‘COWARDLY AND FUTILE’

Researcher Credited With Coining ‘Cisgender’ Slams Elon Musk

Dana Defosse said she wasn't surprised the Twitter CEO described the term as a slur, given his lack of support for the transgender community.

The researcher who claims to have coined the term “cisgender” has taken aim at Elon Musk after the Twitter CEO said the word would be considered a slur on the social media platform. Musk on Tuesday announced the words “cis” or “cisgender” are considered slurs after a Twitter user complained that he had been trolled by users for asking not to be referred to as such. A person who describes themselves as “cisgender” mans that they identify with the sex they were assigned at birth. According to The Huffington Post, Dana Defosse used the word in a 1994 post on an internet forum. When the Oxford English Dictionary added the term in 2015, it credited Defosse, however according to Perspectives on History, the magazine of the American Historical Association, the origin dates back even further, as early as 1914 in German sexological literature. Defosse however noted that she was not surprised by Musk's comments given his “ghastly history of attacking trans people.” “The post on Twitter has degenerated into a sort of free-for-all for antisemitic and racist tropes, so it sort of fits in with the direction that platform is going,” Defosse said, adding: “The fact is, whether or not somebody identifies as cisgender doesn’t negate the fact that cisgender identity is a valid construct. It exists, and it has meaning in how we operate in the world. Banning use of a word that’s part of our daily vocabulary around the world, that appears in the Oxford English Dictionary, it’s a cowardly and futile attempt to censor an idea which is, in my opinion, way bigger and more enduring than anything Musk could hope to offer.”