Yeah the amount that it’s offensive is dependent on the context, but that’s really true of any descriptive term. In those contexts it’s the insults or animosity that determine offensiveness, not the descriptive terms.
I.e. “those dirty fucking cyclists” in this phrase which would be offensive to cyclists it is the insult and the animosity that make it offensive, not the descriptive term itself.
Obviously it’s different when you use actual slurs to describe the person but in the situations described with use of cisgender that usually isn’t the case (there are slur uses of cis but they’re rare and not used much, therefore have low recognition).
Thing is that’s how slurs are born isn’t it? All slurs started as descriptive words for groups of people but when enough people use them with disdain or malice for long enough, suddenly the word becomes irredeemable and it can no longer be said without having all that hate automatically added on intentional or not.
Even the n word would have started out as a regional term simply for black people (hear me out). If you look at the word or the way it’s pronounced it’s really just a mangled or incorrectly pronounced version of the word negro which is simply the Spanish/latin word for the colour black. But because of the people that said it, in the way that they said it, in the region they said it, at the time that they said it, it can no longer be said lest you be magically transported back to the 1800’s with a whip in your hands.
So even though cisgender is not currently a slur, if it continues to follow the path of all slurs before it, one day it will be
Yeah the amount that it’s offensive is dependent on the context, but that’s really true of any descriptive term. In those contexts it’s the insults or animosity that determine offensiveness, not the descriptive terms.
I.e. “those dirty fucking cyclists” in this phrase which would be offensive to cyclists it is the insult and the animosity that make it offensive, not the descriptive term itself.
Obviously it’s different when you use actual slurs to describe the person but in the situations described with use of cisgender that usually isn’t the case (there are slur uses of cis but they’re rare and not used much, therefore have low recognition).
Thing is that’s how slurs are born isn’t it? All slurs started as descriptive words for groups of people but when enough people use them with disdain or malice for long enough, suddenly the word becomes irredeemable and it can no longer be said without having all that hate automatically added on intentional or not.
Even the n word would have started out as a regional term simply for black people (hear me out). If you look at the word or the way it’s pronounced it’s really just a mangled or incorrectly pronounced version of the word negro which is simply the Spanish/latin word for the colour black. But because of the people that said it, in the way that they said it, in the region they said it, at the time that they said it, it can no longer be said lest you be magically transported back to the 1800’s with a whip in your hands.
So even though cisgender is not currently a slur, if it continues to follow the path of all slurs before it, one day it will be