativity and Coloniality 105
7. On the Sexedness and Whiteness of Cisness 125
8. Cripping Cis: What Disability Demands 143
9. Why Cis Works 161
10. When Cis Doesn't Work 177
Coda 195
Glossary of Cis Terms 205
Notes 213
Bibliography 241
Index
