Replace 10/30/2023: Elon is tweeting about this once more, so we’re re-running this put up to provide an explanation for why he’s fallacious.

Elon Musk is numerous issues. A Tesla not-founder, a Hyperloop not-builder, and maximum just lately the fellow making Twitter worse in just about each conceivable method. He’s had numerous a laugh with that remaining function, the use of his possession of the website online to force away advertisers and spice up hateful “documentaries,” however now it sort of feels he’s discovered a better calling: Arbitrarily deciding what counts as hate speech or harassment at the platform.

Up to now, this supposed taking away the corporate’s insurance policies towards misgendering, stating it open season to assault trans other people at the website online. Now, he’s long past one step additional, stating the antithetical time period “cisgender” to be “harassment,” a “slur,” and worthy of suspension.

So, what’s the tale at the back of “cis” and “cisgender” as phrases? Neatly, it begins with its reverse. The phrase “transgender” dates again to a clinical magazine from the mid-Sixties, changing previous, less-accurate phrases, and was once temporarily followed via each the trans and clinical communities. However via the mid-’90s, when trans people had been placing out in Usenet boards, they discovered there wasn’t in point of fact a time period to distinguish non-trans other people from everybody else.

So, they went again to Latin. The prefix “trans-” approach “at the different aspect of,” and it has an antonym in “cis-” that means “in this aspect.” Chemists have lengthy used “cis” and “trans” as antonyms when describing sure molecular bonds, and in 1994 the ones Usenet customers carried the dichotomy over to gender: Transgender and cisgender.

Each phrases are recurrently utilized in clinical circles when discussing the subject of gender, and see an identical utilization basically writing and dialog. Neither, when used as an adjective, is a slur — they’re simply clinical descriptors. Musk’s banning of the time period begs the query: What would he relatively be referred to as? Elon Musk, not-trans guy? That will in reality be an “esthetic nightmare.”

The solution, in fact, is that Musk would like to by no means bring to mind the glory in any respect. Through striking the “trans-” and “cis-” prefixes on equivalent footing, neither one will get to mention they’re the “commonplace” aspect of items — each are simply adjectives. Musk, who has introduced his intent to foyer for the criminalization gender-affirming care, doesn’t appear to wish to percentage his status with other people he obviously deems as underneath him.

Musk’s transfer has been well-liked by the worst corners of Twitter, individuals who frequently have interaction in bigoted speech and behaviors, which is a marketplace Musk appears to be focused on with expanding frequency. That, and the deeply by myself robot-fucker marketplace.