50. THE PROBLEM WITH CIS-NORMATIVITY TO A NON-PASSING TRANS WOMAN - A Student Asks Us To Confront The Consequences Of Cis-Normative Thinking

Cis-normativity is the idea that cisgender people (people whose gender identity corresponds with their biological sex) are the standard in our society that all people should try to meet, most of the time through appearance. To a transgender person, or non-binary person, this means feeling a large amount of pressure, to the point where you feel like you have to be ‘cis-passing’ (where a passer-by in the street may look at you and believe you were born the gender that you identify as), which isn’t right as being trans or being non-cisgender doesn’t necessarily mean wanting to pass as a different gender, it is instead about altering yourself in any way to become your most “authentic” self. The main ways a trans person may become cis-passing is by altering their voice through voice therapy, altering their appearance and changing the clothing they wear to suit the gender they identify as, or are closest to for non-binary people. Cis-normative thinking is perpetuated en masse by our society through pop-culture in music, films and TV and by the media in general through a lack of representation. When trans people are represented they are almost always cis-passing (think Jules from HBO’s Euphoria).  Cis-normative thinking like this creates many problems as in a large amount of cases some transgender and non-binary people are simply unable to, or don’t want to, be cis-passing for various reasons, such as not having the funds to transition, simply being unable, or not wanting to change themselves to be cis-passing. 

Does this make those people’s identities less valid? Of course it doesn’t, because the identities of everyone are valid no matter if they are cis-passing or not. Cis-normative thinking therefore has disastrous consequences when it perpetuates the idea of passing being a requirement for those who aren’t cisgender, three of which I will lay out for you. 

The first issue we get from cis-normative thinking is transphobia in both cis-gender people and non-cisgender people which causes mental health issues. If we are telling people from a young age that the standards they need to meet through their gender expression are male or female, people will then internalize this and project it onto people who aren’t cis-passing. The first example of this is in cisgender people themselves as, whilst they may try and use someone’s preferred pronouns and do anything they can to validate their gender in their outward personality, often cisgender people will invalidate the gender identity of non-cisgender people in their head because they aren’t cis-passing. For example, someone may look at me (a masculine transgender woman) and in their head identify me as male rather than female, which I identify as. The issue caused by this is that these people are then less likely to validate my, and all non-passing, non-cisgender peoples’ gender identity. The consequence of this then being a heightened level of gender dysphoria (a feeling of discomfort with one’s biological gender) in non-cisgender people which then often causes depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts. All of these can be evidenced by the Stonewall British Trans report and British LGBT health report from 2018, which show that two thirds of trans people experience depression, 46% of trans people consistently think about taking their own life and 41% of non-binary people admitted to self-harm.

The second and third examples of transphobia caused by cis-normative thinking are both in non-cis people themselves. Firstly, from people who are cis-passing as the gender they wish to pass as, who believe that to be trans you must be ‘cis-passing’ and then use this belief to invalidate the identities of non cis-passing people, which often leads to the same consequences as the first example. Secondly, people who aren’t cis-passing may harbour internalized transphobia against themselves, with the belief that they need to pass to be valid, which again causes the issues stated above.

The second problem which is caused by cis-normative thinking is the fact that non-cisgender people need to be cis-passing in order to be safe in our cis-normative society. The more likely it is that someone is going to notice you aren’t cisgender, the more likely it is that someone will be violent towards you because of your gender identity (and this is, unfortunately, even more true for black trans people, who have a disproportionate number of violent crimes committed against them, compared to other non-cisgender people, who by themselves have a disproportionate number of violent crimes committed against them compared to cisgender people). This is, again, addressed by the 2018 Stonewall British Trans Report which stated that, in 2018, two in five trans people and three in ten non-binary people experienced hate crimes because of their gender identity, 28% of trans people received domestic abuse from their partner, 12% of trans people were attacked by colleagues or customers in the work place. All of this despite the fact that 40% of trans and non-binary people admitted to changing the way they dress in an effort to be identified as non-cisgender due to fear of hate crimes. So, whilst it isn’t all who have cis-normative thinking doing this and there are more reasons than just this for anti-trans violence (as many lack education on LGBTQIA+ identity and harbour uneducated opinions against LGBTQIA+ people which can also lead to violence), cis-normative thinking still causes a large amount of anti-trans violence and often exacerbates other reasons (such as the one mentioned briefly above) for anti-trans violence. 

The third problem I have identified, that is created by cis-normative thinking, is that even if non-cisgender people, especially transgender people, are cis-passing, they are often caught in a “lose lose” situation due to the rarer but still common cis-normative belief that transgender people aren’t the gender they choose to identify as. As those who aren’t cis-passing will face unjust consequences, as already mentioned, and then, those who do pass may be outed as non-cisgender, which then may lead to violence, bullying and also unjust anger against non-cisgender people, because many may believe they have been deceived by non-cisgender people who are simply trying to mind their own business. This then again has awful consequences, including all already mentioned above (worsening gender dysphoria, worsening violence against non-cisgender people etc.) which can, again, be shown by the 2018 Stonewall British Trans Report, which said that many transgender people were subject to violence due to being outed to people who were unaware of their gender identity, as well as a large number of non-cisgender people feeling as though they had to quit their jobs due to bullying after being outed in the work place, often to the point of suicidal ideation, who then found it incredibly difficult to find work due to their gender identity.

I want to make it very clear that the issues I have spoken about in this article don’t originate from the idea of passing itself, as many trans people do want to pass because that is what makes them feel most comfortable with their identity, they instead arise from the cis-normative idea that non-cisgender people should pass, as many people don’t want to pass as cisgender and are most comfortable with not being cis-passing. One solution to this problem is to decrease the amount our society perpetuates cis-normative thinking, particularly in pop-culture and the media, by increasing the representation of non-cisgender people, particularly in children’s tv programmes, since that period of someone’s life is when the large majority of socialisation takes place. The second way that cis-normative thinking can be de-normalized is through government action, especially since the British government doesn’t even provide people who don’t identify as male or female with a way to have their gender recognised under law. If no effort is made to de-normalize cis-normative thinking then the conditions for non-cisgender people in Britain, and globally, will only worsen, and the statistics I have used throughout this article will, certainly in the UK, sadly continue to rise.

AUTHOR: Christine Riggot, Student at King Edward VI Aston