One Word Wednesday: "Cis Het"

Bear with me! I’m still learning the substack ropes. I’ve noticed posts heavy on content EVERY DAY are a bit much for folks. (Even me.) So I’ve decided to replace my regularly scheduled “Wednesday Essay” (always an undertaking) with a brief discussion of one word.

On Thursdays, I will supply a new essay or repost an old essay that folks may have missed or wish to revisit. Thanks, as always, for reading me. I am grateful. Here goes with the new feature!

TODAY’S WORD IS:

Okay, that’s two words. But these two words are so frequently used together that they tend to leave my mouth merged as one.

Cisgender, or simply cis, is an adjective that describes a person whose gender identity aligns with the sex they were assigned at birth. (AFAB: Assigned Female at Birth, or AMAB: Assigned Male at Birth)

[Public Service Announcement: Trans folks don’t owe it to anyone to share whether they are AFAB or AMAB because that is their PAST. They were never the gender they “assigned at birth.”]

Heterosexual, or het, means you’re sexually or romantically attracted exclusively to people of the other sex.

I personally think it is important to note that one can be cis and question their gender. I have a lot of issues with being a woman, but it doesn’t make me feel like I’m inhabiting the wrong body. A trans person, one the other hand, might feel trapped inside body that misrepresents them. That is the experience of gender dysphoria.

Cis people don’t have that problem.

Joseph Cornell’s Orpheus and Eurydice