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Comment by razille | Hacker News Reader

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Probably not intended as such but "actual female woman" is also a bit disrespectful, since it implies that trans women aren't "actual female women", why not use cis? It gets your point across and doesn't imply anything else.

> why not use cis?

Because some people don't use that term to describe themselves either, even if that is what they biologically are. CIS is a pretty good term, because it's very technically correct. Sadly many have been on the receiving end of debates where it is used a a slur, and considers it hurtful.

Do people consider it hurtful, or was it coopted as a slur by people like Musk who just want to erase trans people?

Personally I mostly see it used in anger, so I wouldn't use it, unless doing a biology report.

It also has the weird problem that you mostly see it in a "do you identify as cis", which I at least don't... I am cis, but that's not question. This leads to some really weird situation where you have teams of larger middle age straight, and cis, men, but you have one or two that answer that they don't identify as such.

This is very much off topic, but I'd personally I'd prefer that we just stop labeling people. Just use their name, it's fine, you don't need to know or even understand the gender of the person who makes a repairable flatpack toaster. It's an cool project regardless of who made it.

I 90% agree with you, except that there is nothing technically correct about the word cis.

The truth is not disrespectful.

I think a lot of people just don't pay attention to the domain name or anything else besides the actual content.

I agree that much of this is unconscious bias. But it still grates.

Then why do we even talk about "pronouns" and don't just say: "BTW she's a woman not a man." Simpler times.

> I mean it's bad enough that most people in this thread saw a cool engineering project and made a default assumption of male.

Is your issue with the fact that people assumed the author was male, specifically, or with the fact that people assumed at all?

I see, I guess this is the other scenario where wrong pronouns can be used.

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